The Water Supply in California and in Ancient Rome

California is facing one of the most severe droughts ever. That is no longer news to those of us who live in California. We have been asked to reduce our water consumption. We can no longer waste water hosing down our driveways. If we have a lawn we can only water it twice a week for no more than 5 minutes on one of our two assigned days. Many residents now have brown lawns or have gone from nice green turf to drought-resistant landscaping.

Our water rates have also increased, and we have been notified of more rate increases for the next five fiscal years, that is, through 2020. But will the rate increases fix the problem? 

As a historian of ancient Rome, whenever I read about our water issues I am reminded of aqueducts. By the early second century AD, the city of Rome had 10 aqueducts, and other large cities had one or more. They brought water from distant sources and supplied public baths, latrines, fountains, and the households of a lucky few.

Some aqueducts had terracotta pipes, but most had lead pipes. And it is interesting to see that for over 100 years many writers have been blaming the “fall” of the Roman Empire of the West on lead poisoning caused by drinking aqueduct water.

It is true that lead has deleterious effects on the health of humans (and animals). Depending on the amount of lead present in the body, they range from colic, anemia, and gout, to brain and kidney damage, neurological damage, depressed sperm count in men, and an increased risk of preterm delivery in women.

The Romans were well aware of the damaging effects of exposure to or ingestion of lead. The writers Vitruvius and Columella said that it was best to use terracotta pipes in the aqueducts, not leaden ones. And one should avoid drinking water found near lead mines. 

But despite the fact that lead pipes were still widely used, mainly due to their relatively low cost, according to archaeologists from the Universities of Lyon in France and Southampton in the U.K., who recently analyzed the sediment from various rivers and harbors in parts of the former Roman Empire, the high levels of lead they found would not have been harmful to those who drank the water.

So it is unlikely that lead poisoning caused the “fall” of Rome. What caused it, then? There are quite a few theories regarding that topic, and I explore more than 20 of them in my book The Fall of Rome: Lead Poisoning and other Myths.