How Public Works Began

Public works were one of the greatest influences in Ancient Greece. They helped boost the economy, and acted as an artform, and they also led to a more sanitary life style.

The system of planning the public works was invented by Hippodamus of Miletus, and was admired throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Cities were built according to this scheme and old towns were reconstructed to fit this system. The Greeks were proud of the establishment of the public works and spent a lot of money on it.

In the Roman period, Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, covered a canal and used it as the main drainage system in the city of Amastris. These new forms of water-bringing got rid of some the ancient ways of using wells and cisterns, but wells and cisterns were still used a great deal as a source of water. The world has adopted thIs great invention of public works and have modified it with technology, making it better suit the people's needs. Who would have begun a system of public works if the Greeks did not? Would the world's knowledge be where it is?

TO RETURN TO THE HOME PAGE