Definition of Civil Engineering – Samuel C. Florman

• “Civil engineers design and construct buildings, dams, and bridges; towers, docks and tunnels – structures of all sorts. Civil Engineering also encompasses highways, railroads, and airports, along with water supply and sewage disposal. In short, civil engineering is basic and of the earth, historically – along with mining – the root of all engineering.”

     Slaves tend the hair of their mistress

The Roman era was an age of inexpensive and

abundant materials:

• Timber

• Stone

• Concrete

And of simple structural forms:

• Walls

• Beams

• Columns

• arches

Pozzolana from Bacoli in the Bay of Naples

Concrete Bath at Caesarea

Civil Engineering Bureaucracy in Ancient Rome

• Architectus – Master Builder

• Agrimensors – land suveyors

• Librators -- levelers

• Mensors -- quantity measurers

• Aquelegus– aqueduct inspectors

• Viarum curator – superintendent of roads

Five Types of Roman Roads:

• Via – 14 ft. wide

• Actus – 7 ft. wide

• Iter – 5 ft. wide

• Senita – 2.5 ft. wide

• Callais – mountain road

Roman Bridges

• Borrowed Concept of the arch from the Etruscans

• Used the form to replace wooden structures

• Works were aesthetically balanced and stable

• Heavy piers• Foundations that could withstand river

currents – use of iron-tipped piles

Urban Water Supplies

• First of 11 aqueducts supplying water to Rome constructed by 300 BC

• 144 BC aqueduct “Marcia,” a high-level supply 58 miles long and 195 feet above the Tiber

• Use of water treatment techniques, especially use of lime as a coagulant

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio – On Architecture (15 AD)

• A architectus (master builder) should be broadly educated:– History– Law– Medicine– Philosophy– Astronomy

• “let the architectus not be grasping or have his mind occupied with the idea of receiving requisites, but let him with dignity keep his position by cherishing a good reputation. No work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptibility.”

The Groma

Julius Frontinius – On Water – 199 AD

• Frontinius was the commissioner of Rome from 97-104 AD

• The Romans built over 200 city water supplies

Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) – 5 Attributes marked Rome at its end:

• A mounting love of show and luxury

• A widening gap between the rich and the poor

• An obsession with sex

• Freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality

• An increased desire to live of the state