Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy, Robert Sallares [reading a book TXT] 📗

that: tutte le opere di sistemazione idraulica anteriori al XVII secolo, in Occidente, sono delle migliorie più che delle bonifiche vere e proprie; in ogni caso, il mondo antico conosceva la bonifica idraulica, non quella integrale. Leveau (1993: 16) affirmed that ‘ en fait l’Antiquité n’a pas connu le drainage total au sens où nous l’envisageons. Les véritables assèchements ont commencé au XVIIIe siècle et il serait faux de croire que les terres conquises aient été le plus souvent drainées à l’époque romaine puis reconquises par le marais au Moyen Age’.

76

Ecology of malaria

13. The entrance (near Ponte Palatino) to the Cloaca Maxima, ancient Rome’s biggest sewer, complete with modern graffiti. Ancient Rome had drainage problems from the beginning of its history.

problem is great’.⁸⁴ Lake Velinus, first drained by M. Curius Dentatus in the early third century , was a typical example of the results of drainage in antiquity. Varro commented on how rapidly grass grew on the drained plain. As a result it was famous for animal husbandry, especially horse breeding, but Cicero stated that the drainage of the plain left the soil moist. That is not surprising if it could sustain rapid plant growth. This type of drainage would not have defeated the mosquito vectors of malaria, and might have even favoured them.⁸⁵

In antiquity networks of cuniculi (underground tunnels connected by vertical shafts to the surface) were constructed in various parts of Etruria and Latium. The character of these waterworks resembles the famous Cloaca Maxima, which was originally constructed to turn a stream running through the Roman Forum into a canal. Pliny the Elder described the large investment of labour ⁸⁴ Herlihy (1958: 47).

⁸⁵ Cicero, Letters to Atticus 90.5, ed. Shackleton-Bailey (1965–70): Lacus Velinus a M. Curio emissus interciso monte in Nar〈 em〉 defluit; ex quo est illa siccata et umida tamen modice Rosea. Pratesi and Tassi (1977: 98–103) described the modern environment of the Lake Velinus region; Varro, RR 1.7.10.

Ecology of malaria

77

required for the construction of the sewers of Rome, which he attributed to Tarquinius Priscus.⁸⁶ Both the purpose(s) and date(s) of the cuniculi have been hotly debated. This type of hydraulic technology was widely distributed in central Italy. The view has been expressed that the Etruscans devised it and passed it on to the Latins, although other historians have suggested that it is a mistake to assume Etruscan influence lies behind everything that the Latins did. The largest of the cuniculi, namely the emissaries for the Lago di Nemi and the Lago di Albano, might have had some religious significance, in view, for example, of the tale told by ancient authors of the prophecy that the Romans would not capture Veii until they had drained the Alban Lake.⁸⁷ Some cuniculi are connected to Etruscan roads, although others are linked to Roman villas, while a few are definitely post-classical, but in most cases dating criteria are elusive. In fact, different scholars have placed them in every century from c.800 to c.400 . Ampolo expressed the view that the cuniculi of Veii, which have received the most intense scrutiny, were mainly built in the fifth and fourth centuries , either side of the Roman conquest of Veii, for drainage purposes.

Veii itself was apparently healthy then (see Ch. 3 above), but that does not necessarily have anything to do with the cuniculi. Ampolo also observed that drainage was particularly important for olive cultivation in Latium in antiquity. Quilici Gigli concluded that the cuniculi of the Velletri region, immediately north of the Pontine Marshes, were more sophisticated than those around Veii and were constructed during the period of intense Roman activity in the Pontine region in the fourth century  (see Ch. 6 below). This is the most plausible solution to the problem, but there are other hypotheses. Attema reckoned that the cuniculi of Velletri were created in the sixth century  to facilitate arable farming. He also discussed Blanchère’s ideas.⁸⁸

In the nineteenth century de la Blanchère had raised the question of whether the cuniculi played a role in the history of malaria ⁸⁶ Pliny, NH 36.24.104–8 on the sewers of Rome; in NH, 3.16.120 he attributed a canal in the Po delta to the Etruscans.

⁸⁷ Livy 5.15.2–16.1, 16.8–11, and Dionysius Hal. AR 12.10–13 on the emissary from the Alban Lake.

⁸⁸ Blanchère (1882 a) and (1882 b); Tommasi-Crudeli (1881 a) and (1882); Celli (1933: 12–16, 19–20); Ampolo (1980: 36–8); Potter (1979: 84–7) and (1981: 9–11); Quilici (1979: 322); Nicolet (1988: 57); Attema (1993: 65–76); Thomas and Wilson (1994: 143). Cornell (1995: 164–5) argued that the cuniculi cannot be dated; Quilici Gigli (1997: 194–8).

78

Ecology of malaria

in central Italy in antiquity. However, their geographical distribution was not correlated with the distribution of malaria, which reached its greatest intensity along the coast, but with a particular geology. This can readily be seen by comparing Judson and Kahane’s map of the distribution of the cuniculi with the map of the distribution of malaria in Latium in 1782 given by Bonelli.

Judson and Kahane argued that most of the cuniculi are associated with a particular type of impermeable soil, namely the brown Mediterranean soil of the mesophytic forest. This pedological formation is most abundant in the southern and western slopes of the Alban Hills and around Veii, overlying volcanic tufo. Consequently Angelo Celli and more recently Franco Ravelli were probably right to argue that the cuniculi were mainly built before the spread of malaria in western central Italy and were not intended as a defence against malaria. The cuniculi were not designed to eliminate malaria, and certainly did not have that effect either in antiquity or more recently. In some cases they might conceivably have even facilitated the spread of malaria, if they were built before that happened, as the commonest view among historians maintains. If the connection with malaria is discarded, various possibilities for the function(s) of the cuniculi remain. Judson and Kahane suggested that most of the cuniculi were