Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 3 -- Roman Encyclopedists
CHAPTER 3
ROMAN ENCYCLOPEDISTS
We title this chapter "Encyclopedists" because Rome's contribution to knowledge of underground
rivers derives in most part from a mindset. A Roman intellectual’s task wasn't to ponder, but
rather to harvest and standardize. The Greeks birthed democracy; the Romans codified the law.
We benefit from both.
Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC) typifies the result: a systematically partition of knowledge
into the seven liberal arts.
Grammar,
Rhetoric,
Logic,
Arithmetic (number in itself),
Geometry (number in space),
Music (number in time), and
Astronomy (number in space and time)
As in our own journey, we're not ourselves conceiving ideas about underground rivers; we're
grouping the ideas we find into a sequence of chapters.
The Romans' legacy was Latin as the Western world's intellectual lingua franca for a millennium
and a half.
Engineer Marcus Vitruvius' (80-20 BC) greatest contribution
to the Cesar's empire was not constructed works, but rather
his ten-volume De Architectura, the eighth volume being De
Aquis et Aquaeductu. A technology-laden page from the
1567 edition is shown to the right, testament to the lasting
power of the book.
Our interests, however, pertain more to Vitruvius' allusions
to rivers beneath the earth's surface. As in a hot bath,
according to De Aquis, waters on the earth are heated by
the sun to form vapors and clouds which when they impact
the mountains,
Swell, and become heavy, break and disperse
themselves on the earth. The vapors, clouds and
exhalations which rise from the earth seem to depend on
its retention of inner heat, great winds, cold moisture and
large proportion of water. Then when from the coolness
of the night, assisted by darkness, winds arise and clouds
are formed in damp places, the sun, at its rising, striking
on the earth with heat power, and thereby heating the air,
raises its vapors and dew at the same time.
Vitruvius describes the amount and taste of water which might be found in different soils and
notes how mountain snowfall issues forth as springs.
The trees which grow in great numbers in the mountains contribute to the accumulation of snow
during long periods, after which it begins to slowly percolate beneath the soil, and this same
water, once infiltrated, arrives at the foot of the mountains, the location of springs.
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