Aqueduct of Butrint
About
Augustus's colonists built this 4-kilometer aqueduct to carry spring water from near modern Xarre across the Vrina plain on an arcade and over the Vivari Channel into the city. It ran continuously for over four centuries, finally failing in the late 4th or early 5th century CE. By 117 CE it had already been feeding Butrint's new bathhouse and fountains for close to a century and a half.
What happened here
Water arrives day and night and never stops. The channel runs mostly underground, following a shallow gradient measured out with a levelling instrument over tens of miles, and it goes up on arches only where the ground drops away. Inspection shafts sit at intervals; gangs work the line constantly, cutting out the lime crust that thickens on the walls and narrows the flow. At the town end the water is divided in a distribution tank — public fountains first by law, then baths, then private houses whose owners have paid for a pipe of a fixed and stamped size. Illegal tappings are a permanent scandal. What arrives is not stored but runs continuously, and the overflow flushes the drains.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →