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Nicomedia Aqueduct
About
Nicomedia burned through more than 5 million sesterces on two separate aqueduct schemes, both abandoned half-built, before Pliny arrived as governor. He reported the waste to Trajan around 112 CE and asked Rome for a qualified engineer to find who was responsible. A two-story arcaded aqueduct still stands north of İzmit at Üçtepeler, traditionally linked to the working system finally completed under Pliny's own supervision. Byzantine and Ottoman repairs show it stayed in use for centuries.
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.
In ancient writing
- Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 10.37
Reports that Nicomedia had wasted 3,329,000 sesterces on one abandoned aqueduct and 2,000,000 more on a second, and asks for an engineer from Rome.
- Trajan, Epistulae (replies) 10.38
Orders an inquiry into who was responsible for wasting so much money on the Nicomedia aqueducts.
Sources
Nearby
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