Aqueducts are older then the Roman empire. People in Mesopotamia, Indus valley, etc were moving water long before the Romans. http://en.wikipedia...._(water_supply) Maybe large parts of Europe, sure. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus valley people, Yellow river people weren't thinking like that. And they predated Rome by 1000s of years. Those guys were creating the first civilizations on the planet when the ancestors of the Romans were a bunch of tribals. People were sophisticated outside of Rome much before and after it.