HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING, POWER AND KNOWLEDGE IN ROME

How water built the city and the knowledge that governs it

In 97 AD Frontinus, curator of the aqueducts of Rome, wrote the first treatise on hydraulic engineering in Western history. It was not a work of pure science: it was above all a political act. Frontinus was scandalized by the frauds committed by users who enlarged the cross-section of pipes to receive more water than their entitlement, and called for more precise measurements, stricter controls, clearer accountability. The measurement of water, Frontinus understood, is always also a question of justice. This itinerary traces in six stops the places where Rome learned — and continuously relearned — to measure, distribute and govern water. From the Baths of Diocletian to the Trevi Fountain, from the Mostra dell'Acqua Felice to the Parco degli Acquedotti: a route showing how hydraulic knowledge has always been, at once, technique and power.