The inhabitants of the legendary Pompeii and Herculaneum could have been killed not only by the eruption of Vesuvius, but also by the huge amount of toxic compounds of antimony in their tap water, chemists say in an article published in the journal Toxicology Letters.
“For a long time, colleagues believe that the Romans poisoned themselves by using lead pipes in their aqueducts. This thesis is not entirely true, since lead pipes “overgrow” rather quickly with limestone deposits, which prevent lead from getting into the water. In other words, such pipes were toxic only when they were laid or under repair,”says Kaare Rasmussen from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.
Ancient Rome, as many art critics and historians of science often criticize it, did not leave behind as rich cultural heritage as Ancient Greece, but the ancient Romans succeeded in two practical disciplines - in jurisprudence, and in architecture and construction. Ancient Roman roads, aqueducts, the Pantheon and other cathedrals and architectural structures have stood for thousands of years and are still in use today.
Studying the history of the fall of the Roman Empire, many historians and public figures have drawn attention to the fact that the Romans used too much lead in their lives. Pipes were cast from it, through which water was transported to the homes of citizens of the "eternal city", wine and sugar were cooked in vessels made of lead, and the "alchemists" of that era used it as a component of many medicines.
Lead compounds, as the Romans themselves noted, have an extremely negative effect on the brain and other parts of the body, which is why many scientists and thinkers have long believed that the construction of lead aqueducts and the proliferation of dishes made of this metal was one of the main reasons why the empire ended its existence so quickly.
Rasmussen and his colleagues tried to find out if this is really so by studying the chemical composition of the sediments and matter of the pipes themselves, found in the house of the banker Lucius Cecilius Yukund, buried under lava along with the rest of Pompeii during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
By dissolving pieces of the pipe in acid and passing its vapors through a mass spectrometer, the scientists noticed something unusual. It contained not only lead and traces of mineral deposits, but also a fairly large amount of antimony, a toxic semi-metal.
Antimony, unlike lead, is much more toxic and even small concentrations of this element in water can cause vomiting, bowel incontinence and more serious health effects such as cirrhosis of the liver and kidney damage.
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According to scientists, the pipes contained about 700 times more antimony than is present in the soil of Pompeii or in the rocks around Vesuvius, which suggests that it could pose a huge threat to the health of the city's residents.
Limestone and other growths on the surface of the pipes, according to Rasmussen and his colleagues, will not interfere with the interaction of water and antimony, so that the water that entered the house of Lucius Yukund and other residents of Pompeii should be extremely toxic and undrinkable.
How could antimony end up in ancient Roman pipes? According to Rasmussen, ancient builders used this soft and low-melting metal as a solder with which they fastened pipes during the construction of aqueducts. This, according to the chemist, explains well why the inhabitants of Pompeii complained about health problems and why lead was not associated with them.