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A Walk in Roman Nyon, Along the Water

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A Walk in Roman Nyon, Along the Water A walk in Roman Nyon, along the water Let’s travel through time! We remain in Nyon, but we go back to Antiquity, 2000 years ago. There already was a city here, called Colonia Iulia Equestris. It’s latin, because the founders of the city were Romans. We think that it was Julius Caesar who asked for the city to be built because, in the name of the city, Iulia, that stands for Iulius, is his family name! (in the Latin alphabet, there is no letter J, so they used I instead). Colonia means “colony” and equestris “equestrian”. Because of that, we assume that the city was created for the cavalrymen of Caesar’s army so that they could settle after their military service (which lasted 20 years!). In this city, you could find various roman buildings, some of which you can still see in Rome. There was an amphitheatre (like the Coliseum), a marketplace where you could buy food, temples to worship the Gods (there were a lot!), houses and baths. Romans liked going to the baths every day. They went to chat with their friends, have work meetings and even workout. These big buildings with pools were called thermae (they still exist today. Do you know what we call them today? It’s where you can swim in hot waters). For the people to be able to swim in these pools, a great amount of water was required. The wells were not enough, so the Romans built special conducts called aqueducts. First, they had to find a clean water source. Then, they build a long pipe, a conduct, to bring the water into the city. It’s this conduct, the aqueduct, that you can see in the scale model at the Museum (created by Hugo Lienhard). © Rémy Gindroz © Rémy 1 We can see workers bringing a wagon filled with rocks, other that are making tiles and mortar. Mortar is what holds together different elements of the structure (a sort of concrete). Other workers are in the trench, a whole in the ground, and are building the aqueduct. Water would flow on the tiles and was protected by an arch. You can see the wooden arch used to build the arch; they would take the wooden part out once they were finished and that the mortar was dry enough. Can you spot the square hole in the overhead picture? It’s a “regard”, which was used to crawl in the aqueducts to clean or fix it. Beside it, there is a man holding a rather curious object, a cross from which are hanging some cords. It’s a measuring tool, the groma, used to control the direction and the slope of the aqueduct. They had to aim right because the aqueduct was 10 km long! The slope was very important because it made the water flow, so the source had to be higher than the city. It had to be steep enough for the water to naturally flow, but not too steep in order to avoid high pressure that would weaken the structure. In Nyon, the aqueduct brought the water from the springs of Divonnes-les-Bains. 2 The aqueduct during archaeological digs in the Petite Prairie neighborhood (photo : Archéodunum SA) When the aqueduct arrived in the city, it entered in a water tower. This tower increases the water’s pressure to send it out through the pipes. There were three pipes. The first one brought water to the fountains and public toilets. The second one went to the baths and industries (laundry service for example). The last one carried the water to the rich private houses, who could afford running water at home. In case of drought, they would prioritarily supply the first pipe (for fountains) so that everyone would have access to water. These pipes were not made out of plastic, like ours are today. They could be made out of wood, stone or terracotta. Metal pipes were rare, because they were very expensive. 3 Water was essential, just like today. We used it to drink, cook, wash but also put fires out. The houses often burned, because fire was used to light rooms, cook and work (electricity was only discovered a few 100 years ago, whereas the Romans lived more that 2000 year ago!). All this water came to the city nonstop, since it flowed from the source continuously. Fountains were overflowed, buildings, toilets and houses spilled water in the streets. That’s why they had pipes to evacuate all that water. Since the streets were flooded, they built crossings for pedestrian by putting elevated stones across the streets. You can see an example of a street in Pompeii in Italy in the photograph just beneath. A roman pedestrian passage in the city of Pompeii, Italy (Photo : Berthold Werner – Wikipédia) Water also swept all the waste away, which used to be thrown in the street. Pipes took all this wastewater to the underground sewers. The water’s course ended in the Lake, where all the waste was also disposed of. 4 The Nyon underground sewers. Drawing : Bernard Reymond1. The city of Nyon1 was basically a small Rome. Aqueducts were very useful because they brought water, essential for life, hygiene, industries and cleanliness of the streets. In Nyon, we also found the baths, the marketplace, the amphitheatre, the sewers and the basilica, where the Museum was later built. Have you noticed that roman buildings often looked like ours? Why? Well because they were well thought through and useful! That’s why we basically use the same systems. Do you know any other field where the Roman heritage is still visible? 1 From F. Dao, Guide à Pattes, vol.4 : À Noviodunum, c’est comme à Rome !, Gollion, Infolio, 2014. 5 .
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