Roman aqueduct
Rome's first aqueduct was built in 312 BC, and supplied a water fountain at the city's cattle market. By the 3rd century AD, the city had eleven aqueducts, sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city's many public baths. Cities and towns throughout the Roman Empire emulated this model, and funded aqueducts as objects of public interest and civic pride, "an expensive yet necessary luxury to which all could, and did, aspire".
Paris in the 17th century
Marie de' Medici needed abundant water for her new palace and gardens on the left bank, which had few sources of water. Recalling that the ancient Romans had built an aqueduct from Rungis to their baths on the left bank, Sully, the minister of public works, sent engineers to find the route of the old aqueduct. A new aqueduct thirteen kilometers long was constructed 1613 and 1623, ending near the present-day Observatory, bringing 240,000 liters of water a day, enough for the dowager Queen's gardens and fountains. It enabled her to construct one of the best-known fountains in Paris today, the Medici Fountain, a reminder of her childhood in the Pitti Palace in Florence, in the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace.