Building techniques oman architects used big square stones for a long time, but after some time they changed to parement filled up with 'opus caementicium', a mixture of stone splinters and mortar. It was a very strong construction, but it didn't look beautiful. The parement first consisted of irregular boulders, 'opus incertum', later of quadrangular stones, 'opus reticulatum', and finally of triangular bricks, 'opus testaceum'. This 'opus testaceum' building technique was soon used for all construction work in Rome.The Romans were real boffins in the field of architecture. Building domes and especially aqueducts required a lot technical insight. All big towns had a great need of water. Rome got her water from its surrounding hills. Supplying water was a huge technical problem. How could you ensure of a regular water supply by only exploiting the natural law of gravitation? The aqueduct Claudia, built in 47, provided Rome with water from a spring at a distance of 75 kilometres from the city. Over this large distance there was only a fall of a total of 250 metres. That meant that the aqueduct could only have a fall of one single metre every 300 meters, which means a fall of 1 centimeter every three meter!
|
