The Romans and lead plumbing

[Jake_the_Plumber]

Neverminding the association to my username, how much did lead plumbing hurt Rome to help lead to its downfall? It is often cited as a major cause, and example of a culture outengineering themselves.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Lead is progressively poisonous, damaging the nervous system, even in small quantities.

WebMD - Better information. Better health.

I think a reasonable sharp fellow like you can fill in the blanks.

[SavageNarce]

Huh?

You’ll have to be more specific. Are you referring to lead poisoning affecting the thinking processes of the Romans, or their propensity to sit in the bath while the Barbarians stormed the gates? I haven’t read Gibbon for a while, but I don’t recall plumbing being listed as one of the causes for Rome’s decline and fall.

In fact, I would say that the Roman plumbing was one of the reasons that they became an empire in the first place. You can’t build a city without a reliable supply of fresh water, and you wouldn’t want to live there for very long without a sewer system. The Romans had both, in spades. IIRC, there is one Roman aqueduct that is still supplying water to the city, and parts of the old cloaca system are still draining Rome’s streets.

“Plumbing” comes to us from the Romans. The Latin word for lead is plumbum, which is why the chemical symbol for lead is Pb. The fresh water supply usually ran through terra cotta, concrete or open canals, and the sewer system was brick and concrete. Yes, they used lead pipe as well, but not in the same quantities and extents as the other forms of plumbing.

This site deals wioth the Roman water system and says, in part:

It has been hypothesized that Rome’s dependence on lead water pipes led to its decline. It has been suggested that the aristocracy died off from nothing more complicated than simple lead poisoning.

Since almost all of the lead absorbed by the human body is deposited in bones, investigators have studied the bones of ancient Romans. While some studies did indicate above normal concentrations of lead, it seems unlikely that water pipes were a contributing factor. Hodge (1981) has correctly pointed out that lead pipes would not have caused contamination for two reasons: (1) because the Roman water contained high concentrations of calcium which formed deposits inside the pipes, insulating the lead and (2) because lead will never greatly affect running water.

In brief, I would say that the fall of Rome was due to several factors - an empire that was too widespread to manage efficiently, poor government, excessive taxes, civil wars and rebellions, and a faltering economy. Lead pipes were the least of your worries when the rebels from the outlying provinces were pounding at the door.

[astro]

The popular “lead poisoning = Roman Empire downfall” assertion is somewhat open to question.

Roman Plumbing

Posted by: John Anderson, RI USA on February 8, 2004 12:00 AM A History Of Plumbing Engineering:

Lead was the mainstay of Roman piping materials, but they also made use of bronze, tile and wooden pipes. Water cocks and taps, along with sophisticated valving, helped them regulate the flow of water.
The History of Plumbing - Roman and English Legacy:

While early pipe and conduit was made from wood or earthenware, later refinement to lead made skilled workers in lead indispensable. The Latin term “plumbus” means “lead,” as was also the weight at the end of a line for perpendicular alignment. The plumber was a worker in lead who, in today’s connotation, repairs or fits the apparatus of water distribution in and to a building. The Roman artisan plumbed pipe, soldered, installed and repaired; he worked on roofs and gutters, down to sewers and drains; in essence, everything involving supply and waste. In fact, this general job description of plumbers’ work lasted into the 20th century.
Due to the extensive use of lead in Roman plumbing, some historians believe the Empire’s decline was due in part to water-borne lead poisoning. However:

…two things about the Roman water supply mitigated the unhealthy effects of lead. The first is that the water in the Roman aqueducts rarely stopped running. They had shut-off valves, but they didn’t use them much. The water was meant to move. It would flow into a fountain or a basin. Overflow would pour into the gutter and then flush the city.
Today, if you have lead pipes, they tell you to let the water run for awhile before you drink it. That prevents water from sitting in the lead pipes and becoming contaminated. That flushing out happened naturally in the Roman system.

[Mr.Duality]

I’ve been told Romans sometimes used lead nitrate in place of table salt.

[SavageNarce]

@Mr. Duality

I’ve been told Romans sometimes used lead nitrate in place of table salt.

I can’t imagine why. The Romans were very fond of salt - it was so prized that people were sometimes paid in salt, or in money intended to purchase salt, giving rise to our word “salary” and the expression that a good worker is “worth his salt”.

You may be thinking of lead acetate, sometimes called “sugar of lead”. The Romans tried using this in baked sweets. The idea was thrown out when they found that death usually resulted. :eek:

[stanger]

I remember reading many years ago that lead poisoning was blamed for some of the deterioration or Rome, but not from water or lead piping. The lead problem seemed to be in the wine that Romans consumed. I understood that the designs and glazing used in pottery was high in lead content and that the acids in wine leached the lead out, disolving into the wine and causing the poisoning.