Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome (Ancient Society and History)

362 Pages·2007·2.75 MB·English

by  Gregory S. Aldrete

Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome
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Ancient Society and History
Floods of the Tiber
G R E G O R Y S. A L D R E T E
in Ancient Rome
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2006 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2006
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aldrete, Gregory S.
Floods of the Tiber in ancient Rome /Gregory S. Aldrete.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8018-8405-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Floods—Italy—Rome—History. 2. Floods—Italy—Tiber River—
History. 3. Rome (Italy)—History—To 476. 4. Tiber River (Italy)—
History. I. Title
DG69.A43 2006
937(cid:1).6—dc22 2006004140
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
To Alicia
Amid all the causes of the destruction of human
property, it seems to me that rivers on account of their
excessive and violent inundations hold the foremost
place.... against the irreparable inundation caused by
swollen and proud rivers no resource of human
foresight can avail; for in a succession of raging and
seething waves, gnawing and tearing away the high
banks, growing turbid with the earth from the ploughed
fields, destroying the houses therein and uprooting the
tall trees, it carries these as its prey down to the sea
which is its lair, bearing along with it men, trees,
animals, houses, and lands, sweeping away every dike
and every kind of barrier, bearing with it the light
things, and devastating and destroying those of weight,
creating big landslips out of small fissures, filling up
with its floods the low valleys, and rushing headlong
with insistent and inexorable mass of waters.
What a need there is of flight for whoso is near!
O how many cities, how many lands, castles,
villas and houses has it consumed!
Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,
ed. and trans. Edward MacCurdy, 652
Contents
List of Figures and Tables xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction: Floods and History 1
One
Floods in Ancient Rome: Sources and Topography 10
Floods and the Foundation of Rome 10
Primary Source Descriptions of Floods in Ancient Rome 13
Geographic Extent of Floods Based on Primary Sources 33
The Topography of Rome and Floods 39
Maps of Hypothetical Floods of Different Magnitudes 45
Two
Characteristics of Floods 51
Flood Types and Basic Hydrology 51
Hydrology of the Tiber and the Tiber Drainage Basin 54
Duration of Floods at Rome 61
Seasonality of Floods at Rome 66
Frequency of Floods at Rome 71
Magnitude of Floods at Rome 81
Conclusion 89
ix