Ten Books on Architecture
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4. Of course there can be no springs above the vaultings of hot
bathrooms, but the atmosphere in such rooms, becoming well warmed by the
hot air from the furnaces, seizes upon the water on the floors, and
takes it up to the curved vaultings and holds it up there, for the
reason that hot vapour always pushes upwards. At first it does not let
the moisture go, for the quantity is small; but as soon as it has
collected a considerable amount, it cannot hold it up, on account of the
weight, but sprinkles it upon the heads of the bathers. In the same way,
when the atmospheric air feels the heat of the sun, it draws the
moisture from all about, causes it to rise, and gathers it into clouds.
For the earth gives out moisture under the influence of heat just as a
man's heated body emits sweat.
5. The winds are witnesses to this fact. Those that are produced and
come from the coolest directions, the north and northeast winds, blow in
blasts that are rarefied by the great dryness in the atmosphere, but the
south wind and the others that assail us from the direction of the sun's
course are very damp, and always bring rain, because they reach us from
warm regions after being well heated there, and licking up and carrying
off the moisture from the whole country, they pour it out on the regions
in the north.
6. That this is the state of the case may be proved by the sources of
rivers, the majority and the longest of which, as drawn and described in
geographies of the world, are found to rise in the north. First in
India, the Ganges and Indus spring from the Caucasus; in Syria, the
Tigris and Euphrates; in Pontus in Asia, the Dnieper, Bug, and Don; in
Colchis, the Phasis; in Gaul, the Rhone; in Celtica, the Rhine; on this
side of the Alps, the Timavo and Po; in Italy, the Tiber; in Maurusia,
which we call Mauretania, the Dyris, rising in the Atlas range and
running westerly to Lake Heptagonus, where it changes its name and is
called Agger; then from Lake Heptabolus it runs at the base of barren
mountains, flowing southerly and emptying into the marsh called[10]...
It surrounds Meroe, which is a kingdom in southern Ethiopia, and from
the marsh grounds there, winding round by the rivers Astansoba and
Astoboa and a great many others, it passes through the mountains to the
Cataract, and from there it dashes down, and passes to the north between
Elephantis and Syene and the plains of Thebes into Egypt, where it is
called the Nile.
[Note 10: Here something is lost, as also in chapter III, sections 5
and 6.]
7. That the source of the Nile is in Mauretania is known principally
from the fact that there are other springs on the other side of the
Atlas range flowing into the ocean to the west, and that ichneumons,
crocodiles, and other animals and fishes of like nature are found
there, although there are no hippopotamuses.
8. Therefore, since in descriptions of the world it appears that all
rivers of any size flow from the north, and since in the plains of
Africa, which are exposed to the course of the sun in the south, the
moisture is deeply hidden, springs not common, and rivers rare, it
follows that the sources of springs which lie to the north or northeast
are much better, unless they hit upon a place which is full of sulphur,
alum, or asphalt. In this case they are completely changed, and flow in
springs which have a bad smell and taste, whether the water is hot or
cold.
9. The fact is, heat is not at all a property of water, but when a
stream of cold water happens upon a hot place, it boils up, and issues
through the fissures and out of the ground in a state of heat. This
cannot last very long, but in a short time the water becomes cold. If it
were naturally hot, it would not cool off and lose its heat. Its taste,
however, and its smell and colour are not restored, because it has
become saturated and compounded with these qualities on account of the
rarity of its nature.
CHAPTER III
VARIOUS PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT WATERS
1. There are, however, some hot springs that supply water of the best
taste, which is so delightful to drink that one does not think with
regret of the Fountain of the Muses or the Marcian aqueduct. These hot
springs are produced naturally, in the following manner. When fire is
kindled down beneath in alum or asphalt or sulphur, it makes the earth
immediately over it very hot, and emits a glowing heat to the parts
still farther above it, so that if there are any springs of sweet water
found in the upper strata, they begin to boil in their fissures when
they are met by this heat, and so they run out with their taste
unimpaired.
2. And there are some cold springs that have a bad smell and taste.
They rise deep down in the lower strata, cross places which are on fire,
and then are cooled by running a long distance through the earth, coming
out above ground with their taste, smell, and colour spoiled; as, for
instance, the river Albula on the road to Tivoli and the cold springs of
Ardea, which have the same smell and are called sulphur springs, and
others in similar places. Although they are cold, yet at first sight
they seem to be hot for the reason that when they happen upon a burning
spot deep down below, the liquid and the fire meet, and with a great
noise at the collision they take in strong currents of air, and thus,
swollen by a quantity of compressed wind, they come out at the springs
in a constant state of ebullition. When such springs are not open but
confined by rocks, the force of the air in them drives them up through
the narrow fissures to the summits of hills.
3. Consequently those who think that they have excavated sources of
springs at the height of such hills find themselves mistaken when they
open up their excavations. Suppose a bronze vase filled not to the very
lips, but containing two thirds of the quantity of water which forms its
capacity, and with a cover placed upon it. When it is subjected to a
very hot fire, the water must become thoroughly heated, and from the
rarity of its nature it greatly expands by taking in the heat, so that
it not only fills the vase but raises its cover by means of the currents
of air in it, and swells and runs over. But if you take the cover off,
the expanding forces are released into the open air, and the water
settles down again to its proper level. So it is with the sources of
springs. As long as they are confined in narrow channels, the currents
of air in the water rush up in bubbles to the top, but as soon as they
are given a wider outlet, they lose their air on account of the rarity
peculiar to water, and so settle down and resume their proper level.
4. Every hot spring has healing properties because it has been boiled
with foreign substances, and thus acquires a new useful quality. For
example, sulphur springs cure pains in the sinews, by warming up and
burning out the corrupt humours of the body by their heat. Aluminous
springs, used in the treatment of the limbs when enfeebled by paralysis
or the stroke of any such malady, introduce warmth through the open
pores, counter-acting the chill by the opposite effect of their heat,
and thus equably restoring the limbs to their former condition.
Asphaltic springs, taken as purges, cure internal maladies.
5. There is also a kind of cold water containing natron, found for
instance at Penne in the Vestine country, at Cutiliae, and at other
similar places. It is taken as a purge and in passing through the bowels
reduces scrofulous tumours. Copious springs are found where there are
mines of gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, and the like, but they are
very harmful. For they contain, like hot springs, sulphur, alum,
asphalt,... and when it passes into the body in the form of drink, and
spreading through the veins reaches the sinews and joints, it expands
and hardens them. Hence the sinews, swelling with this expansion, are
contracted in length and so give men the cramp or the gout, for the
reason that their veins are saturated with very hard, dense, and cold
substances.
6. There is also a sort of water which, since it contains... that are
not perfectly clear, and it floats like a flower on the surface, in
colour like purple glass. This may be seen particularly in Athens, where
there are aqueducts from places and springs of that sort leading to the
city and the port of Piraeus, from which nobody drinks, for the reason
mentioned, but they use them for bathing and so forth, and drink from
wells, thus avoiding their unwholesomeness. At Troezen it cannot be
avoided, because no other kind of water at all is found, except what the
Cibdeli furnish, and so in that city all or most of the people have
diseases of the feet. At the city of Tarsus in Cilicia is a river named
Cydnus, in which gouty people soak their legs and find relief from pain.
7. There are also many other kinds of water which have peculiar
properties; for example, the river Himera in Sicily, which, after
leaving its source, is divided into two branches. One flows in the
direction of Etruria and has an exceedingly sweet taste on account of a
sweet juice in the soil through which it runs; the other runs through a
country where there are salt pits, and so it has a salt taste. At
Paraetonium, and on the road to Ammon, and at Casius in Egypt there are
marshy lakes which are so salt that they have a crust of salt on the
surface. In many other places there are springs and rivers and lakes
which are necessarily rendered salt because they run through salt pits.
8. Others flow through such greasy veins of soil that they are
overspread with oil when they burst out as springs: for example, at
Soli, a town in Cilicia, the river named Liparis, in which swimmers or
bathers get anointed merely by the water. Likewise there is a lake in
Ethiopia which anoints people who swim in it, and one in India which
emits a great quantity of oil when the sky is clear. At Carthage is a
spring that has oil swimming on its surface and smelling like sawdust
from citrus wood, with which oil sheep are anointed. In Zacynthus and
about Dyrrachium and Apollonia are springs which discharge a great
quantity of pitch with their water. In Babylon, a lake of very great
extent, called Lake Asphaltitis, has liquid asphalt swimming on its
surface, with which asphalt and with burnt brick Semiramis built the
wall surrounding Babylon. At Jaffa in Syria and among the Nomads in
Arabia, are lakes of enormous size that yield very large masses of
asphalt, which are carried off by the inhabitants thereabouts.
9. There is nothing marvellous in this, for quarries of hard asphalt are
numerous there. So, when a quantity of water bursts its way through the
asphaltic soil, it carries asphalt out with it, and after passing out of
the ground, the water is separated and so rejects the asphalt from
itself. Again, in Cappadocia on the road from Mazaca to Tyana, there is
an extensive lake into which if a part of a reed or of some other thing
be plunged, and withdrawn the next day, it will be found that the part
thus withdrawn has turned into stone, while the part which remained
above water retains its original nature.
10. In the same way, at Hierapolis in Phrygia there is a multitude of
boiling hot springs from which water is let into ditches surrounding
gardens and vineyards, and this water becomes an incrustation of stone
at the end of a year. Hence, every year they construct banks of earth to
the right and left, let in the water, and thus out of these
incrustations make walls for their fields. This seems due to natural
causes, since there is a juice having a coagulating potency like rennet
underground in those spots and in that country. When this potency
appears above ground mingled with spring water, the mixture cannot but
be hardened by the heat of the sun and air, as appears in salt pits.
11. There are also springs which issue exceedingly bitter, owing to a
bitter juice in the soil, such as the river Hypanis in Pontus. For about
forty miles from its source its taste is very sweet; then it reaches a
point about one hundred and sixty miles from its mouth, where it is
joined by a very small brook. This runs into it, and at once makes that
vast river bitter, for the reason that the water of the brook becomes
bitter by flowing through the kind of soil and the veins in which there
are sandarach mines.
12. These waters are given their different flavours by the properties of
the soil, as is also seen in the case of fruits. If the roots of trees,
vines, or other plants did not produce their fruits by drawing juices
from soil of different properties, the flowers of all would be of the
same kind in all places and districts. But we find in the island of
Lesbos the protropum wine, in Maeonia, the catacecaumenites, in Lydia,
the Tmolian, in Sicily, the Mamertine, in Campania, the Falernian,
between Terracina and Fondi, the Caecuban, and wines of countless
varieties and qualities produced in many other places. This could not be
the case, were it not that the juice of the soil, introduced with its
proper flavours into the roots, feeds the stem, and, mounting along it
to the top, imparts a flavour to the fruit which is peculiar to its
situation and kind.
13. If soils were not different and unlike in their kinds of juices,
Syria and Arabia would not be the only places in which the reeds,
rushes, and all the plants are aromatic, and in which there are trees
bearing frankincense or yielding pepper berries and lumps of myrrh, nor
would assafoetida be found only in the stalks growing in Cyrene, but
everything would be of the same sort, and produced in the soil of all
countries. It is the inclination of the firmament and the force of the
sun, as it draws nearer or recedes in its course, that make these
diversities such as we find them in different countries and places,
through the nature of the soil and it's juices. And not only in the case
of the things mentioned, but also in that of sheep and cattle. These
diversities would not exist if the different properties of soils and
their juices were not qualified by the power of the sun.
14. For instance, there are in Boeotia the rivers Cephisus and Melas, in
Lucania, the Crathis, in Troy, the Xanthus, and certain springs in the
country of the Clazomenians, the Erythraeans, and the Laodiceans. When
sheep are ready for breeding at the proper season of the year, they are
driven every day during that season to those rivers to drink, and the
result is that, however white they may be, they beget in some places
whity-brown lambs, in other places gray, and in others black as a raven.
Thus, the peculiar character of the liquid, entering their body,
produces in each case the quality with which it is imbued. Hence, it is
said that the people of Ilium gave the river Xanthus its name because
reddish cattle and whity-brown sheep are found in the plains of Troy
near that river.
15. Deadly kinds of water are also found, which run through soil
containing a noxious juice, and take in its poisonous quality: for
instance, there is said to have been a spring at Terracina, called the
spring of Neptune, which caused the death of those who thoughtlessly
drank from it. In consequence, it is said that the ancients stopped it
up. At Chrobs in Thrace there is a lake which causes the death not only
of those who drink of it, but also of those who bathe in it. In Thessaly
there is a gushing fount of which sheep never taste, nor does any sort
of creature draw near to it, and close by this fount there is a tree
with crimson flowers.
16. In Macedonia, at the place where Euripides is buried, two streams
approach from the right and left of his tomb, and unite. By one of
these, travellers are in the habit of lying down and taking luncheon,
because its water is good; but nobody goes near the stream on the other
side of the tomb, because its water is said to be death-dealing. In
Arcadia there is a tract of land called Nonacris, which has extremely
cold water trickling from a rock in the mountains. This water is called
"Water of the Styx," and no vessel, whether of silver, bronze, or iron,
can stand it without flying to pieces and breaking up. Nothing but a
mule's hoof can keep it together and hold it, and tradition says that it
was thus conveyed by Antipater through his son Iollas into the province
where Alexander was staying, and that the king was killed by him with
this water.
17. Among the Alps in the kingdom of Cottius there is a water those who
taste of which immediately fall lifeless. In the Faliscan country on the
Via Campana in the Campus Cornetus is a grove in which rises a spring,
and there the bones of birds and of lizards and other reptiles are seen
lying.
Some springs are acid, as at Lyncestus and in Italy in the Velian
country, at Teano in Campania, and in many other places. These when used
as drinks have the power of breaking up stones in the bladder, which
form in the human body.
18. This seems to be due to natural causes, as there is a sharp and acid
juice contained in the soil there, which imparts a sharpness to these
springs as they issue from it; and so, on entering the body, they
disperse all the deposits and concretions, due to the use of other
waters, which they find in the body. Why such things are broken up by
acid waters we can see from the following experiments. If an egg is left
for some time in vinegar, its shell will soften and dissolve. Again, if
a piece of lead, which is very flexible and heavy, is put in a vase and
vinegar poured over it, and the vase covered and sealed up, the lead
will be dissolved and turn into white lead.
19. On the same principle, copper, which is naturally more solid, will
disperse and turn into verdigris if similarly treated. So, also, a
pearl. Even rocks of lava, which neither iron nor fire alone can
dissolve, split into pieces and dissolve when heated with fire and then
sprinkled with vinegar. Hence, since we see these things taking place
before our very eyes, we can infer that on the same principle even
patients with the stone may, in the nature of things, be cured in like
manner by means of acid waters, on account of the sharpness of the
potion.
20. Then there are springs in which wine seems to be mingled, like the
one in Paphlagonia, the water of which intoxicates those who drink of
the spring alone without wine. The Aequians in Italy and the tribe of
the Medulli in the Alps have a kind of water which causes swellings in
the throats of those who drink it.
21. In Arcadia is the well-known town of Clitor, in whose territory is a
cave with running water which makes people who drink of it abstemious.
At this spring, there is an epigram in Greek verses inscribed on stone
to the effect that the water is unsuitable for bathing, and also
injurious to vines, because it was at this spring that Melampus cleansed
the daughters of Proetus of their madness by sacrificial rites, and
restored those maidens to their former sound state of mind. The
inscription runs as written below:
Swain, if by noontide thirst thou art opprest
When with thy flocks to Cleitor's bounds thou'st hied,
Take from this fount a draught, and grant a rest
To all thy goats the water nymphs beside.
But bathe not in't when full of drunken cheer,
Lest the mere vapour may bring thee to bane;
Shun my vine-hating spring--Melampus here
From madness once washed Proetus' daughters sane,
And all th' offscouring here did hide, when they
From Argos came to rugged Arcady.
22. In the island of Zea is a spring of which those who thoughtlessly
drink lose their understanding, and an epigram is cut there to the
effect that a draught from the spring is delightful, but that he who
drinks will become dull as a stone. These are the verses:
This stone sweet streams of cooling drink doth drip,
But stone his wits become who doth it sip.
23. At Susa, the capital of the Persian kingdom, there is a little
spring, those who drink of which lose their teeth. An epigram is written
there, the significance of which is to this effect, that the water is
excellent for bathing, but that taken as drink, it knocks out the teeth
by the roots. The verses of this epigram are, in Greek, as follows:
Stranger, you see the waters of a spring
In which 'tis safe for men their hands to lave;
But if the weedy basin entering
You drink of its unpalatable wave,
Your grinders tumble out that self-same day
From jaws that orphaned sockets will display.
24. There are also in some places springs which have the peculiarity of
giving fine singing voices to the natives, as at Tarsus in Magnesia and
in other countries of that kind. Then there is Zama, an African city,
which King Juba fortified by enclosing it with a double wall, and he
established his royal residence there. Twenty miles from it is the
walled town of Ismuc, the lands belonging to which are marked off by a
marvellous kind of boundary. For although Africa was the mother and
nurse of wild animals, particularly serpents, yet not one is ever born
in the lands of that town, and if ever one is imported and put there, it
dies at once; and not only this, but if soil is taken from this spot to
another place, the same is true there. It is said that this kind of soil
is also found in the Balearic Islands. The above mentioned soil has a
still more wonderful property, of which I have learned in the following
way.
25. Caius Julius, Masinissa's son, who owned all the lands about that
town, served with Caesar the father. He was once my guest. Hence, in our
daily intercourse, we naturally talked of literary subjects. During a
conversation between us on the efficacy of water and its qualities, he
stated that there were springs in that country of a kind which caused
people born there to have fine singing voices, and that consequently
they always sent abroad and bought handsome lads and ripe girls, and
mated them, so that their progeny might have not only fine voices but
also beautiful forms.
26. This great variety in different things is a distribution due to
nature, for even the human body, which consists in part of the earthy,
contains many kinds of juices, such as blood, milk, sweat, urine, and
tears. If all this variation of flavours is found in a small portion of
the earthy, we should not be surprised to find in the great earth itself
countless varieties of juices, through the veins of which the water
runs, and becomes saturated with them before reaching the outlets of
springs. In this way, different varieties of springs of peculiar kinds
are produced, on account of diversity of situation, characteristics of
country, and dissimilar properties of soils.
27. Some of these things I have seen for myself, others I have found
written in Greek books, the authorities for these writings being
Theophrastus, Timaeus, Posidonius, Hegesias, Herodotus, Aristides, and
Metrodorus. These men with much attention and endless pains showed by
their writings that the peculiarities of sites, the properties of
waters, and the characteristics of countries are conditioned by the
inclination of the heaven. Following their investigations, I have set
down in this book what I thought sufficient about different kinds of
water, to make it easier, by means of these directions, for people to
pick out springs from which they can conduct the water in aqueducts for
the use of cities and towns.
28. For it is obvious that nothing in the world is so necessary for use
as water, seeing that any living creature can, if deprived of grain or
fruit or meat or fish, or any one of them, support life by using other
foodstuffs; but without water no animal nor any proper food can be
produced, kept in good condition, or prepared. Consequently we must
take great care and pains in searching for springs and selecting them,
keeping in view the health of mankind.
CHAPTER IV
TESTS OF GOOD WATER
1. Springs should be tested and proved in advance in the following ways.
If they run free and open, inspect and observe the physique of the
people who dwell in the vicinity before beginning to conduct the water,
and if their frames are strong, their complexions fresh, legs sound, and
eyes clear, the springs deserve complete approval. If it is a spring
just dug out, its water is excellent if it can be sprinkled into a
Corinthian vase or into any other sort made of good bronze without
leaving a spot on it. Again, if such water is boiled in a bronze
cauldron, afterwards left for a time, and then poured off without sand
or mud being found at the bottom of the cauldron, that water also will
have proved its excellence.
2. And if green vegetables cook quickly when put into a vessel of such
water and set over a fire, it will be a proof that the water is good and
wholesome. Likewise if the water in the spring is itself limpid and
clear, if there is no growth of moss or reeds where it spreads and
flows, and if its bed is not polluted by filth of any sort but has a
clean appearance, these signs indicate that the water is light and
wholesome in the highest degree.
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