Aqueducts: The Solution to Rome's Water Troubles
Aqueducts: The Solution to Rome's Water Troubles
Aqua Anio Vetus, the first raised aqueduct built in Rome, started out supplying the many people living in the hills with water in 273 BC, although they had relied on natural springs up till then. If inhabitants living at higher elevations did not have accessibility to springs or the aqueduct, they’d have to depend on the other existing solutions of the time, cisterns that compiled rainwater from the sky and subterranean wells that received the water from below ground. Starting in the sixteenth century, a unique program was introduced, using Acqua Vergine’s subterranean portions to generate water to Pincian Hill. As originally constructed, the aqueduct was provided along the length of its channel with pozzi (manholes) constructed at regular intervals. Although they were initially designed to make it possible to service the aqueduct, Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi began using the manholes to accumulate water from the channel, starting when he acquired the property in 1543. Apparently, the rainwater cistern on his property wasn’t good enough to satisfy his needs. Through an orifice to the aqueduct that flowed underneath his property, he was in a position to satisfy his water demands.
Statuary As a Staple of Classic Art in Archaic Greece
Statuary As a Staple of Classic Art in Archaic Greece Up until the Archaic Greeks introduced the first freestanding sculpture, a remarkable triumph, carvings had mostly been done in walls and pillars as reliefs. Most of these freestanding sculptures were what is known as kouros figures, statues of young, attractive male or female (kore) Greeks. The kouroi, considered by the Greeks to portray beauty, had one foot extended out of a strict forward-facing pose and the male figurines were regularly undressed, with a strong, sturdy shape.
In about 650 BC, the variations of the kouroi became life-sized. The Archaic period was turbulent for the Greeks as they progressed into more sophisticated forms of government and art, and gained more data about the peoples and cultures outside of Greece. Throughout this time and other times of historical tumult, encounters often took place, most notably battles fought amongst city-states such as the Arcadian wars and the Spartan infiltration of Samos.