Agent-based modelling and the byzantine: Understanding the construction of antiquity's largest infrastructure project

Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) is an established method for simulating the actions, interactions and behaviours of autonomous agents. These agents can be individuals or collective organisations and the tool is able to assess the effects of these agents on the system as a whole. Based on theories of emergence and computational sociology, the ideas behind ABM were first developed many years ago but computational power of recent decades has allowed their utility to provide success in areas such as pollution, transmission of disease, culture, effective teams and cognition. Research is not yet widespread in the construction field,  but successes have been seen in areas such as supply chain and network management.The aims of this paper are twofold. We intend to demonstrate the applicability of ABM in construction management and archaeological engineering via its use in the understanding of the Byzantine Water Supply system for the ancient city of Constantinople. Unlike similar counterparts in Classical Antiquity, the Eastern Roman Empire’s water supply project is relatively under-explored. Starting in the 4th Century, a series of channels and aqueduct bridges brought fresh water over a length of approximately 200km from the hills and forests of Eastern Thrace to the burgeoning capital of Constantinople and its eventual complex system of reservoirs and cisterns. Understanding the organisation of human and physical resources for what would easily be by today’s standards an extremely large infrastructure project could provide insight for historians, archaeologists, and modern project managers. Part of a larger archaeological engineering research project to understand the hydrological, hydraulic, construction and social aspects of this large project, this study will provide understanding and appreciation of the level of resources, the time required, the transportation of materials and the planning of the construction stages of an ancient construction megaproject.