"Robert Green" wrote:

Slightly off-topic, I was watching leftist PBS last night at two programs,
one about the Parthenon, the other about sunken Roman ships. The second
program turned out to be a lot more about the Roman Empire itself, and how
they made engineering a facet of every part of their lives. What's also
fascinating is how much the US resembles Rome, in both positive and negative
ways.

snip

The Romans pioneered things we use in the home almost every day. They
showed how, on the island of Ventotene*, where Augustus exiled his slut
daughter**, how they built a water collection system using hydraulic cement,
decantation pools and tunnels sloped precisely to cause water to flow fast
enough not to stagnate but slowly enough not to just spill out on the other
end. The system still produces 250K gallons of water per year.

I don't think so. What then was the use of the tanker that was shown
and stated to currently bring in the entire island's water supply?
Further, the program showed the narrator (or whatever he was; I missed
the first few minutes) walking through the underground passages.

How many of
our systems will be working 2,000 years from now?

In this area I don't see why not. The system relies on natural
substances (concrete) and gravity. So do most of our water supply
systems.

They put the catch field
on the highest part of the island and built cross-shaped cisterns to hold
the water after the debris was decanted.

Then, as today, the Romans controlled alcohol licensing, and only Roman
merchants could make and sell wine in the provincial areas. I guess their
version of the ATF would be the WGS (Wine, garum and spears!)

Hmm, then as today the country (most countries) controls production
and export of a particular commodity as a means of indirect subsidy
and tariff. Our country brings in moral/religious questions.

Fascinating stuff, and completely apolitical. (0: "Nova" has always, in my
mind, been the flagship of the PBS network and still teach me stuff at this
old age.

Nova as most of the non-fiction programs on PBS still brings in an
unnecessary element of suspense. Here it was something to do with five
days (maybe the narrator turned into a pumpkin?). There's also an
element of false risk as here they talked about (and showed) a
dangerous dive where there was no one to help the diver if he got into
trouble. How about the cameraman, guys? This is not supposed to be
fiction.

At the end talking about Julia you said:

** She turned out not to be a slut, but a political conspirator
against her father.

My comment:

I obviously saw the program but I thought they said that the idea of a
political conspiracy was just the musings of some historian and had no
solid evidence. Personally, I'd be surprised if it were a conspiracy
because based on the reaction of other emperors later on, Augustus
would have had her killed, not just exiled. Further the upper echelons
of this sort of academic pursuit tend to be increasingly filled with
bolshie feminists who'll go to any lengths to show that the female is
not just a warm hole.