In the capital of Ancient Romeflooding represented a constant threat due to the city’s strategic location, where several rivers converged. It is true that this situation had significant advantages, such as facilitating trade, promoting industrial development and controlling economic routes. However, he also did vulnerable to natural disasters (floods, fires and earthquakes).
Our objective is not to analyze each of the floods that occurred and their effects, but rather to provide a general overview of How the Romans handled these types of catastrophic events and what was done to mitigate the effects.
Although the Romans had advanced knowledge of hydrology and construction, they were not particularly noted for adopting preventative measures. Initially, this was due to religious belief that floods were divine responses. However, Emperor Augustus (63 BC-14) and Tiberius (42 BC-37) began to move away from these traditional views, choosing to propose technical and practical solutions that would serve to protect the city in the face of a problem water management. .
Auguste sets the tone
To prevent the effects of flooding, Emperor Augustus widened, cleaned, and channeled the Tiber Canal, which had filled with debris over time and narrowed. One reason was that when there were landslides in the city, the remains were often left in the streets or thrown into rivers. It was said that The Tiber was a Roman “dump”since not only rubble was thrown away, but also organic remains, corpses of animals and people, remains of meat industries, canned goods or skins, etc.
As work was carried out on the banks, it was also necessary demarcate the banks and prohibit construction in them. Likewise, Augustus ordered the height of buildings to be limited to a maximum of 21 meters to avoid spontaneous collapses or those caused by flooding. Likewise, it established sanctions for those who carried out activities that harmed flood management, such as the destruction of river retention dams or the felling of trees located on the banks, condemning the perpetrators to forced labor or to the mines.
For his part, Tiberius proposed the creation of a commission responsible for monitoring and controlling the river bed and protecting the city. This proposal included three interventions: divert the river, carry out channeling works and obstruct Lake Velino. At the time, the Senate rejected it on religious grounds.
Other emperors, such as Claudius (10 BC-54) and Trajan (53-117), continued the initiatives by proposing the construction of ports, canals, aqueducts and sewers. The latter were precisely very relevant because they favored the extraction of accumulated water, the channeling of rainwater and the drainage of marshy lands around the city.
Look at the river
Among all the measures adopted, it is worth highlighting the creation of a commissioninherited from the proposal of Tiberius and composed of five members of senatorial rank, responsible for the supervision and monitoring of the Tiber. To carry out their functions, they benefited from the support of technical personnel and the collaboration and cooperation of public officials and specialized professionals with whom they concluded service provision contracts.
Epigraphic, archaeological, literary and historical sources bear witness to the activities entrusted to the river guardians. Thus, they monitored and controlled it and were responsible for demarcating the banks, prohibiting the owners of the riverside estates from carrying out work, construction or any action likely to hinder access to the river, navigability, use or its obstruction. In these cases, officials could order demolitions with the interposition of corresponding prohibitions, as described by the Roman jurist Ulpiano.
They also sought to protect people carrying out cleanup work from disruption by third parties and resolved disputes over river boundaries. They also assumed the constant maintenance and cleaning of the canals and banks, whether due to the accumulation of sediments, the conscious abandonment of waste or the spontaneous growth of vegetation, with the aim of promote public use and transit of ships.
They carried out all these interventions using their own staff, using slaves and convicts or hiring professionals like the urinators. These were responsible for periodically removing and extracting the accumulation of waste in ports originating from commercial, domestic or construction activity, as well as sediment, debris and waste deposited on the banks or in the canals in due to flooding of rivers or sewers. To do this, they used wooden wheels on which a sort of shovel was attached. clean the bottom of the port.
As those responsible for water surveillance and safety, river conservators assumed the duty to ensure the operation, maintenance and conservation of the sewers. To do this, they also cleaned and maintained the private sewers which were connected to the public sewerage network.
Yesterday and today
Without falling into presentism, we can observe that the Romans faced the problem of flooding with an approach combining corrective measures, urban planning regulations and technical advancesrecognizing their vulnerability to flooding.
Even if their response was not systematic or completely preventive, the measures they implemented show a technical and strategic understanding of river risks. Their actions were aimed not only at mitigating the immediate effects, but also at mitigating their consequences on the functioning of the city.
Currently, flood management has become a priority issue with more global and preventive objectives. European legal frameworks reflect a commitment to proactively protect human life, the environment and urban infrastructure, promoting adaptation to climate change and social resilience.
Although today’s approach is broader and aims to prevent disasters rather than simply mitigate them, the measures implemented in ancient Rome were a precedent in developing flood control strategies.
To avoid disasters like those that have occurred in the Spanish Levant in recent days, hydrographic confederations should take actions beyond the conservation of canals. That is to say, investing in protective infrastructure and carrying out better cleaning of canals, ravines and sewers, among others.
Tewise Yurena Ortega González is assistant professor of Roman law at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. José Luis Zamora Manzano is professor of Roman law at ULPGC. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
