How did Roman Aqueducts work?
The aqueducts were awesome manifestations of the Roman knack for practical engineering on a monumental scale. This video explores how they were constructed and used.
I'd like to thank Woosh Pipe and Drain of New York City for sponsoring this video.
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If you liked this video, you might also enjoy my book “Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.”
www.amazon.com/Naked-Statues-...
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:37 Building an aqueduct
3:18 Bridges, siphons, and tunnels
4:52 Distribution networks
6:59 Private connections
7:48 Maintenance
8:36 Exceptional aqueducts
Thanks for watching!
I love water
dont we all
Honestly..... same
It's ok
Big fan of water, don't think I could live without it
I personally think it is overrated, but hay it is what it is!
Imagine being a barbarian from the north who travels to Rome to work as a mercenary. All your life, all you knew was a village society where bathing is done in the local lake, houses are made of wood and straw, and the goats sleep in the living room with you. Now imagine encountering this level of technology. Fountains, baths, multi-storey buildings. It must have felt like being a time traveller.
Imagine being a barbarian a few hundred years after the fall of Rome and your conditions have returned to the mud hut, goat based technology of the past? Now imagine life in America in a few hundred years if we allow the barbarians to rise up again? It's our choice. Let's hope we choose better than the Romans did.
@@charlie-obrien Glad to see a fellow climate change activist in the comment section
@@charlie-obrien The Romans brought misery upon themselves. It was how they regarded life as a commodity (slavery), their incompetence regarding diplomacy, often being arrogant towards their neighbors and their rampant corruption that destroyed Rome. Their society could have skipped the dark ages and straight into Renaissance if they didn't built it based on the extortion of the lower classes and their neighbors, something the largest economies of the modern day are hellbent on doing. This is where the barbarian tribe successors, such as the Franks, Italians, Britons, Hispanics and Alemans succeeded. Even though their society was based on feudalism, they respected freedom and to an extent meritocracy and they developed strict rules to go to war that everyone followed, the Casus Belli. Moreover, using Christianity, they developed the first international cooperation agreements under the pope. Sure, they fought all the time, but you couldn't just invade another country without a valid claim, unlike the Romans, or you would draw the wrath of the rest of the European kingdoms (much like it happened with the Umayyad, the Mongols, the French, the Ottoman and the Germans). War had to be seen as fair and needed the support of the church, not an indiscriminate way of getting slaves and loot. Sure, the peasants had to work for their lord, but they were free men and women and enslaving Christians even from other nations was banned or frowned upon. The barbarians didn't destroy Rome because they were allowed to rise up. Rome destroyed itself and the barbarians rebuilt it with the early core values of freedom we value today. I would argue we are more those barbarians that relearned the Romans technologies than the Romans. Despite technologically being a step back, sociologically it was a step forward and these core values were very respected throughout the entirety of the medieval ages until the age of discovery when humanity started enslaving again. Civilization needed to be destroyed because it was built upon the wrong foundations and if we keep on going the direction we are going, our civilization will too be destroyed so that a new civilization might be built better. Much like the Roman Empire and the medieval monarchies, so too is America a mediocre state built upon foundations of exploitation, rotten from within. Like them, it is not too big too fall and quite honestly it should.
It's like Afghanistan and US in modern days lol
Just take some tribal people from African or Amazonian tribes and put them in big cities
Thanks. I've always wondered how they managed the descent without instruments. Answer: they had instruments.
Or, you can build a little and let in some water to see if your level is correct, then build a little more and let in more water to see if your level is correct. And repeat.
@@billrobinson198 or use a wooden mock up since trial and error is VERY expensive
What a weird idea to think they had no instruments, since our species has been using tools since before our last evolutionary step the Homo Sapiens :P
@@Jake007123 There's no need for rudeness.
@@davidpanton3192 sorry if it came out strong, wasnt my intention
Funny thing about the lead pipes is we used lead pipes even in relatively modern times. Flint Michigan rather infamously had them. And they weren't really a problem as long as the PH and mineral content of the water was controlled properly. If the PH is right, the minerals form a stable coating over the lead so very little of the lead is even in contact with the water. But if the PH is wrong, the minerals can be stripped off and the lead will leach into the water. That's what happened in Flint Michigan - the water municipality changed water sources, mismanaged the water treatment of the new source, and stripped off the mineral coating, causing lead contamination of the water supply.
haha i went down to say the same thing. Pipes stay clean by getting dirty. love it
Nice try at shifting the blame (in regards to Flint Michigan). Lead is always bad. First it has to be mined (pollution on top of being toxic), melted (toxic), worked (toxic), and maintained (toxic.) The only reason we humans started using it is because it was easy.
@@TheOriginalDanEdwards yeah but like so is pvc and we still use that Actually like so many things I install on the daily are like that. It's fuckin depressing man.
Lead pipes exist in distribution systems in almost all modern cities towns and in abundance. The flow of the water keeps the lead from leeching. Copper and pvc and standard now but many of the old lead exist. Believe me I work in water distribution
The area I lived in England is all lead water pipes from the Victorian era. Would likely have been fine but I didn't have that many IQ points spare to begin with! 😆
I vacationed in Madrid, Spain a few years ago. Took a daytrip to Segovia just to see the aqueduct there. AMAZING! It was the highlight of my entire trip. It was so huge and towering. It is a stunning piece of engineering that still stands to this day. My first time to see a Roman aqueduct and I won't ever forget it. It left me speechless.
thank you for this advice :D I am going to Madrid in two weeks so now I must see it.
@@whatsmyname2588 You're so lucky! Spain is such a great country. The locals are just plain beautiful! Nice skin, great hair, handsome, pretty, well-dressed, well-mannered. I felt like I was walking amongst polite society. I also took a daytrip to Toledo and Cuenca. Cuenca turned out to be a bust because they were celebrating a holiday and the entire town just shut down! I had no idea about this holiday and it all turned out to be a wasted day for me. Toledo was quite interesting. It's everything that an ancient town should look like. Have the best time of your life!!!
I stayed in Segovia for a MONTH it was so cool
An outflow sewer from a Roman Bath was discovered under the street in my hometown, they found some really interesting things in there. Dice, game pieces ( a full set of Ludus latrunculorum pieces I think), amulets, charms etc. funny to think of a couple of soldiers playing a game of Ludus latrunculorum in the bath and someone losing and throwing the pieces down a drain in a fit of spiteful rage.
And, where, what is your hometown? Sheesh.....
@@frequentlycynical642 York UK, Church Street Roman Sewer if you want to google it
@@frequentlycynical642 I know you're name befits you, but .. even I picked that it would be somewhere in England ..
@@nimbledick9869 Good to know. Nice bit of info. Until this video I never even thought about outflow (my bad)
@@frequentlycynical642 you seem great to be around 😭
Another great video. I imagine the effort it took to explain the idea of an aqueduct before it existed. And once fountains were mentioned, everyone got on board.
Yes, I imagine that first sale pitch was pretty tough... Thanks again for sponsoring!
First time i See tipping on KZhead!
woosh!
I thought the sponsorship was a joke. Guess I'm too used to every sponsorship being RAID: Shadow Legends or NordVPN. WOOSH
Crazy to see a local ad engrained in a KZhead video seen across the world!
Born and grown up in Rome, one of the most unique features of the 'Eternal City", is the never stopping sound of flowing water from fountains and "fontanelle" the bronze drinking posts also known as "nasone" (big nose) for its characteristic curved tap.
I'm surprised they still use those & the water is clean enough to drink. Been to Rome several times & see those drinking faucets all over with people not only filling bottles, but actually putting their hand or even mouth to it & drinking from it.
@@frankgordon8829 the water that comes from the nasoni as well as any tap, is controlled by the municipality and comes from different sources through a network of both old and (relatively) new underground aqueducts. No above ground aqueduct is in use to my knowledge. Ditto for the sewage system, that has at its core the ancient cloaca maxima, that has seen two millennia of sh*t passing by.
@@musamusashi I think they still use some of the old aqueducts for the decorative fountants (non drinking) like the one in the video.
@@mowtow90 yes, the old system has been expanded and integrated with newer elements over the centuries, but never totally replaced.
Most awesome sponsor ever LOL
A couple of days ago I finished reading “Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants", very informative and a dig into the daily life of emperors and peasants, artisans and slaves and everyone in between. Highly recommended for all history lovers.
i love plumbing videos being sponsored by a history interested local plumber, even though i live on the other side of the world. We still get some of our water from roman aqueducts, maybe steve should open a european aqueduct maintenance subsidiary?
I wonder if Steve from Whoosh will do house visits to Australia ?
Build your own aquaduct at home. ...to compliment the Roman baths you'll build next. 🤔
@@thomas316 Well I won't be building them _personally._ Obviously I'll have my slaves do that part.
Repent to Jesus Christ “Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty- he is the King of glory.” Psalms 24:10 NIV J
Your research and insights are impressive. I lived in Italy for several years. Watching your videos takes me back. Grazie mille! The park of the aqueducts in Rome is a must see. Incredible what the Roman engineers accomplished 2,000 years ago. Your channel is one of the best about classical history. Please keep up the content. Bravissimo!
I expect that there were travelling aqueduct builders who moved around the empire, going from gig to gig as a local city hired them to build their aqueduct, much like pipeline engineers (yours truly) might do today
Military-trained engineers were in high demand, and were sometimes recruited by cities for aqueduct construction.
@@toldinstone I really enjoyed the book “Roman Aqueducts & Water Supply” by A. Trevor Hodge, I re-read it every few years. Like how they proved that the aqueduct work was broken out on a mile basis (a new crew every mile) because a slope error would creep into the works but would be corrected every mile.
@@TonyBongo869 I'm going to look that book up
i was imagining that "monorail" salesman from the simpsons :-)
@@mm-yt8sf not far from the truth, towns with an aqueduct and baths would have more prestige than towns without, in fact I’m working on a monorail project ( Skytrain) right now!
This is actually very helpful. In some past videos I heard you talking about how some aquaducts are still in use today (or very recently). But up until this point, I was always waiting for my favourite calm voice to explain the works of it.
I feel like Rome is from outer world. Being able to create such an advanced civilization thousands year earlier is just incredible.
same goes for the egyptians, amazonians, and ruzarians
If Roman feels like from outer world, then Chinese would feels like from other dimensions Chinese always way ahead of every civilization, that's why when everyone advance Chinese still the same, because they always been the most advanced country at that time, make them feels no need to change
@@randomthing9712 only in certain departments though
@@waterenjoyer7850 just admit it already my friend, sometimes we must let it go and face the reality 😌
@@randomthing9712 So advanced that they had to endure a century of humiliation . Lmao
Harnessing water is a fundamental pillar of human civilization. It's amazing to see how technologically sophisticated the Roman engineers were in constructing such an intricate and substantial network of aqueducts.
I always found it interesting that the words we use for pipework and those that install it (plumbing/plumber), have their roots in the Latin word for lead (plumbum) due to ancient pipework being made from lead. It's also why lead is listed as Pb on the periodic table.
I've got tons of questions. I'll try to limit myself to a few. Did any springs stop flowing during Roman times rendering an aqueduct useless? Do we know if any diseases or plagues were traced to an aqueduct during ancient times? How many of the aqueducts are still fully functional and how many are partially functional?
Yes, springs sometimes dried up; the usual solution was to drive tunnels into the surrounding hillsides to tap the aquifer at a deeper level. The Romans regarded the water of certain aqueducts - especially the Aqua Alsietina - as unhealthy, but I'm not aware of any aqueduct being associated with a specific plague. Besides a few of Rome's aqueducts, the only ones that come to mind as being functional in recent times are the examples at Segovia and Istanbul (both of which were restored in the early modern era).
@@toldinstone thanks for another fun, informative video! You're knowledge of Roman minutiae boggles my mind.
As someone who spent his childhood visiting my grandparents in Provence, I have to mention the Pont du Gard, an incredibly well preserved multi-tiered aqueduct
@@degustablegerbil I wrote an essay about that once, when I briefly studied engineering, before realising that it was the history of engineering that fascinated me, not engineering itself
Aqueducts did not start plagues because they did not draw from polluted water (Cholera) or stand idle (Malaria) there were sources that were not terribly healthy (Aliestina). here is the wikipedia article on revived roman sourced (they were all cut in the 9th century) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acqua_Vergine I posted a link to Vitruvius as a as a stand alone post he's the true authority
Superb presentation! Anyone who has first love for ancient Roman empire and it's history! Your channel is pure gold to indulge ourselves deep into the lives of Roman people from its prime time! A fan and an admirer from Pakistan!
The more I learn of history, the more I wish I could travel back in time just to see some of these magnificent builds day one after completion. Or even watch their construction
I always wonder how the romans already had flowing water in their homes centuries ago, but then for centuries not even kings had it.
Decadency is a thing sadly.
Fall of the Roman empire and it seemed no other cultures at the time knew how to replicate what they achieved. Or didn't have the human resource to achieve it.
@@garrymuir1442 No one was rich enough to do and maintain them.
@@liamjm9278 or perhaps in frequent/constant turmoil to prioritize survival over luxury
@@creativeideas012 The turmoil after the fall is grossly overexaggerated.
The thing that has always impressed me is that the fountains were pressure relief valves. Nice valves. Now I have siphon tanks to consider. Amazing.
Queens native here - loved the video and seeing the sponsor from Astoria :D
thank you for always giving metric measurements too :) really helps setting these things in perspective for me! i just can't believe what these people managed to do 2000 freaking years ago.. love your videos! this is the single best content on the whole internet and you are a great lecturer ❤️
I lived for three years in Montpellier, very nearby to Nimes and the triple-arched aqueduct that you showed, there's one still running through the city, emerging from a center-town hill, and illuminated with the french colors at night. It's incredibly dwarfing, beautiful, and I was always impressed that "ancient romans" were able to accomplish such technological and engineering marvels........ then I learnt that it was built in the 17-18 hundreds :(
Great video! The sophisticated of Roman civil engineering was stunning! In some respects we hardly do better today. Their bridges, arches and aqueducts are amazing works of cunning and skill. Apropos of nothing I appreciate the way you choose sponsors that feel relevant to the topic at hand!
It is amazing how we could construct these things, so long ago.
are you italic?
@@leavewe Nope. I meant Humanity in general 🤣
@@leavewe Why is that relevant?
@@romainvicta117 Maybe Leavewe wanted to know if he was expressing a nationalistic feeling or a humanistic one, like he was. Mage gained a lot of appreciation from me when he clarified.
@@Jake007123 *tips fedora*
Perfect ad
Everyone always oohs and aahs about the Egyptian pyramids, but Roman hydraulic engineering is really the GOAT of the ancient world.
That's delightful. Good to know the Romans considered things like repairs. It seems like a few companies even nowadays can't do that!
They had theft of water too - farmers and others 'tapping in' to the flow line.
Great video, very informative. Rome's "real" conquest of a given region was probably not by the weapons, but the roads, and the aquaducts for the cities. True marvels for the local population.
Just like today, the real key is to stay there for a few years after conquest and win hearts and minds. It's hard to miss the old beloved leader and hate the new tyrant, when you eat better and have more coins to spare ever since the new tyrant took over.
Well yeah but APART from the roads and the aqueducts, what have they ever done for us, eh?
2000 year old plumbing, roads and still working.....where did we go wrong😎
God decided Rome should no longer exist because of its depravity
Greed and corruption. Basically their downfall as well.
Okay can we appreciate that the romans engineer a 50km long aqueduct and made the ends just differ less than 2.5cm (that's a 0.00005% gradient or less). What a feat of engineering which even today would be a challenge
This is what a mean how have we not advanced
@@NWO2023 what?
nono that was only the one bridge... the complete aqueduct probably differs a couple meters in height
Love the local commercial. Woosh. Better than the usual vpn or online learning courses.
it's amazing, I remember learning of aqueducts in school and didn't know how much of an engineering marvel it was.
An aquaduct of sort was built near where i live in the early 20th century for supplying water to gold mining operations. It is really a gradual downslope ditch with inverted siphons built of wood flumes and 4' diameter steel pipe at every perpendicular valley. Since it operation ended they are being reclaimed into the wilderness. The ditch and flumes are filled with trees. I go to one sometimes and contemplate the silence of the place now as compared to what i imagine it sounded like during construction and the whoosh of water going into and out of the large steel pipe.
*_AS AN ENGINEER, I GREATLY APPRECIATE THIS PARTICULAR VIDEO._*
The tour leader at the forum in Rome told us that the water coming out of the public water spouts/fountains all around the city had very good clean drinkable water brought into the city from the hills. From then on I filled up my water bottle at these spouts. Saved me lots of money.
Should have brought some back home to get tested
Fantastic writing! Script plays an incredibly important part in these videos, and this was expertly done (and narrated). Thank you!
that's funny, I was just thinking about aqueducts at work today
Been to Segovia- Woo hoo! But my comment real quick before watching is to ADD that I was amazed amazed and enthralled at the Alhambra, and in particular the stairs with the water funnels bringing the water into the complex. You're walking on a staircase and, there's water in where the handle, bannister, would be. Very eye opening for a young person, I loved it. I got to live in Spain, Madrid, for a year thru the UC Student Abroad Program- Anyway, onto the vid!
Thank you for helping us learn this. Your videos have become a craving of mine. I need that book. Water pressure in ancient cities is so inspirational for me.
I think this is the only time I've ever wanted to call a sponser. Thanks Steve
Interesting, educational & informative clip. Thank you. Have asked for a more detailed explanation of The Ronan Aqueduct System from other older video producers without luck. Greatly appreciate your contribution to my understanding of something that has fascinated me for decades. 🙏
love that such a local comapny sponsored this video, thanks steve
As someone once said (or so I'm told); up through history, plumbers have saved waaaay more lives than doctors.
In many places, they make more than doctors too.
@@Misses-Hippy where
@@Misses-HippySimply not true. They do make quite a lot of money, however.
Love roman aquaducts, when i was a kid i had a book that showed roman building methods and the aquaducts were always amazing in their scale. Thanks for the content sir!
Amazing. What I'd give to walk around an ancient city like Rome in its time.
incredible engineering. Love learning about ancient architecture
Just amazing. I finally have most of my questions on Aqueducts answered. Thank you!
220k subscribers and counting! Thank you for another great video and new insights
I had to laugh at a video about ancient Roman aqueducts being sponsored by a local plumbing company😂
I drank water from Sagalossos, in Turkey, it was the purest taste I've ever experienced, I encourage everyone to sample that someday. Great vid as always Stone!!!
I recently started reading Fat Gladiators, and I'm greatly enjoying it. You are one of the people who make me feel like picking ancient history as my major this year was the right choice. Also, great video as always
You make it sound easy. Thanks for explaining. Have a great weekend👑
lmao that sponsor. how many viewers are from Queens?
Hopefully enough to give Steve some business...
Great video. I would love to see where to water comes from and the aqueduct that carry’s the water for fountains in Rome. I have seen most of the magnificent Aqueducts from the Reman period . The Pont Du Gard in France is incredible. Traffic only stopped using it in the 1950s. A true testament to the romans engineering.
Great video. Very informative and you have a very nice voice to listen to. And thank you for not adding unnecessary music, its rare these days.
I love this channel so very much. What a wonderful way to relax and learn. I purchased your book. It is great.
Great work!
Thank you for this detailed history lesson!
Thanks for your generosity!
This is absolutely fascinating. I have always wondered how they had running water back then. But with your simple explanations, diagrams, and fast pace this was a fantastic video that kept me tied to every word!
Thank you for another really interesting video - greatly appreciated!
I'm wishing I lived in Queens now! Thanks Whoosh for supporting this channel!
I wish those giant thermea baths where still made with such elaborate artwork and style, I miss that somewhere deep inside me.
Really thankful for the effort you put in your videos! Ordered the book :)
love your voice, can listen to it all the time. Love your videos also. short but informative and your voice make it nice to listen too. SO for a history nerd with focus on roman history, this is pure gold for me!
Did the tapping of these springs change the ecosystem of the area? I can imagine that taking that much water out of an area is going to dry that area up at least slightly
Not usually, since the Romans tended to only gather the discharge of existing springs.
Your inclusion of the dioptra and chorobates instruments answered many of my questions about ancient water distribution. Thanks for including them in this edition of your always enlightening and relaxing presentations. Is there an ancient Egyptian record of similar tools? I’d love to hear your take on the Ptolemaic period of Roman cultural overlap and it’s efforts to incorporate and extend Egyptian cultural and architectural achievements.
Thanks for the metric conversions, Greatly appreciated.
This must be one of the best KZhead channels. Thank you
I love the local add read ! :)
I was in Rome in October for the first time….went to the Pantheon 3 times….got half way home to America, and realized I forgot to go to the Trevi fountain, oops. Next time.
lol. over the atlantic ocean. oooops i missed the foundation.
Pictures can’t do justice to the sheer scale of the Trevi fountain. It’s really a marvel to see. Thank you for this video, great as always
Odd then that it's tucked away in a back-street - perhaps very open to the public back in the day?
I appreciate your hard work and attention to detail
I read the book. It was interesting and fun!
That’s one thing I was shocked to learn in university (actually one of many many things lol) was that the Romans were not only aware of the health issues lead caused but continued to use it where they knew they could get away with it. The intelligence and ingenuity of the Romans, especially from the 700BCE - 100CE period, is pretty amazing imho.
Lol "ce" Get to know Christ, you fool.
Excellent presentation. It hits the important points for a general overview.
Plumber here... awesome video. Modern plumbing has saved more lives during the 20th century than doctors.
All roads lead to Rome....and they built them all. They were amazing
*_SOME STILL USED!_*
2:03 Strictly speaking, it's not true that the gradient had to be consistent. Since water finds its own level, all that is needed is that the head/source needs to be above all points on the way to the destination. I could get a bit more technical, but it's not like they needed to make the ducts laser-beam straight over 50 miles.
Fantastic work, this is a really good video
Did a bike tour of the park of the aqueducts a couple years ago. Amazing. Love your videos!
I loved the video, I didn't know that Rome still had aqueducts that were still functioning. It made me wonder, what other places around the world have ancient water systems still in use. Any ideas?
Some qanats in the Middle East have been flowing for nearly three millennia.
The Dujiangyan irrigation system in Sichuan, China was built in the 3rd century BCE and is still in use today.
Sad that even with such a long history of sourcing water- we still live in a world where a number of folk struggle to get clean tap
EXCELLENT video. Thank you so much!
that’s gotta be one of the most relevant sponsorships i’ve ever seen
Do we have any idea how long it would have taken to build a section of aqueduct? Obviously it would have differed depending on terrain or if it needs to be elevated or not but do we have any numbers for specific examples?
At least several years, and sometimes decades, to finish aqueducts. The enormous Aqua Claudia in Rome took 14 years to complete.
@@toldinstone Thanks a ton!
This is amazing. This level of organization and know-how feels so close to what we do today. I wonder: how complex were irrigation systems during the middle-age? Was everything lost?
Those systems were too complex for anyone to keep the details in his head. There must have been loads of documentation, but since that was before printing was brought from China, they would have had single copies of most things. I doubt that Christian monks would have wanted to copy any of that.
@@faithlesshound5621 Wasn't printing invented in what is today modern Germany?
@@felicien93 both woodblock and movable type printing was common in China centuries before Guttenbergh...but he did invent the "modern" printing press which revolutionized the commercial process
I am genuinely amazed that they could maintain such accuracy!
I appreciate your work!
By the way after the fall of the Roman Empire the people of Cologne in Germany used the mineral deposits in the aqueducts (shown in 7:50) as a source for marble.
stay hydrated folks
Great Video, really enjoined to watch it, thank you for your work :)
Just extraordinary
Do a video on the Roman sewer system that’s still in use for who knows how long!!!
You may have done this before, but I was curious about what kinds of homes common people lived in during Roman times. Specifically, I was thinking - how tall/how many floors were the buildings they lived in at the time. I've seen a proliferation of 5 over 1 building in the US and just wondered if there was any commonality with ancient times.
These wooden structures you mention are a cancer on the US urban landscape. Those that don’t burn in the next 25-50 years will be the worst form of ghetto environments.
Not extremely different from today- the poor lived in crowded poorly constructed apartment buildings in the city and the rich had their expensive city townhouses and summer mansions on the beach as in Pompeii. The biggest difference is that many more “middle class” people own their own house now in developed countries whereas back then someone who was between rich/poor probably rented apartments which were a little bit nicer than the common insulae.
Excellent!! Thank you soooooo much for the metric measument conversion!
Your best presentation yet.
6:48 isn’t that the baths of Diocletian, not Caracalla?
Yes; I just liked the illustration!