In respect of water there was no difficulty.  It was brought in the ordinary way, from those reservoirs which formed the ends of the aqueducts or conduits, by means of pipes, mostly made of lead, though sometimes of bronze.  These were conducted to the points where they were required, and there the flow was manipulated by means of taps and plugs.  In order to make a water-pipe, a sheet of lead or bronze was rolled into a cylinder, the joining of the two edges taking the shape of a raised ridge, which was soldered.  One end of a section was squeezed or narrowed so that it might be inserted into the widened end of the next.  Lead pipes of no inconsiderable size, stamped with the name of the owner, are to be seen preserved in the Palatine House of Livia, and a number of smaller ones remain at Pompeii.  For drainage there the sewers, and also pipes to carry the less offensive overflow of water into the street channels, which in their turn led into underground drains.

[Illustration:  FIG. 88 A.—­LEADEN PIPES IN HOUSE OF LIVIA.  (Palatine.)]

[Illustration:  FIG. 39.—­PORTABLE BRAZIERS.]

For the warming of a house the Romans not only portable braziers with charcoal for fuel, but in the larger establishments there existed a system of “central” heating, by which hot air was conducted from a furnace in the basement through flues running beneath the floor and up through the walls, where its effect might be regulated by adjustable openings or registers.  The only fixed fire-place in a town house was in the kitchen.  From this the smoke was carried off by a flue, constituting to all intents and purposes a chimney.  The belief that the Romans were unacquainted with such things as chimneys has been proved to be untrue.

[Illustration:  FIG. 40.—­MANNER OF ROOFING WITH TILES.]

The roofing, when constructed, as it most frequently was, in a gabled form, consisted of terra-cotta tiles arranged on a regular system.  First came the flat layers, each higher row overlapping the lower.  The descending edges of a row of these flat plates, as they lay side by side, were turned up into a kind of flange of about 2-1/4 inches in height, so that at the points of contact a ridge was formed down the roof.  Over this line was laid a series of other tiles shaped into a half-cylinder, the lower end of each tile overlapping the next.  By this means the rain was prevented from penetrating the crevice between the flanges.  At the bottom, above the eaves, the line of semicircular tiles ended in a flower-like or mask-like ornament, which broke the monotony of the horizontal edge of the roof.