1.The Romans built aqueducts, drained marshland near Rome and had sanitary and water supply systems for economic and esthetic reasons -- they needed water, wanted to use the land and they disliked the smell of excrement. It was a happy coincidence that aqueducts made life difficult for fecal-oral pathogens, that destroying an ecosystem in which mosquitoes flourished, and installing water-carried sewage disposal in rich people's villas, reduced the risk of malaria and diarrheal diseases.