I Greci, l’acqua e le città

Water supply has always been the main concern of the first settlers, contributing to the choise where to settle a new city. Although the Romans were recognized as the greatest aqueducts builders from all over the world, water supply techniques were already well known by Greeks ad before also by Egyptians, by Sumerians and by Babylonians. They are undeniably complex systems, often based on the exploitation of gravity, having contributed to the design of landscape, marking the soil and the subsoil of all those civilizations where the water was not only a consumer good, but also the mirror of a developed civilization. Treating water in connection with Greek cities means dangerously to touch a complex issue on the history of technology and scientific discoveries in antiquity, argument of heated discussions among the scholars. The object of this paper will therefore be to analyze some peculiar examples, which can enrich our knowledge on this complex aspect of city life of some ancient greek cities.