Longest Roman Water Supply Line

 



There are water tanks, fountains and large cisterns of all kinds, fresh and abundant water sources all over the city. This water was brought to the city from everywhere, both near and far, by no less insignificant forcing and transforming nature. Inevitable needs oblige to serve the imperial city. And in any case, we can see and admire the majestic flow of this water in the "air rivers" in the city with every way and skill, some hidden, but some very open. There are also many great and beautiful baths to enjoy, I cannot afford to describe these baths equipped with all kinds of ingenious devices, but I can recommend you to experience and see them yourself. 

Theodore Metochites (1270-1332)

Byzantios

İstanbul was a city surrounded by the sea on three sides, displaying a high trade potential with its transportation networks and an excellent defense system. However, its resources in terms of drinking waterwere quite inadequate. The construction of the first water system in the city is attributed to the Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138). The increasing population and settlement after Constantine I (306-337) declared Byzantion the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, led to the construction of the most comprehensive hydraulic engineering system of the ancient world, only a small part of which we can see in the Bozdoğan (Valens) Aqueduct today. The system which was probably started to be built in the time of Constantine II, (337-361), even before the Emperor Valens (364-378), supplied water to the city from the Ergene, Binkılıç, Karamandere, Alibey streams in Thrace via aqueducts and canals, all of which totalled 592 km long. The other two sources of the networks carrying water to the city were in the Halkalı and Belgrad Forests. The water reaching the city was collected in open and closed cisterns in the high locations of the Suriçi region or distributed to state institutions, baths and fountains with the help of terracotta.

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