Ancient Greek Infrastructure: Tunnels, Roads, the Diolkos, Lighting

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ANCIENT GREEK INFRASTRUCTURE


Inside the Eupalinos Tunnel

Ancient Greece had a postal system. The cost of sending a letter was around 2 talents and 300 drachmas, a considerable amount of money. When urgent messages needed to be sent quickly over a long distance, the Greeks employed runners rather than riders on horseback or horse-drawn chariots.

According to Plumb Smart Plumbing and Drains: The Greeks were able to develop an advanced plumbing system that was used to supply water to their homes and public buildings, such as baths. One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek plumbing is the aqueduct that was built in the 6th century B.C. to supply the city of Athens with water. The aqueduct was was designed to transport water from a nearby mountain range to the city. The aqueduct was made up of a series of tunnels and canals, and it is estimated that it could transport up to 100,000 gallons of water per day. [Source Plumb Smart Plumbing and Drains]

In addition to the aqueduct, the Greeks also developed a system of clay pipes to transport water to individual homes and buildings. These pipes were similar to those used in Mesopotamia and were connected to a network of canals and cisterns. The Greeks also developed a primitive form of a flushing toilet called a "krepis." The krepis was a stone slab with a hole in the center that was connected to a sewer system. The waste would be flushed away with water from a jug or bucket.

Eupalinos Tunnel

Eupalinos Tunnel on the Greek island of Samos was considered an engineering marvel and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Also known as Eupalinian aqueduct, this tunnel was 1,036 meters (3,399 feet) in length and ran through Mount Kastro in Samos, Greece and was built in the 6th century BC to provide water. It is the second known tunnel in history which was excavated from both ends and the first with a geometry-based approach ro achieve this. [Source Wikipedia]

The Eupalinian Tunnel was described by the 5th century Greek historian Herodotus in “Histories” 3.60): I have dwelt longer upon the history of the Samians than I should otherwise have done, because they are responsible for three of the greatest building and engineering feats in the Greek world: the first is a tunnel nearly a mile long, eight feet wide and eight feet high, driven clean through the base of a hill nine hundred feet in height. The whole length of it carries a second cutting thirty feet deep and three broad, along which water from an abundant source is led through pipes into the town. This was the work of a Megarian named Eupalinus, son of Naustrophus. The tunnel might also be referred to in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which mentions "watered Samos."[6]

The Eupalinian Tunnel was dug in the mid-6th century BC, by two groups working under the direction of the engineer Eupalinos from Megara, in order to supply the ancient capital of Samos (today called Pythagoreion) with fresh water as Samos had outgrown the capacity of the wells and cisterns within the city's limits and the main source of fresh water on the island was on the other side of Mount Kastro from the city.

It was important defensively importance for the aqueduct to run underground so it could not easily be found by an enemy that aimed to cut off the city’s the water supply. The date of construction has not been firmly established. Herodotus mentions the tunnel in the context of the ruler Polycrates (reigned c. 540–522 B.C.), but he does not explicitly say that Polycrates was involved in its construction. The Eupalinian aqueduct was used as an aqueduct for 1100 years unil it silted up.

Diolkos


Excavated western end of Diolkos near the Gulf of Corinth

The Diolkos was a paved trackway near Corinth in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth. The shortcut allowed ancient vessels to avoid the long and dangerous circumnavigation of the Peloponnese peninsula. The phrase "as fast as a Corinthian", coined by the comic playwright Aristophanes, indicates that the trackway was common knowledge and had acquired a reputation for speeding things along. [Source Wikipedia; Encyclopedia.com]

Some of the most treacherous winds and currents in the Mediterranean were in the waters off Greece’s southern tip. The only practical way for merchants to avoid them was by the trans-Isthmus service provided by the Corinthians. The diolkos (“drag-across”) track allowed the Corinthians to convey not just the cargo but the entire ship across the Isthmus. Merchants liked this they didn’t have to unload cargo onto different ships and the Corinthians liked it because they could charge a hefty fee for the service.

The Diolkos saved ships from sailing around the from the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea. The sea journey around the three Peloponnese headlands,especially Cape Matapan and Cape Malea, was known for its vicious gales. By contrast, both the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf were relatively sheltered waters. The overland passage of the Isthmus, a neck of land 6.4 kilometers (4.0 miles) wide at its narrowest, offered a much shorter route to Athens for ships sailing to and from the Ionian coast of Greece.

The Diolkos could be used to transport very heavy freight loads and was built in the early sixth century B.C. by the people of Corinth. It was paved with massive stones all the way across the six-mile-wide Isthmus that serves as the only land link between the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece. The Corinthians had become a wealthy and powerful city thanks in no small part to their control of the Isthmus. All land traffic between the Peloponnese and the more northerly parts of Greece had to go through this neck of land, and Corinthians were in a position to control that traffic and to exact duty and tolls from those who passed through their territory. The Corinthians had ports on bothsides of the Isthmus and thereby had easy access both to the Aegean and to the western sea routes that led to Italy and Sicily.

Diolkos combined the two principles of the railway and the overland transport of ships, on a scale that remained unique in antiquity. The main function of the Diolkos was the transfer of goods, although in times of war it also became a preferred means of speeding up naval campaigns. The 6-to-8.5-kilometre-long roadway was a rudimentary form of railway, and operated from c. 600 B.C. until the middle of the A.D. first century.

Roads in Ancient Greece

The Mycenaeans built roads graded for wagons and chariots. However ships were the primary vehicle for moving goods. Overland travel was difficult. Much fewer goods could be carried and the going was more difficult.

The Greeks never attained as great perfection in road-making as the Romans; apparently those roads were kept in best condition which led to the national sanctuaries, and here regular tracks were cut out of the rocky ground, and there were places for passing other carriages, halting places, etc. This was not, however, the case with all the roads, and we must not assume that ancient Greece possessed a well-kept complicated network of streets.

According to Encyclopedia.com: One indication of the poor development of Greek roads and the unsuitability of the terrain is the fact that centuries later, when Greece was actually part of the Roman Empire, even the Romans did not practice their vaunted road-building skills in the region. The closest thing to a major Roman highway in Greece was the Via Egnatia, which ran from the Adriatic coast in present-day Albania to the city of Thessalonike, on the northern Aegean Sea, and from there east to Byzantium. Farther south, Roman road engineering was employed only in a few sporadic cases.

The road between Athens and Corinth, two of the main city-states in ancient Greece, was a narrow and treacherous path along sheer seaside cliffs, probably suitable only for pedestrians and pack animals, and any wheeled traffic had to take a more circuitous inland route. In the A.D. 2nd century, Pausanias described the roadways around the major religious shrine at Delphi. Delphi is located in a particularly mountainous area and the roads as described by Pausanias were generally difficult.

The grade of some Greek mountain roads 30 percent, which is supper steep. In contrast modern roads are generally engineered to never exceed gradients over 10 percent. Even the widest ancient Greek roads often less than two meters (6.5 feet) in width and were rarely wider than three meters (10 feet). Pausanias makes note of the few roads wide enough for two carriages o pass one another. Wheel ruts were sometimes built in particularly steep, rough, winding, and slippery places to expedite wheeled traffic. These grooves were carved into the roadway in which the wheels of vehicles would run, giving them improved traction and preventing them from sliding off to the side of the road. In some places, wheel ruts were the only improvements made to a roadway.

Streets and Layout of Athens


Moving a ship on the Diolkos

There was no regular arrangement of streets in the older period, any more than there was in our cities in the middle ages; and even after the burning of the city by the Persians, when dwellings had to be constructed for the returning population, the town was quickly rebuilt without any regular plan. It was not till later that streets were methodically laid out, and this was largely due to the influence of Hippodamus of Miletus, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, and reformed the ancient style of building cities. Athens itself could not profit by his system, which adopted a uniform artistic plan for the construction of a whole town; but he was able to carry out his scheme in the building of the lower city, near the Peiraeus, which took place under Pericles. Here Hippodamus constructed a network of straight broad streets, cutting each other at right angles, and in the middle he placed a large market, evidently in the form of a square, called the “Market of Hippodamus.” [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

The land belonging to this suburb had probably been very little built on; we do not know whether the State had any right of ownership over these new buildings. The flourishing suburbs, the numerous public squares planted with trees and laid out in the manner of parks, did much to improve the appearance of the city, but a great deal must still have been wanting to make it appear really comfortable to us moderns, or even to the Romans of the Empire. In the first place, the streets were unpaved, and there were no sidewalks; these improvements were not introduced until the Roman period, and Greek antiquity was content with ordinary high roads; it is natural, therefore, that in dry weather the dust, and in rainy weather the mud, should have been disagreeable. Very little attention was paid to the cleanliness of public roads; all kitchen refuse, bath water, etc., was simply poured out of doors; at night it was even thrown straight from the windows on to the street, and though it was usual to call, “Out of the way,” yet careless people might sometimes be besprinkled on their way home at night.

There was no public cleansing of the streets; it was left to beneficent rains to wash away all uncleanness, although the street and market police, whose duty it was to maintain order in the streets and market places, were supposed to see that they were kept in proper condition, and could compel proprietors who threw out ashes or other refuse to clear this away; yet they probably confined themselves to keeping the streets in fairly good building condition, and seeing that all was in order when processions had to pass along certain roads. Generally speaking, Nissen is probably right when he maintains that, to form an idea of the life at Athens by any modern counterpart, we must not think of Florence or Munich, but rather of Cairo or Tunis.

Lighting and Olive Oil in Ancient Greece

The habit of rising and going to bed early which prevailed in Greece and Italy is easily understood when we see the meagre arrangements for lighting which they possessed. In the street torches were carried, and they were also used in the house in early times. A bronze torch-holder of the late sixth century from Cyprus in the corridor and a terracotta example appear to have been made so that they could be set on a table. The Romans and Etruscans made candles of pitch and also wax ones very similar to our own, but the Greeks were not acquainted with them until they were introduced by the Romans. The iron candelabrum was designed to hold candles on the prickets around the top. Lamps were commonly of terracotta or bronze. Olive oil was burnt in them with a wick of flax, but at best the light must have been poor and flickering. Candelabra were commonly made of wood, but handsomer ones were of bronze. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

Houses were lit with oil lamps, and cooking was done with coals placed in a metal brazier. Fires were always a hazard and it was not unusual for entire towns to burn down after someone carelessly knocked over an oil lamp. Greeks and Romans used oil lamps made of bronze, with wicks of oakum or linen. They were fueled by edible animal fats and vegetables oils which could be consumed in times of food shortages. The Romans were perhaps the first people to use oil as a combustible material; they burned petroleum in their lamps instead of olive oil. In ancient times, olive oil was used in everything from oil lamps, to religious anointments, to cooking and preparing condiments and medicines. It was in great demand and traveled well and people like the Philistines grew rich trading it.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Lamps appear regularly in vase paintings of nocturnal events that take place indoors. The small, controlled flame of a lamp would have made them preferable to a burning torch for interior illumination. That lamps were the favored method of lighting the home is suggested by the great numbers of them excavated from domestic contexts, and by the ancient texts, which account for their use indoors. Torches also figure prominently in vase paintings and allude to the real-life propensity of the ancient Greeks to celebrate many of their most important seasonal festivals and religious rituals at night, a cultural practice well attested in the ancient literary sources.

Petroleum in the Ancient World

20120222-Misfired_clay_lamps_.jpg
Misfired clay lamps
The first references to oil were made on cuneiform tablets in Babylonia in 2000 B.C. It was referred to as “ naptu” , which means "that which flares up." Naptu was used in construction, road building, waterproofing, skin ointments and cements. One cuneiform tablet from that era read: "If a certain place in the land “ naptu” oozes out, that country will walk in widowhood. If the water of a river bears...oil, want will seize on the peoples." Another states: "May donkey urine be your drink, “ naptu” your ointment."

In the 5th century B.C. Herodotus described a famous spot in Persia where oil oozed from the ground. He wrote that a man with a wineskin "makes a dip with this, draws the liquid up, and then pours it over the receptacle, from there it passes into another, where it turns into three different shapes; the salt and the asphalt solidify while they collect on clay containers."

In ancient times oil came primarily from seepage. No one thought of drilling for in the ground until the 19th century. In the 1st century B.C., the Greek historian Diodorus wrote: "of all the marvels of Babylonia the most amazing is the mass of asphalt produced there...Uncountable numbers of people have drawn from it, as from some vast spring, yet the supply remains intact."

Romans burned petroleum in the their lamps instead of olive oil. The Byzantines used naptha for their Greek Fire weapons. In the 1st century A.D., the Greek geographer Strabo wrote: "if naphtha is brought near a flame, it catches fire, and if you smear some on the body and come near a flame, the body will catch fire. It cannot be quenched with water — it just burns harder — unless a whole lot is used, but it can be smothered and quenched with mud, vinegar, alum or birdlime."

Equivalent of Schools and Hospitals in Ancient Greece

For the most part there were few established centers of learning, nothing like modern universities anyway. Teachers tended to teach wherever they could: in their own homes, those of wealthy patrons, city hall or rooms in public baths. Schools were sometimes set up in front of shops by street teachers who were paid a few coins by noblemen to teach their children. The Lyceum was one of the great schools of philosophy in ancient Greece along with Plato's Academy and the school created by the Cynics after the death of Socrates in 339 B.C.

Perhaps the closest thing to hospitals were healing temples and sanctuaries. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Two of the most famous healing sanctuaries sacred to the god were at Epidauros and on the island of Kos. The success of the cult of Asklepios in antiquity was due to his accessibility—although the son of Apollo, he was still human enough to attempt to cancel death. Those who sought a cure in the temples erected to him were subjected to ritual purifications, fasts, prayers, and sacrifices. A central feature of the cult and the process of healing was known as incubation, during which the god appeared to the afflicted one in a dream and prescribed a treatment. [Source: Colette Hemingway, Independent Scholar,Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004, metmuseum.org \^/]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, Boat pictures from the Terra Romana Project / Forum Navis Romana

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024


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