Dark Water

This is a continuation of my series, "A History of Water."

The Dark Ages began with a whisper, not a bang. It was the last escaping breaths of the dying Western Roman Empire. The Eastern half of the Empire, which by now had its own Emperor, couldn't help because the land connection between the two had been severed by foreign armies. The Eastern Roman troops didn't have the power to fight through on the roads that still connected them.

There was also no fleet to speak of to land a counter offensive since Rome, as ruler of the waves of the Mediterranean, had no need for one. She had long ago destroyed any sea rival. Ancient sea travel was risky anyway. Besides, soon enough the Byzantine Empire as the Eastern Empire would be called by historians ( a contrivance of scholars as the people of her day still called her the Roman Empire ), would have enough problems of her own with the barbarians.

In the West after the tribes that had invaded the Western Empire from the east had one by one taken over her provinces, the new settlers wanted to have a Roman life. After all, war is a profitable business, and they had enough gold to pay for a life of luxury. But victory would give neither them, nor the people they vanquished, that Roman style luxury for long.

The water supplies now crossed borders that hadn't existed before. A warlord outside the territory of a great city was not going to let his water flow to that city when he needed it for his own people. So the city kept its fountains, but now the fountains were empty.

At other times a city controlled the sources of its water, but invaders who would lay siege to the now city state would destroy the aqueducts. Whether the city fell or the invaders were bought off or repelled, the water did not flow again. No one knew how to fix the damaged structures or had the resources to do so. The infrastructure remained broken.

Also, from overuse, springs began to run dry. Again, no one knew how to connect the dots of finding new water and bringing it to the cities. To add to the problems, the sewage systems began to break down and there were no skilled engineers to repair them. This naturally led to unhealthy conditions.

So, gradually, as the people left the cities, the cities became ghost towns of what they were. When the people who remained needed to rebuild something, they just tore down what was abandoned and reused the material. And the people who left all followed the same pattern. Go to where you can get water. Water meant something to drink, game to hunt, livestock to be watered, and crops that could be irrigated.

Towns and cities - some old, some new - grew up if they were closer to the water. Many cities which had good ground but no technology or resources to bring in fresh water died. The people, however, would somehow survive. Europe would be reborn in a thousand years.

By

Jeffrey Ruzicka

Jeffrey Ruzicka is a retired executive of a small company that specializes in industrial water treatment. He lives happily with his wife in Western Pennsylvania. Is is a contributing writer to UtilitiesJobs, UtilitiesJobsBlog and Nexxt.