Million Gallon Water Basin found in Rome

[Onasander]

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/giant-ancient-roman-water-basin-uncovered-141204.htm

 

So, it was a farm on the outskirts of the then city of Rome? I don't know the metro lines in relation to classical geography.

[caldrail]

Interesting. There's been some other revelations concerning Roman hydro-engineering and clearly there was more water management than traditionally thought. Channels have been found that provide evidence for flooding and draining the older sunken basin of the Colosseum (later filled in with cells and such to form the hypogeum under the arena), and from satellite data, a canal linking Rome to the sea, parallel to the river Tiber.

[GhostOfClayton]

It's the sort of Engineering that can be achieved on a grand scale with the necessary labour, and can be quite low tech.  I'd bet there's plenty more sizeable installations out there left to find.

[Onasander]

Wait, a canal parallel?

 

Why would someone do that?

 

Tiber isn't that long.

 

I know here in West Virginia, during the colonial and 19th Century, many creeks had mule trails parallel to them, they were used for pulling boats up creek.

 

It's the only reason I would personally tolerate something as silly as a parallel canal if emperor, to ensure fast and profitable transport of grain or other goods to the city in large quantities.

 

But still, even then, from the sea, it's a single days walk.

 

Where exactly (what port) does this canal let off into? Are there granaries at it's opening?

Edited January 26, 2015 by Onasander

[GhostOfClayton]

It was covered very well on a documentary called Rome's Lost Empire (see http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/11550-coming-up-next/?p=122617).

 

I can't find it on Youtube or any of the usual sources.  You may have something over that side of the pond.

[caldrail]

Wait, a canal parallel?

 

Why would someone do that?

To assist cargo barges and small vessels from having to move against the Tiber's current, and with a straighter path, to ease the difficulty further.

[Onasander]

That's what I assumed, but other questions arise.

 

Rome was still up-water, canal or not. Who provided the muscle? Was it mules parallel, or slaves? If slaves, was there slave quarters at either end of the canal? Were the slaves owned privately or by the state, and if by the state, did they get rented out for pulling private goods when not pulling grain or Slim Jims?

 

If they were indeed rented out, was the grain delivery on a consistent cycle from the grain silos, to the point a port office could calculate in advance when the next empty barge to rent would be?

 

If so, how would it be known? Was it like the auction house on Oahu, which combined commercial and transportation deals between the main island and outer islands?

 

Like a Shogo Sosha? Or more like a Marxist central planner willing full of charts and statistics and willing to earn some external cash with it's potential untapped labor on the side?

 

Or was it strictly for government goods?

 

Was it still functioning in Boethius time?

[caldrail]

The canal was presumably easier to navigate than the Tiber or there wouldn't have been any point, and it allowed a convenient one-way system to supply Rome. As to motive power, I confess I don't know. The canal was intended to facilitate supply of Rome from Portus, where sea going vessels were unloaded, to traders and warehouses in Rome, and I imagine wheat would have been important traffic. Goods heading out of Rome headed back to Portus for export along the Tiber. Evidence from other parts of the empire suggests to me that incoming goods were subject to speculation and sellong on, with some extorionate mark-ups if the middle men could get away with it.

[Onasander]

I know the romans built whole ports in a hurry across the empire.

 

Were these ports built with imperial funds, or these "speculators" as joint investors?

 

Did periplus' evolve independent of the imperial system, or did these speculators who owned warehouses and ships intentionally publish and advertise such routes as they and their allies control them? Or does the empire alone publish them?

 

I'm asking a scenario such as, your a statue liquidator of sorts in Spain, you have several sculptors under you, and you already hit max saturation in Spain in terms of a buyers market.

 

It's obvious you have to expand to new markets.

 

So you.... walk down to the port.... and do you offer to sell your statues to a ship captain? "Please buy this and sell it elsewhere please?"

 

Is there a trading or auction house? Is a tax collector based in it? Do they have porters? Is it a monopoly, or is there competition? Is it purely a government affair?

 

What is in Spain, you have a desire to sell in Alexandria, or Constantinople.... purely for vanity reasons. How do you arrange this?

 

If the periplus was government backed, preferred (and easily taxed) ports of call controlled by a cartel, then it be easy, you'll just be given a table calculating route and costs associated with it, and it would bounce around depot to depot, till arrival.

 

Or, the traders... like the sogo shosha, cpuld just mass buy all goods at port via a quality grading process, and decide where everything goes.

 

It would under that scenario (the canal) to of been built by the traders eager for a simpler and more efficient way to get goods in fast.

[caldrail]

 

 

Is there a trading or auction house? Is a tax collector based in it? Do they have porters? Is it a monopoly, or is there competition? Is it purely a government affair?

Rome worked on two levels, open commerce in which you simply bid a better price than your competitors (and hoped you weren't being ripped off) or deals under the table. Commercial agreements sometimes got arranged via the client/patron system, though the patron was not supposed to muddy his hands with grubby business, so normally his agent, freedman, or slave handled that. At Ostia there were specialist traders whose wares were advertised by images on the pavement.

 

Regarding exports/imports, for the most part traders would be working to a plan, either obtaining goods where they knew they were plentiful and could get a good deal, or selling them on to where-ever they knew a market and demand for those goods existed. OFten this was done via business contacts rather than simply going it alone. I imagine some captains speculated themselves with cargoes, or simply charged a price for transport, as required. We know that vessels headed to India and back annually with the trade winds so such speculation was profitable.

[Onasander]

Better add a third level to that Caldrail:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frumentarii

 

I knew there was something inherently wobbly about this.... how you allocate and select who wins and loses in such a confined system of expedited trade. The emperors had a monopoly on the distribution of grain.

 

I knew they would get their hands around this as soon as I heard it, just didn't know.

 

This institution, this canal, was the hub of the emperors spy network. It's evolution is what intrigues me now, it grew directly out of the grain collectors.

 

They would be in a place to make or break merchants. Control ultimately the aristocracy.

 

Its why I brought up Boethius, his family controlled, at least on paper, the grain supplybforvthe ostrogoths.... I figured they wouldn't be nearlybas savvy in maintaining the system as the Romans did at it's height.

 

This canal has taught me more about Rome than every history book I've ever read put together.