Aqueducts and Urbanism in Post-Roman Hispania

336 Pages·2019·108.751 MB·English

by  Javier Martínez Jiménez

Aqueducts and Urbanism in
Post-Roman Hispania
Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity
26
Series Editorial Board
Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis Irene Schneider
Rebekka Nieten Manolis Ulbricht
Adrian Pirtea
Advisory Editorial Board
Stefan Esders Nicola Denzey Lewis
Thomas Figueira AnneMarie Luijendijk
Christian Freigang Roberta Mazza
David Hernandez de la Fuente Arietta Papaconstantinou
Markham J. Geller Meron-Martin Piotrkowski
Susan Ashbrook Harvey Shabo Talay
This series contains monographs and edited volumes on the
Greco-Roman world and its transition into Late Antiquity,
encompassing political and social structures, knowledge and
educational ideals, art, architecture and literature.
Aqueducts and Urbanism in
Post-Roman Hispania
Javier Martínez Jiménez
gp
2019
Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
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2019 ܒܝ 1
ISBN 978-1-4632-3915-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available
from the Library of Congress.
Printed in the United States of America
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ............................................................................... ix
Preliminary notes ................................................................................. xi
Glossary ....................................................................................... xi
Introduction .......................................................................................... 1
Chronological and geographical setting ....................................... 3
Water and cities in the Roman world ......................................... 7
The first water supply systems............................................... 7
Aqueducts .............................................................................. 9
The uses of water and the why of aqueducts ....................... 10
The transformations of late antiquity ....................................... 12
Methodology ........................................................................................ 15
Written sources and earlier research ............................................ 15
Direct information...................................................................... 19
Relative chronology ............................................................. 20
Scientific dating ..................................................................... 23
Indirect information and comparanda ..................................... 24
Water consuming structures ................................................ 24
Drains, sewers and latrines ....................................................27
Cisterns .................................................................................. 28
Late Roman water legislation ...............................................29
Comparanda .......................................................................... 31
Urban water supply: aqueducts and more beyond the Roman
period........................................................................................... 35
Quantifying aqueducts in the post-Roman period................... 35
Aqueducts dated to 400 CE .................................................. 36
Aqueducts continuing into the post-Roman period .......... 39
v
vi AQUEDUCTS AND URBANISM IN POST-ROMAN HISPANIA
Why did aqueducts cease to function? ...................................... 45
Maintenance costs and expenses ........................................... 45
Vis maior and unavoidable damage .................................... 48
Specialised workmen (or the lack thereof) ........................... 50
Late antique alternatives ............................................................. 56
Ground water: Springs and wells ......................................... 56
Rainwater cisterns ................................................................. 61
Aqueducts, infrastructure and urbanism .......................................... 67
The persistence of a public water supply .................................. 67
Private consumption and domestic architecture ....................... 73
Settlement reorganisation .......................................................... 74
Clustering settlements around aqueducts ............................ 75
Spreading for new sources ................................................... 79
Transformations of the hydraulic infrastructure ..................... 84
Baths and cisterns .................................................................. 85
Secondary use of conduits ................................................... 87
The end of aqueducts: the end of Classical urbanism? ............ 88
The emergence of new urban patterns ................................ 88
Were aqueducts necessary in the end? ..................................92
Aqueducts and their socio-political importance in Late Antiquity .. 95
Aqueducts and the urban elites .................................................. 95
An elite water supply system? .............................................. 96
Civic duties ........................................................................... 98
Social and cultural redefinitions? ........................................ 101
The relevance of aqueducts for the Visigothic monarchy ....... 103
Germanic monarchies and public works ............................ 103
Restoration of public works ............................................... 105
The aqueduct of Reccopolis ................................................. 107
Water euergetism? ............................................................... 108
The Church and urban water supply systems ......................... 109
The new urban leaders ......................................................... 110
Baths and bishops ................................................................. 112
The Umayyad state and the Roman aqueducts ....................... 113
The new legal status of the old water supply ...................... 113
Looking back, looking East: Syria and al-Andalus ............. 118
Umayyad urbanism and water supply systems up to
the end of the Caliphate .............................................. 121
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
An aqueduct-less society ..................................................... 127
Conclusions ....................................................................................... 129
A surprising degree of continuity? ........................................... 129
The long shadow of the past .................................................... 130
The decline and fall of urban aqueducts ................................... 132
Further afield? ............................................................................ 133
Catalogue: functioning aqueducts in the late antique Iberian
Peninsula ................................................................................... 137
Almuñécar ................................................................................. 137
The remains and course of the aqueduct ........................... 137
Chronology and dating evidence ........................................ 140
Barcelona .................................................................................... 141
The increasing political importance of late antique
Barcino ......................................................................... 141
The aqueduct ...................................................................... 144
Discussion ............................................................................. 152
Braga ........................................................................................... 153
The aqueduct ...................................................................... 154
The dating evidence ............................................................. 155
Conimbriga ............................................................................... 156
The aqueduct .......................................................................159
Córdoba ...................................................................................... 161
The early Roman aqueducts ............................................... 163
Late antique water conduits ............................................... 168
Discussion .............................................................................175
Lisbon ........................................................................................ 176
Late antique Lisbon ............................................................ 176
The aqueduct and its chronology ....................................... 179
Lugo ........................................................................................... 181
The aqueduct of Lugo ........................................................ 182
The chronology .................................................................... 185
Mérida ....................................................................................... 186
The water supply ................................................................. 188
Dating evidence ................................................................... 194
Discussion ........................................................................... 202
Reccopolis ................................................................................... 203
The city of Reccopolis.......................................................... 204
viii AQUEDUCTS AND URBANISM IN POST-ROMAN HISPANIA
The aqueduct ..................................................................... 206
Chronology and dating evidence ....................................... 208
Segovia ....................................................................................... 210
The aqueduct ....................................................................... 211
Discussion ............................................................................. 215
Seville .......................................................................................... 215
The aqueduct ...................................................................... 216
An uncertain chronology .................................................... 218
Tarragona .................................................................................. 222
The multiple water supply systems .................................... 223
The chronology of the water supply ................................... 231
The Islamic period .............................................................. 234
Discussion ............................................................................ 235
Valencia ..................................................................................... 236
The aqueduct ...................................................................... 239
Chronology and dating evidence ........................................ 243
Islamic repairs or evidence for Gothic continuity? ........... 249
Zaragoza ................................................................................... 249
The little known aqueduct ................................................. 250
Dating evidence .................................................................... 251
Appendix: Aqueducts and urbanism in post-Roman Tingitania .. 253
The aqueducts ........................................................................... 254
Ceuta .................................................................................... 256
Late antique urban patterns and water supply ........................ 261
State formation and water supply ............................................ 262
Conclusions ............................................................................... 265
Bibliography ..................................................................................... 267
Abbreviations and primary sources ........................................ 267
References ................................................................................ 270
General Index ..................................................................................... 315
Index of Inscriptions .......................................................................... 321
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Arduum videtur res gestas scribere,
Gregory of Tours, DLH, VII.1

This publication written in The Other Place is the updated, im-
proved, extended, and yet more concise version of the thesis I de-
fended in 2014 at Oxford. It had in its original acknowledgement
section two whole pages: I feel now that an updated, improved, and
more concise version would be more fitting.
First and foremost, I have to thank my supervisor, Bryan Ward-
Perkins, who has been a constant support and has suffered many
early versions of this text. I am still very surprised that he decided to
read through all those paragraphs of rather ‘inventive’ English with-
out sending them back. The great interest he has always shown for
my work certainly kept me going chapter after chapter. Similarly,
Lukas Schachner, who co-supervised this thesis in its early stages, was
always very supportive. Added to them, my two examiners, Chris
Wickham and Jim Crow, are also responsible for the final publica-
tion of this thesis. Their comments and suggestions have proved es-
sential in giving the book its final form. Alongside these thanks, I
should add an apology, for this manuscript was only completed and
handed four years after the thesis was defended, although the muddy
circumstances in which I was may excuse this delay.
Most of my research was carried out in Oxford, where I had the
opportunity to discuss my research (and have it amended and cor-
rected) by experts in the subject, both resident Oxonians and visiting
academics. Special praise deserve Elena Sánchez, Isaac Sastre, Patricia
González and Carlos Tejerizo, with whom I have embarked in many
ix