Frontinus Systematizes Aqueduct Maintenance and Cementitious Linings

Sextus Julius Frontinus took charge of Rome’s water with a soldier’s discipline. As curator aquarum under Nerva and Trajan, he wrote De aquaeductu urbis Romae in 97–98 CE, a report and manual in one. He detailed sources, gradients, and illegal taps; he described construction and the maintenance that kept water where it belonged [6].

Behind the Latin is a sensual reality. Aqueduct channels lined with mortar—the pink of signinum in stretches, the gray of lime‑rich coatings elsewhere—kept flow smooth and seepage low. Frontinus chased leaks like a tax evader, listing penalties and procedures. The soundscape of his office was water: the hiss in conduits, the drip in inspection shafts, the scrape of a mason’s trowel as he patched a failing seam [6, 7, 15].

He inherited and enforced best practice. Where pozzolana was available, linings used hydraulic mixes that chalked a durable skin; where not, crushed ceramics stepped in. Maintenance schedules assumed mortar lifespans and the need to clean mineral scale. The work was as mundane as it was critical: a city of a million drinks by the amphora, bathes by the caldarium, flushes by the sewer [6, 15].

Frontinus’ tone is administrative scarlet rather than romantic azure. He names aqueducts with their lengths and discharge—numbers that turn into daily comfort. He tells us that water management is a material problem: choose the right binder, apply it correctly, inspect it regularly, and punish those who sabotage it. Rome’s concrete revolution had a curator [6].