More like a third-world country back there. Come to think about it, every large city I’ve been in lately has large areas which seem like a third-world country.

Sheets of lead were used to line Roman aqueducts (as was cement) and lead pipes to convey water. But lead also was known to be unwholesome and, for that reason, pipes made of clay were preferred—as Vitruvius, who wrote during the time of Augustus, explains.

“Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [ceruse or lead carbonate, PbCO3] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome. That the flavour of that conveyed in earthen pipes is better, is shewn at our daily meals, for all those whose tables are furnished with silver vessels, nevertheless use those made of earth, from the purity of the flavour being preserved in them” (VIII.6.10-11).

But I remember reading somewhere (unfortunately, I don’t remember where) that Roman engineers were well aware of the health hazards of lead. I recall that a fragment of one of their engineering treatises survives, and the writer comments on the fact. He warns that although lead pipes have many advantages, that the use of ceramic pipes was preferred because the water delivered was more wholesome. In other words, if you could afford clay pipes, they gave you healthier water. Lead was cheaper in the long run because lead pipes required less maintenance, less frequent replacement, and could be more easily bent into complex shapes. From this we can deduce that lead was used for the poor, and public water works, but the rich put in clay pipes in their villas.