Published 2023-12-01
“…For their part, wells connected to the nerve centres of the urban road network and to the supply system of thermal buildings would seem to have been in decline, becoming supplementary to the supply provided by the aqueduct pressure system.The collection wells categorically and definitively fell into disuse through the complete obliteration of the reservoir or, if originally in the public sphere, through their assimilation into private property, or even through functional conversion to drains, favoured as it was by the dispersive capacities of the geological subsoil and the considerable depths of the pipe.While this is the information that can be deduced from the analyses conducted on the city of Pompeii’s earliest historical phases, the data that have emerged from the middle and late Samnite periods reveal a change in previous conditions and the adoption of new mechanisms.Between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the introduction of a new urban layout and Pompeii’s entry into
Rome’s sphere of influence triggered an urbanistic mutation of the site inspired by the model of the Roman city.Roman-style hydraulic engineering in Pompeii also encouraged the choice of vaulted chamber cisterns, which were often introduced into the city as a complement to the previous storage structures.The chambered cistern type not only reduced the cost of excavating the lava bed, but also made for greater safety in open-air construction and enhanced the static capacity of the walls and cement cover to improve the structural qualities of the cisterns and considerably increase their storage capacity.In particular, the adoption of the sub-type of cistern with multiple, parallel chambers also made it possible, through the principal of the discharge of forces through the vaulted system, to terrace and amplify the spaces available for building.This is what research has shown in the urban construction of Pompeii, which in the course of the 2nd century BC was also focused near the height of the promontory, as attested above all along the southern lava ridge of Regio VIII. …”
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