The significance of irrigation for cultivation in Roman Western Europe is often underestimated. Roman irrigation infrastructure is found in perhaps unexpected places, and there is a general appreciation of agricultural and hortcultural irrigation not only in Roman agronomists but also in poets, writers, politicans and jurists. It was clearly of great importance in Italy and the northwestern provinces, from an early stage an throughout the Roman period. In these climatically favouable areas, landowners were the driving forces behind its implementation, successfully using irrigation to support and boost rainfedcultivation, collaborating to install the necessary infrastructure, and fighting over water rights. This book provides a careful examination of textual and material evidence for irrigation in Roman Western Europe, shedding light on an understudied topic that is as relevant today as it was in antiquityweiterlesen