De architectura
De architectura, or On Architecture in English (published as Ten Books on Architecture) is a treatise on architecture written around 15 BC by the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio as a guide for building projects.
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- Real Roman engineering theory came from Marcus Vitruviouss Pollio's De Archetectura. Considered to be the ultimate reference text for building and engineering projects in Rome in 32bce, It's ten volumes cover how to build everything from temples, to aqueducts, to water mills to machines used for construction. A fascinating read, if you're curious how Romans built things.
De Architectura provides the sort of long-term perspective required to build and engineer projects that were meant to last for centuries, based on experience gathered from centuries of recorded experience.
I'm not sure if De Architectura is the only book that Roman Architects used. But it was certainly the most important.
Hundreds of pages of De Architectura list dimensions of older ancient buildings, the dimension and spacing of pillars, and failures encountered during or after construction. Something along the following lines (not actual text):
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The second Temple at Delos was built in 432bce. It consisted of 13 x 29 doric columns, 6' in diameter, 22' high, spaced on 12' intervals, with two rows in the pro-cella. The cella measured ..... The entrance to the cella was 16' high and 12' wide with a granite lintel measuring 16' x 3' x 2'.
The lintel above the entrance cracked and had to be replaced after an earthquake in 430bce. The front-right architrave cracked in 329bce, but was not repaired. The temple was subsequently abandoned and collapsed completely after an earthquake in 327bce.
The temple of Apollo at Thebes ....
The main architrave cracked while it was being mounted, and further construction was abandoned.
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Given a hundred or so such examples, a Roman architect of a new temple could make somewhat informed decisions about how high, how wide, and how thick he would need to build a new temple, and how afraid he should be when he was commissioned to build a new temple that was higher, wider, or taller.
- > Are there any foundational texts?
The treatise on Architecture from Vitruvius, a Roman architect. This is it.
- Walden by Thoreau - on self reliance and nature
De architectura By Vitruvius - classical construction and architecture
Song of Myself by Whitman - poetry
Hound of the Baskervilles by Doyle - thriller
- Read Vitrivius's De Architectura, specifically the part on building aqueducts. It's basically a manual for "So the Emperor told you to build a city from scratch…"
As a random aside, he also includes a proof that the water level mechanism he prefers works even though the Earth is a (roughly) spherical object and not a flat plane.
- Apician Morsels; or, Tales of the Table, Kitchen, and Larder "a farrago of gastronomical curiosities published in 1829 under the pseudonym Dick Humelbergius Secundus" isn't exactly comedic, but you're right to question its sources.
AFAICT it draws from the same source pool as the more scholarly papers and articles on Sugar and Lead in the Roman Empire.
I cited that little ditty as it headed the USofA EPA May 1985 by Jack Lewis that I cited from above ( https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/aboutepa/lead-poisoning-hist... ) that article in response to the "Did lead kill The Roman Empire" debate roaring back into life in 1983 after an article in the New England Journal of Medicine speculated that it did.
So, to defer to a clearer quote from Roman times about what was and was not known:
~ Vitruvius De Architectura (VIII.6.10-11) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius )"Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome. That the flavour of that conveyed in earthen pipes is better, is shewn at our daily meals, for all those whose tables are furnished with silver vessels, nevertheless use those made of earth, from the purity of the flavour being preserved in them"We can be confidant that an Architect / Engineer born ~ 70 BC understood lead to be health hazard without appeal to any gods or witches.
- Here's Vitruvius in "De Architectura" claiming it's common, easily verified knowledge: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius...
Of course, him mentioning "Don't do this" suggests that lead water pipes into the home were common enough to need a warning against.
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