CHAPTER IV., PART II.

THE LATER AQUEDUCTS.

X. SABATINA, A.D. 110; TRAJANA AND PAOLA, A.D. 1540.

The Aqua Sabatina came from the springs which supply the lake Sabatinus, now called di Bracciano (in the Middle Ages it was, and is still often called, Anguillara), on the side opposite to Rome, about twenty-four miles from the city, in a tunnel at a considerable depth. It arrives at the line of the tunnel of the Aqua Alsietina in about three miles. (See Aqueduct VII.)

The line of this aqueduct, which is chiefly subterranean, can be traced backwards by the respirators of Paul V., who repaired it, from his fountain on the Janiculum in Rome across Monte Mario to La Storta, and a little beyond it to the junction of the roads from Viterbo and Bracciano. Here the present road follows a winding course for the sake of better gradients, but the old one (_Clodia_) followed a more direct line in a cutting through the hill, to the left of the present road, as may be seen by the old paving-stones at intervals; and here, instead of the clumsy respirators of Paul V., are wells only, one of which is near the present road at the junction. The respirators are built over old wells, and serve to shew that Paul V. restored the _specus_ from La Storta to Rome only in this part. There are no respirators beyond that point for some distance, but the _specus_ may still be traced by the wells descending into it. About two miles further on, this _specus_ is carried on an arcade across a valley, and it may be traced from thence to the point where Nibby explored it in 1826, near the lake of Bracciano. From the Osteria Nuova (fifteen miles from Rome) to La Storta (ten miles from Rome), the rough pyramids continue along the line of the aqueduct, and at the Osteria itself there are two of different dimensions close together at the end of the house or _castellum aquæ_; one is nearly double the size of the other, and both are of very rough construction. Probably one of these is of the time of Trajan, the other of the time of Pope Paul; these wells, with the smaller pyramids over them, are continued to near La Storta; here a change takes place, and the respirators are modern, as has been said.

Procopius expresses his amazement at the quantity of water thus brought to the top of the Janiculum, and poured in torrents over the whole of the region of the Trastevere. This is still the case, and the fountains in front of St. Peter’s and in the gardens of the Vatican, are also supplied from this aqueduct. The water is so abundant that it is even brought over the bridge and supplies a fountain on the other side.

Paul V. also mentions (in his inscription at the fountain above S. Pietro in Montorio) that it had been previously restored by one of his predecessors, Hadrian I., A.D. 774. This was after it had been damaged by the Lombards under Astulfus, as recorded in the Pontifical Registers of Stephen III., Hadrian I., and Gregory IV., in whose time (A.D. 830) the work was completed. The Saracens again destroyed it in 846, and it was again restored by Nicholas I. (A.D. 860). It continued in use in the fifteenth century; but in the sixteenth it was much out of repair, and the branch to the Janiculum almost entirely failed. That to the Vatican continued to flow in 1561, and was repaired by Pius IV., as recorded on an inscription in the garden of the Vatican. In 1618, it had become almost entirely ruined, and was restored in a more thorough manner at great expense by Paul V., a member of the wealthy Borghese family, from whom it is now commonly called the Aqua Paola. The Orsini family, to whom the lake Bracciano belonged, contributed 2,000 ounces of water daily from that lake. Hadrian I., who had made the first great restoration of this water-course, was a Colonna, so that three of the greatest medieval families of Rome have contributed towards it.

The cascade which now falls down the face of the Janiculum, in a _specus_, turns the water-wheels of three mills in its course; this is mentioned by Procopius, they having been destroyed by the Goths, and their place supplied by other mills made in the Tiber by Belisarius, which continued in use for a long period. The ruins still visible in the river, opposite the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima, are supposed by some to have belonged to these mills. They were of wood only[168], and may have been built on the stone foundations; but these ruins in the river more probably belonged to the fortifications at the head of the Port of Rome, where there was a chain across the river to prevent boats from being carried down by the rapid stream into the Port[169].

Immediately outside of the Porta S. Pancrazio the _specus_ forms the boundary of the beautiful garden of the Villa Pamphili-Doria, on the northern side, for about a mile. It is faced with fine reticulated work of the time of Trajan, excepting where it has been clumsily repaired with brick in the time of Paul V., and it has a wall built upon it. Shortly after passing the limits of the garden, it arrives at the old junction or fork where the stream was divided into two branches, one going to the fountains in front of S. Peter’s and the Vatican, the other to the great fountain rebuilt by Paul V. above S. Pietro in Montorio, as before mentioned. In this part the _specus_, being above ground, had been much mutilated, and the engineers of Paul V. found it more convenient to change its course and make a new _specus_ for a short distance, than to repair the old one. The ancient reservoir and the fork in the _specus_ were abandoned, and new ones made about a hundred yards off, on rather a higher level. The old reservoir or _castellum aquæ_ was turned into a farm-house, by piercing the walls with windows and doors, and putting on a new roof. The original arrangement for the separation of the great stream into two smaller ones may still be seen in the farm-yard. The old _specus_ is here just below the level of the ground, with its reservoir, but there is an opening into it. A portion of it can also be seen under the Villa Spada, just within the Porta di S. Pancrazio. From the point of junction, or rather of division, to La Storta, and nearly all the way to the lakes, the _specus_ is underground; but the line of the branch added by Trajan can be traced by the respirators as far as the junction, ten miles from Rome, where, in the year 1830, an inscription[170] was found on the Via Claudia, near the tavern of La Storta, stating that Trajan had carried this water into the city at his own expense in A.D. 109. In the inscriptions put up by Paul V. after his repairs, A.D. 1611[171], the Alsietina, Sabatina, and Trajana are all considered as the same.

XI. TRAJANA OR HADRIANA[172] (?), (A.D. 120).

“In the time of the Emperor Nerva the health of the eternal city was sensibly improved by the increased number of castella, public works and buildings, and cisterns. Nor was his generosity less for the benefit of private individuals, so that those who had previously timidly obtained water in an unlawful manner were now allowed to do so by his favour. Lest some of the waters should perish uselessly great cleanliness was adopted, and there was better ventilation, and the causes of the bad climate for which the city was formerly infamous were removed. I must not pass by the necessity for a new distribution of the waters; but this, with the increased quantity we have added, can easily be arranged, that is, when the work is completed[173].”

These and other passages in the work of Frontinus shew that great works were carrying on under his direction, not then completed, their object being to improve the quality of the water, and to supply an additional quantity in case any of the existing aqueducts should fail, as they did occasionally, and to increase the power of distributing it, with a view to improving the climate. This is a proof that Malaria existed at that time[174], and that the best remedy for it was an abundant supply of water in the hot weather, for which the subterranean aqueducts were most useful. The improvement of the Aqua Alsietina, and the addition of the Sabatina, were not sufficient for both these purposes; and, as they supplied the district of the Trastevere only, this could not be all that was intended by Frontinus in describing the great works begun by him under Nerva, carried on by Trajan, and completed by Hadrian. The only work which will correspond to this account is the great aqueduct called by modern writers the Aqua Alexandrina, and erroneously attributed to Alexander Severus only.

The sources of this aqueduct are about three miles from Gabii in a watery meadow, nearly under La Colonna, the ancient Labicum. The reservoir of the Aqua Felice is in the same meadow, very near that of Hadrian. Several of the springs that supplied that of Hadrian were intercepted by the engineers of the Aqua Felice, who mistook these springs for those of the Aqua Marcia, shewing their ignorance of the line of the aqueducts. One of the streams, which is rapid and has a considerable body of water, is not used, because the water is of bad quality, and is so full of chalk that it is a petrifying stream. The first central _castellum_ and _piscina_ of Hadrian remains nearly intact, lined with the usual brickwork of that period, but much disguised in outward appearance. It is divided in the inside by a rough stone wall, as was frequently the case; the upper chamber to it has an external staircase added, and windows pierced in it, giving it now the appearance of a mere farm-house. Here the _specus_ is perfect, and from hence it goes at first on a substructure, then on an arcade across the fields, and along the line of arcade to the Cento Celle. The part near the reservoir is destroyed, as is the opposite end near that place, but great part of the arcade in the intervening portion remains nearly perfect, and is one of the finest arcades of the aqueducts, extending for miles across the country between the Via Gabina and the Via Labicana. In some places it is double, one arcade over another, to cross a low valley or a stream. At about a quarter of a mile from the source, the _specus_ is open in two places, so that a man can walk along it, being nearly six feet high and three wide. Small openings have been left on the sides of the _specus_ at regular intervals to let the chalky water escape; and in falling from above it has left the marks of a small cascade in each place, in the form of stalactite, a solid deposit of chalk or lime or tartar against the side of the piers, down which it ran. These petrifactions continue all along the line as far as Cento Celle, and near that point there is a part where the stones and bricks of the arcade have been carried away for building-materials, and the masses of hard chalk remain standing up from the ground, in small pyramids, having very much the appearance of concrete respirators belonging to a subterranean aqueduct; but this appearance is deceitful. There is no pipe in them; they are merely petrifactions formed by the deposit of the chalk from the water.

By the side of the line there are some fine _piscinæ_ and reservoirs, of _Opus Reticulatum_, at intervals, belonging to the time of Trajan or Hadrian. Some of the arches near the sources seem to be earlier. The brickwork is so fine that it appears more like the work of Nero; but most of the work agrees well with the time of Hadrian, and Visconti states that an inscription of Hadrian[175] was found at the reservoir in his time, towards the end of the eighteenth century, and given up to the Borghese family, the proprietors of the ground, who also drained the lake of Gabii, with the aid of Canina the architect. This inscription is believed to have been sold to the French, with other things.

The character of the construction of the _castella_, or reservoirs, does not agree with the time of Alexander Severus, but suits perfectly well with those of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian, whose works are so well known. It is work of the first or second century, not of the third. It does not follow the line of the Via Gabina, but is carried at once to the south of it, towards the Via Labicana, and passes nearly parallel to it between those two roads until it crosses the Via Labicana at five miles from Rome, at the place called Cento Celle.

The bad effect of the petrifying stream was noticed by the engineers of the Aqua Felice, and, as that stream was carefully excluded by them, it now runs to waste through the meadows. This discovery was probably made before the third century, and the _specus_ being then found to be choked up with stalactite, was restored to use on a higher level by Alexander Severus. Although the _castella_, or reservoirs, are all of the time of Trajan and Hadrian, the _specus_ and the arcade to carry it is of two periods, the later portion of it being of the third century. The principal intention of this aqueduct has been originally to supply the great villa of Hadrian at Cento-Celle, but a branch of it does appear to have been brought into Rome. Although it is very difficult to trace it for the last two miles, this may arise from the general use of all the aqueducts near Rome as quarries, by the engineers of the Aqua Felice. In the excavations made in 1871, in the high ground near the Minerva Medica, between the Porta Maggiore and the Porta di San Lorenzo, by the side of that portion of the Marcian arcade that has been mentioned as found there, was also part of another arcade of an aqueduct of the third century, which may have belonged to this, and it was in that neighbourhood that the inscription belonging to the aqueduct of Severus was found.

About a mile nearer to Rome, at the Torre Pignattara[176], or Mausoleum of S. Helena, there is a branch from the Marrana, passing under the Aqua Marcia, apparently to convey water to an imperial villa. The construction of the arcade of this branch to the south of the road is not of the same period as that of the other arcade on the other side to the north. It is usual for modern topographers, following Fabretti, to consider this branch a continuation of the Aqua Alexandrina; but as the water from the Marrana, which is at a considerably lower level than the Aqua Marcia, runs _down_ the gentle incline of this arcade towards the road and the Mausoleum of S. Helena called Torre Pignattara, this is impossible. The construction is chiefly of the fourth century. The Mausoleum of S. Helena is on lower ground than this part of the Marrana.

Constantine is said to have built a villa for his mother near her tomb; but there are no remains of an imperial villa nearer than those called the Cento Celle, a mile further along the road, or the one called “Torre de’ Schiavi[177],” i.e. Tower of the Slaves, about a mile across country, on another road, but on the same level. A milestone for the third mile, found opposite this mausoleum, with an inscription of the time of Maxentius, has been published by Ciampini. This indicates that some works were going on there at the end of the third century, and the arcade may be of that period.

A large and a very remarkable reservoir of the time of Trajan or Hadrian remains a little to the west of the mausoleum, and on rather higher ground. This was probably to receive the water for a branch to the imperial villa, afterwards taken possession of by the Gordiani, who built at that place their great family mausoleum, on which a tall medieval tower was afterwards erected; of this, very picturesque ruins remain, under the title of Torre de’ Schiavi. There are at the same place other large reservoirs of the time of the Gordiani, shewing that the great imperial villa was still supplied with water from the Marcian aqueduct in the third century.

No water under the name of Hadrian is mentioned in the Regionary Catalogue of the fourth century, it is therefore evident that this great aqueduct was not called then after that emperor, although we are told in his life by Spartianus, that many were made in his time, and were at first called after him (as we have said[178]). At the first reservoir, the starting-point, there was an inscription of Hadrian, and the other reservoirs belonging to it are also constructions of the same period. It may be that this water did not come into Rome at all, but that the aqueduct was made to supply the great villa in the place now called “Cento-Celle,” to which it leads in a direct line, and where it appears to terminate. If any alterations were made, these may have been done in the time of Alexander Severus, and this may now represent the so-called Aqua Alexandrina, as Fabretti thought, although he was certainly mistaken in one part of his account of it. The branch which went by the Mausoleum of S. Helena, and which apparently ran underground to the Villa of the Gordiani, was not a branch of the aqueduct to convey water into Rome, but a branch from the great aqueduct for the villa or villas, as it now does from the Marrana at a lower level. This short arcade is of the time of Constantine. The great and long one that leads to the Cento-Celle is of two periods, the earlier part of the time of Hadrian, the latter of the third century. It is quite possible that the original _specus_ had become choked up with stalactite in the course of a century, and that it was restored to use for a time by Alexander Severus, and so called after him.

THE BRANCH OF TRAJAN ON THE AVENTINE.

It has been mentioned in the account of the Anio Novus (IX.) that, after the main conduit reached the great reservoir at the arch of Dolabella, it was divided into three branches, and that one of these was not completed until the time of Trajan and Hadrian. This important branch was carried over the valley between the Cœlian and the Aventine on a lofty arcade, built upon the _agger_ of Servius Tullius, and over the Aqua Appia, also passing over the Via Appia upon the arch of the Porta Capena to the Piscina Publica. It then ran along the edge of the cliff to the north of S. Balbina, and crossed again the valley between the Pseudo-Aventine and the Aventine itself, a little further to the west, by the side of the road which goes down the hill towards S. Prisca. In the vineyard of S. Prisca a portion of the _specus_ remains perfect, at a very high level[179]. From thence it was carried across the hill to the cliff above the Tiber, where the monastery and garden of S. Sabina are now placed. These are on the site of a palace of the time of the early Empire. Some extensive and important excavations were made there in 1855-57, by the Dominican monks of S. Sabina, and among the discoveries then made were an extensive series of conduits, with a _piscina_ and a _nymphæum_ of the same period,—of the end of the first and the beginning of the second century of the Christian era. A cascade _specus_ served to conduct the surplus water down to the more ancient cave reservoir at the mouth of the Aqua Appia, at the Salaria. An account of these excavations was drawn up by M. Descemet[180], and published in the Memoirs of the Institute of France, with an excellent plan and section. Several brick-stamps, of which the words are given in that work, with the names of the consuls, and some terra cotta water-pipes, with the name of Trajan, were also found here. Others were discovered on the Aventine and near the same spot by Fabretti, who was puzzled by them, because they did not agree with his theories about the aqueducts. Donatus also mentions some of the same facts as known in his time. Some of the bricks were made at the kiln (_figlina_) of Annius Verus, said to have been on the Aventine, near the Salaria; and, if this is correct, that was the spot where they were found. Others have the stamp of Trajan himself. Another is the work of an Arabian servant of Q. Servilius Pudens, A.D. 139, when the Emperor Antoninus Pius and C. Bruttius Præsens were consuls. A piece of leaden pipe, with an inscription upon it, AQVA TRAIANA, was also found on the Aventine.

XII. AURELIA, A.D. 185, AND XIII. SEVERIANA, A.D. 190.

The Aqua Aurelia of the Regionary Catalogue must be the one made by Marcus Aurelius to convey water to his villa on the Via Appia, usually called the Villa de’ Quintilii, where a brick-stamp of the time of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 162) was found on the aqueduct itself by Fea in the eighteenth century[181]. This water was afterwards conveyed to Rome by his successors, Ælius Aurelius Commodus and Septimius Severus, to supply the great _thermæ_ begun by Commodus and finished by Septimius Severus, which were in the first Regio just inside of the Porta Latina, and must have been begun about A.D. 185[182].

The Aurelia was an important aqueduct, and there are slight remains of its _piscina_ just outside of the Porta Latina on the southern side: its _specus_ was traced nearly to that point in the excavations made in 1871. The modern road is cut through this old _piscina_, forming a foss-way in this portion: the aqueduct there passes underground, and has been destroyed or is not visible in this part; but, about a mile from Rome, it can be seen on the bank in the western cliff of the valley of the Caffarella. The _specus_ remains as a tunnel for a short distance, and this was laid open at both ends in 1872 under my direction; it had been concealed and covered over with Pozzolana sand, which had fallen over it from the cliff above, but it can now be seen again. The greater part of the _specus_ has been destroyed, and used for building the large modern farm-house on the opposite side of the valley, the building material having been good brick. As it would not pay to destroy the tunnel, that was let alone.

These remains of the _specus_ are near the well-known tomb called Dio Ridicolo. To this point it runs along the bottom of the valley at the foot of the hill on the side of the small stream or Marrana, here artificial, and parallel to that branch of the river Almo. This open conduit was probably made in the twelfth century, at the same time that the other branch of the Almo, which runs through Rome, was altered and made into a canal or mill-stream where necessary, in order to keep up a constant supply of water, and to avoid its being wasted in floods.

Let us now trace this aqueduct _backwards_ from Rome, in that part near the city. At the Nymphæum, called the fountain of Egeria, it turns at a sharp angle up to another small _castellum aquæ_, close to the church of S. Urbano, which is usually mistaken for a tomb; but the walls are lined with _opus signinum_ or _coccio pisto_, the invariable test of an aqueduct. At this point it turns again towards another fine _castellum aquæ_, at the end of the Circus of Maxentius and of his son Romulus. It comes on there from the head of the valley of the Caffarella, and to that point from the villa of the Quintilii in the Via Appia Antiqua. Thus far we have traced its course _backwards_ from the _thermæ_; in order to identify it more clearly, we will now go to the sources, and bring it down to the same point to which we have traced it from the _thermæ_.

The sources or springs are on the side of the hill of Marino, below Grotta Ferrata, in the same swampy district as those of the river Almo, and of the old aqueducts of the Tepula and the Julia. Several springs are collected into a central reservoir; and, as is usual with other aqueducts, they are then brought into a _specus_, at first underground to the foot of the hill, then upon an arcade, of which there are considerable remains at the Torre di Mezza, Via di Albano, about seven miles from Rome. This fine arcade of the third century goes on to the villa of the Quintilii, and was no doubt built under Aurelius Commodus, after he had obtained possession of that great and fine villa. In various parts of that great building are remains of reservoirs for this aqueduct, and of baths connected with them[183]. About half-a-mile nearer to Rome is, at an angle, as usual, another large reservoir, which has been turned into a farm-house; and the appearance of a medieval chapel or church has been given to it, by building a tower at one end. Possibly it was used for that purpose in the Middle Ages. From thence to the head of the valley of the Caffarella is but a short distance. Where the _specus_ has been carried on an arcade above ground, it has been destroyed as a quarry for the good old bricks; where the ground is higher and the _specus_ is underground, it has been traced in parts only.

THE THERMÆ of Septimius Severus and Commodus were close to each other, and probably connected. They are mentioned together in the Regionary Catalogue as in the first Regio, and there are remains of them under the small hill, called Monte d’Oro, probably, from the golden colour of the sand in its original state, which is situated just within the Porta Latina, between that and the Porta Metronia. Some excavations were made there in 1870 by the Archæological Society, and large subterranean chambers and corridors were found similar to those under the Thermæ of Antoninus Caracalla. The _specus_ of an aqueduct was also followed for a considerable distance in the direction of the Porta Latina. This must have been for the Aqua Severiana. Just outside of that gate are remains of two _piscinæ_ or _castella aquarum_, one on either side, and on different levels. One of these belonged to the Aqua Aurelia, the other to the Severiana. The course of this latter is more doubtful, but it was probably only a branch from one of the great aqueducts, and would appear to have come in the bank on which that part of the wall of Aurelian was built, from the Porta Metronia to the Porta Latina. It arrived at the bridge over the Almo (on which the gateway-arch of the Porta Metronia is built), from the great _piscina_ and _castellum aquæ_, on the cliff of the Cœlian, near the Porta Capena and the Camenæ, where two aqueducts are now visible, having been brought to light by the excavations of the Archæological Society. The construction of one of these aqueducts agrees with the time of Septimius Severus.

XIV. ANTONINIANA, A.D. 215.

This aqueduct enters Rome at the south-east corner near the Porta di S. Sebastiano, and passes over the arch of Drusus; a part of the arcade is visible by the side of it. The _specus_ can be seen both in the wall of the city, through which it passes, and over that arch, and one of the arches of the arcade remains on the east side of it. It was carried in that manner for some distance across the valley or foss, until it reached the high bank of earth on which the Wall of Aurelian is built, near the Porta di S. Sebastiano, and then along the edge of that bank, which is the great _agger_ of the ancient earthworks, against the outer side of which the Wall of Aurelian is built. The inner side of the bank is supported by a low wall here as in many other parts, and upon or against that inner wall the _specus_ of the aqueduct is carried. It is sometimes on an arcade, in other parts it is carried on the wall to the Thermæ of Antoninus Caracalla. The demolition of part of this arcade in modern times is recorded by contemporary authors.

The _specus_ passed upon an arch over the road in the old foss outside the wall into a garden on the opposite side, where it can be seen on the level of the ground; thence it can be traced through that large garden or vineyard as far as the railway, which passes on the outer side of it in a deep cutting. The remains of the brick arcade here form a wall between this garden and another. It is covered with shrubs, and looks like a hedge, from which circumstance it has hitherto escaped observation. The wall is cut through by the railway, but can be traced on the other side of it along the bank of a narrow deep lane, like what we call in England a Devonshire lane. This lane goes parallel to the Via Latina, on the southern side of it, for about a mile; the aqueduct then leaves it, turning short to the left. Near to this angle, at about half-a-mile outside of the Porta Latina, is a large reservoir belonging to this aqueduct. It is built against the western cliff of the valley of the Caffarella, the top of it level with the summit of the cliff, and therefore is not visible from above, as a person standing on the higher ground looks over it. It is also hidden by a clump of trees; but it is very distinctly visible from the valley below, and from some parts of the Via Appia, and is readily seen to be a _castellum aquæ_ by the boldly-projecting buttresses to support the wall with the weight of water behind it. The Aqua Antoniniana ran along the edge of the cliff, and supplied this large reservoir, which is oblong as usual, and divided down the middle by an arcade, similar to the fine one of the Marcian near Tivoli, and many others. This has been plastered over, and made into a cow-house. It is far above the level of the Aqua Aurelia, which runs below along the side of the valley of the Caffarella. The Aqua Antoniniana clearly came from the higher aqueducts in the main line; and, according to the Einsiedlen Itinerary, it was a branch of the Marcian which went to supply the Thermæ of the Antonines called that of Caracalla. Part of the brick arcade, with the _specus_ upon it, is here visible in another garden against a cliff; it then passes underground for a short distance, but soon emerges again, and can be traced against another cliff as far as the Via Latina, which is here upon a bank, or rather on the edge of higher ground, with the remains of a _piscina_ by the side of it. The _specus_ then again passes underground for some distance, and the next point where we have been able to find it is an old stone quarry, the vault of which fell down in 1870, and revealed this _specus_, which was not visible before. This is in the garden behind the Albergo de’ Spiriti, on the Via Appia Nova, about two miles from Rome, and near the point where it crosses the old Via Latina[184].

A large reservoir remains near the Porta Furba, about a quarter of a mile nearer to Rome, and just two miles from the Porta Maggiore. Here we excavated (in 1871) this large subterranean reservoir, near the Claudian arcade on the southern side, but not very close to it, rather nearer to the road to Tusculum (Frascati), which passes near the Porta Furba. This reservoir appears to have belonged to the Anio Vetus, which agrees with the account in Frontinus, of a branch of the Anio Vetus at two miles from Rome, going in the direction of a new road. The _specus_ crosses the Via Appia Nova near the Albergo de’ Spiriti, and the Via Appia Nova was probably a new road in the time of Frontinus, as indicated by the tombs of the first century along the side of it.

XV. ALEXANDRINA, A.D. 225.

The Aqua Alexandrina is distinctly mentioned by Lampridius in his life of Alexander Severus (c. 25), as made to bring water to his _thermæ_, which were near those of Nero, and therefore near the Campus Martius and the Pantheon in Regio IX. This could only have been a branch from the Virgo[185], as there is no aqueduct of the third century along the Cœlian, and no trace of a branch from the Palatine or the Capitol.

There is no probability in the theory of Fabretti, that the great aqueduct coming from Gabii, on the eastern side of Rome[186], was the one mentioned in the life of Alexander Severus as made by him to carry water to his _thermæ_, near those of Agrippa, in the Campus Martius, on the northern side of Rome. A branch from the Virgo on the Pincian, or from one of the great reservoirs on the eastern side of Rome, could be made at a tenth part of the cost. There is some reason to believe that there was such a branch passing near the Barberini palace.

Another branch may very well have been made from the great aqueducts between the Porta Maggiore and the Porta S. Lorenzo, to the Nymphæum of Alexander Severus, on the Esquiline in Regio V. An inscription relating to this is said to have been found at the _piscina_ in the garden of S. Croce[187]. It is far more probable that this inscription was found on the wall of the great reservoir, on the other side of the Via di S. Maria Maggiore, near the Minerva Medica, where other reservoirs of extensive _thermæ_ of the third century are visible[188]. These were supplied with water from other reservoirs just within the Porta Maggiore belonging to the different aqueducts; the Anio Vetus, the Marcian, and the Claudian, all appear to have contributed their share. The one specially called Alexandrina was probably the lofty one carried upon a tall arcade, from the reservoir of the Claudia near the Baker’s tomb,—forming part of the present city wall. The lower part of the piers of the arcade of this period may be seen built up in the wall; the arches lead to another reservoir between that and the building called the Temple of Minerva Medica, and are there brought to an end, just on the south side of the new arches made for the railway. The _specus_ or conduit, and the arches for it, on these brick piers of the third century, have been rebuilt for the Aqua Felice, in the same rough way as that _specus_ is usually built; but, as that conduit is carried on to the Porta S. Lorenzo in the wall, and as these piers of the third century cease exactly at the point where the conduit of that period would naturally turn off, there seems every probability that this was the Aqua Alexandrina, which was merely a branch from the Claudia and Anio Novus united to supply these _thermæ_, just as the Aqua Antoniniana was a branch from the Marcia to supply the _thermæ_ of Antoninus Caracalla.

The _specus_ of this branch was carried over the Julia on the Marcian arcade to the point where it terminates, which is exactly in a line with a lofty _piscina_ and _castellum aquæ_, now a gardener’s house, between the wall and the Minerva Medica, and there are remains of the tall arcade from one to the other; the last pier which joins to that building looks like a large tall buttress to it.

The Temple of Minerva Medica is a brick building of the third century, agreeing with the time of Alexander Severus, and there has evidently been a fountain of importance in the middle of it, with an aqueduct to carry water to it from the large _castellum_ near to it. Upon this _castellum aquæ_ a villa of the sixteenth century has been built; but the vaulted chambers, with the tartar deposit of water, remain in the lower part of this building, and there is a tomb or _columbarium_ of the third century at one end of it.

The dedication of a temple to Minerva Medica, in connection with an aqueduct, is natural, and that this was not an isolated example is shewn by an inscription found near Subiaco[189], and published in 1830 by Martelli, in his work on the Antiquities of Sicily[190]. The Regionary catalogue of the fourth century gives, in the fifth Regio, which contains the Esquiliæ, the Nymphæum of Alexander and the Minerva Medica, all which agrees with the existing remains of this Nymphæum. In the same vineyard, to the north-west or opposite side of the Minerva Medica, and very near to it, are the ruins of another building, called by some “a _nymphæum_,” now also a gardener’s house, under which the marble pavement remains very evident, the construction belonging to the period of Alexander Severus[191].

Both the Pantheum or hall for the men, and the Nymphæum or hall for the women, had images in the niches round them, and frequently an altar also, so that they were temples at the same time that they were used as waiting-rooms for the baths. The Pantheum of Agrippa was the entrance to his _thermæ_[192]; the building usually called _the Temple_ of Minerva Medica, from an image found there, is called in the Regionary Catalogue Minerva Medica only. A Nymphæum and a Pantheum equally required a _castellum aquæ_ to supply it with water for the fountains and the stream that ran round it, and there are remains of bath-chambers and niches outside of many of the larger reservoirs, as in this instance.

During some extensive excavations, which were carried on in the spring of 1871 by a company, with a view to building new streets in the eastern part of Rome, considerable remains of the lower part of the walls of these great _thermæ_ of the third century were found on both sides of the road made in the sixteenth century, from S. Maria Maggiore to S. Croce. The company bought two large vineyards, in one of which stands the fine ruin called Minerva Medica, which was evidently one of the halls of the _thermæ_; the ground is full of ancient reservoirs for water at different levels, some underground, others at a considerable elevation, turned into houses; they may be traced at intervals all along the line within the Wall of Aurelian, from the Porta Maggiore to the Porta S. Lorenzo, which is itself here built against the Marcian arcade, and in one part the outer wall of the large _piscina_ and _castellum aquæ_ of the Tepula is incorporated with the wall, of which it now forms part. This ground had been at one period the Esquiliæ or great burial-ground, and afterwards the garden of Mæcenas, so that remains of great works for the supply of water at different periods were likely to be found there, as was the case.

XVI. THE ALGENTIANA, A.D. 300.

This aqueduct is said by some to be only a branch from the Aqua Marcia from the _castellum_ or _piscina_ at the Porta S. Lorenzo, to the Thermæ of Diocletian, and to have been made by him. Considerable remains of the large _piscina_ for these Thermæ were found when the railway station was built, a plan and section of it was preserved by Visconti; it was not destroyed, but was built over and effectually hidden. The aqueduct was continued, A.D. 330, by Constantine to his Thermæ on the Quirinal, now in the Colonna gardens. Others say that the Algentiana comes from the Mount Algidus, near Tusculum. In the Campagna between Frascati and Rome, there are remains of large reservoirs or _castella aquarum_ of the third century, which do not appear to belong to any of the aqueducts hitherto described. They are usually said to be only reservoirs for the supply of the adjacent fields; but they are all on the highest points, and it is difficult to see how the water was conveyed to them. There appears to be a regular line of them, not indeed a straight line, (the nature of the country would not admit of that,) but still a line of them at comparatively short intervals, always within sight of one another. It seems probable that the Aqua Algentiana was brought in a subterranean channel or _specus_ from the great reservoir at Tusculum, which is on very high ground, and that the water was permitted to run into these reservoirs at frequent intervals, instead of being carried on an arcade across the country, as had been done in the case of the earlier aqueducts. It is beyond dispute that the ancient Romans were well acquainted with the principle of the syphon, and that they were quite aware that water will rise to its level after a very considerable distance: they may have therefore thought it expedient in this aqueduct to avail themselves of that principle. It is difficult to explain how water could be supplied to these numerous high reservoirs in any other manner.

XVII. AQUA CRABRA, AND MARRANA, A.D. 1124.

This stream was brought into Rome in the bed or foss of the river Almo (Flumen Almonis), mentioned in the Regionary Catalogue as in Regio I., and not otherwise accounted for in this enumeration. The water now comes from the Marrana, which has its source near Marino, and from the Aqua Crabra, which comes from Rocca di Papa, near the lake of Albano, some miles further up the hill; the waters of these two streams are united before a part of them is carried through the tunnel of the Aqua Julia to a point of junction with the bed of one of the many branches of the small river Almo. The Almo itself comes also from the hill of Marino, but from a different part of it, and is divided into many branches when it arrives on the low ground of the Campagna. One of these was made use of for this mill-stream, a canal being carried in banks of clay in straight lines, where the old bed of the river passed through low ground, and had been therefore liable to floods; but this old bed or foss was used, to save expense, where it passed through higher ground in its old winding course.

Originally that part of the branch which passes through Rome was alternately wet and dry, as many of the other branches are, and was liable to floods after heavy rains. The main branch of the Almo turns off to the south near the Torre Fiscale, following nearly the same line as the cross-road from the Via Appia Nova to the Via Appia Antiqua, and passing under this road twice. In this part of its course it is generally dry in dry weather; but when it arrives at the head of the valley of the Caffarella, several other springs that never fail run into this old deep foss. One comes from near the villa of the Quintilii, another is called the fountain of Egeria, a third the Aqua Santa, from its medicinal qualities. There is a bath-house built over that spring. The original springs on the hill of Marino bring little water in dry weather, not more than sufficient to supply ponds near to them for the cattle; but, in wet weather, the water runs off in the old deep winding foss, which also drains all that part of the country.

The sources of the Marrana are about a mile above Marino, and nearly three miles from Albano; they are in a long, narrow, deep valley in the rocks, and the water gushes out in several places at short intervals on both sides of this valley, which continues on under the rock on which the small town of Marino is built. Close under the town is a tall medieval tower, and at the foot of this is a _piscina_ of rude early character, the lower chamber of which is still full of water. A _specus_ cut in the rock as a tunnel is also visible at this point. On the side of the valley opposite to the town are the splendid ancient quarries of _peperino_, called by Vitruvius _lapis Albanus_, because Marino was in the district of Alba Longa. The stream flows on in the same deep valley, winding down the hill, and, at the foot of it, the Aqua Crabra, coming from Rocca di Papa, is united with it shortly before it is crossed by the bridge on the road to Grotta Ferrata, ten miles from Rome and near the tunnel through which flows part of the united water, the main body going on straight to the river Anio; the part which is carried through the tunnel turns at a sharp angle to the left, or west, towards Rome. At each end of the tunnel is a loch of early character, partly cut in the rock and partly built of travertine, with the grooves of flood-gates. Over the exit from the tunnel is a piece of old wall faced with _Opus Reticulatum_, of the same rude early character as that of the Aqua Julia.

After the water emerges from the tunnel, it passes in a deep bed to a bridge over the stream of the Marrana, near the _piscinæ_, six miles from Rome. At this point the deep foss of the river Almo is close to it. This is dry in dry weather, but has abundance of water in wet weather, and here the foss is dammed across; this appears to have been done originally to effect a junction with the water of the Marrana, which from this point flows in the foss of one of the many branches of the Almo that intersect the Campagna in this part. This mountain-stream is a very uncertain one; sometimes the deep foss is full of water, flowing at the rate of five or six miles an hour, at other times it is dry. Numerous winding streams are collected into one at the head of the valley of the Caffarella, near the church of S. Urbano. Here it passes through swampy ground at a place called Aqua Santa, on the cross-road from the Via Appia Nova to the Via Appia Antiqua; here also several springs fall into the deep bed, one of which is miscalled the fountain of Egeria[193]. In dry weather this branch of the river Almo appears to begin here, and from thence to the mouth of this branch near S. Paul’s, mentioned by S. Gregory as the Almo, the water never fails. All the other branches are deep, dry fosses after dry weather, and the branch that now flows through Rome must originally have been frequently dry, and at other times liable to floods[194].

To remedy this evil, a branch was made from the stream, consisting of the Marrana and Aqua Crabra united, which never fails; and, in those parts where the water passes over low ground liable to be flooded, it is carried in a bank of clay covered with sand, and planted with canes. In such a bank it is carried from near the ford in the natural bed of the river at Roma Vecchia to the Torre Fiscale. Between these two points there is a loch with a flood-gate and a lasher, over which the water falls into one of the deep beds or fosses of the Almo; but this deep bed of a mountain-stream has no other beginning than this same stream, here raised in a bank of clay, into which the water of the Marrana has been turned. In other parts where the ground is high, and consequently the water is below the level of the ground, it follows its ancient, natural, winding course in a deep foss. This is the case both near the original point of junction before reaching the ford at Roma Vecchia, again after passing the Porta Furba, and again under the walls of Rome near the Lateran. From Roma Vecchia, passing by the Torre Fiscale to the Porta Furba, it is carried in a bank of clay many feet above the level of the meadows; but after passing the Porta Furba, it again falls into the old deep foss for about a mile at the foot of the Claudian arcade, winding about sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, then near to a part of the road to Frascati. For the last half-mile to the Porta S. Giovanni, this road is modern on a large bank of earth across the valley or great foss outside the Wall of Aurelian, and for most part of this line the Marrana is carried in a small bank of clay against the side of the larger bank of the road; but before it reaches Rome it falls again, that is, the earth rises on the terrace under the wall, and the Marrana falls into the old deep bed near the Porta Asinaria, after passing through two mills built on bridges, one on the line of the old Via Asinaria, the other of the old Via Lateranensis.

This small stream enters Rome under the Porta Metronia, which is built on a bridge over it[195]. This bridge has a brick arch of the time of the early Empire, partly concealed by a medieval arch in front of it. Shortly after entering Rome the stream passes at the north end of what is now the nursery-ground of the city, called Orto Botanico, and under a bridge on which another mill is built; by the side of it is the road into that large garden, known to have been that of Crassipes, the son-in-law of Cicero, who mentions in one of his letters a flood of this stream carrying wooden shops from the bank in front of it to the Piscina Publica[196].

This is exactly the direction that the stream takes, as it turns at a sharp angle to the north directly after crossing the Via Appia, and passes close to the Piscina Publica; while the Tiber flows from north to south, and a flood of that river would have carried the shops the other way (if it reached that level at all). There is another mill near the angle on the Via Appia. The stream then passes along a curve at the southern end of the Circus Maximus, (washing the foot of a lime-kiln,) then under the slope of the Aventine and through the gas-works on the site of the Carceres of the Circus, then underground and through another mill in the Via della Marrana near the Bocca della Verità. The eighth and last mill is on the bank of the Tiber, and is built over the mouth of the stream, the back of the building resting on the old tufa wall, called the Pulchrum Littus of the Kings, in which an aperture was left for the Almo when that wall was built. The front of the mill is built on medieval arches standing in the bed of the Tiber.

This alteration of the bed of the Almo may have been made at an early period, of which we have no record, and restored to use in 1124, under Pope Calixtus II., or it may have been entirely made out of the remains of the old aqueducts at that time. We have distinct records of the work done then; but in one of these the expression used is _reduxit_, that is, he “led again” the water from the old arches. In any case, a great benefit to the city was made at that time, and the account of it fairly belongs to the history of the aqueducts, from which it was made. The following account of it is given by the Cardinal of Arragon, in the time of Pope Calixtus II., A.D. 1124:—

“He (the Pope) also brought water from the ancient arches, and conducted it to the Porta Lateranensis, where he formed a lake to receive it, for watering horses. He also built several mills on the line of the same stream of water, and planted many vines and fruit-trees round the borders of this lake with great care[197].”

Another writer of the same period, called Pandolph of Pisa, relates the same thing:—

“He _reconducted_ a stream of water into the city, and made mills, with vines near a lake[198].”

The ancient aqueduct which was made use of for the purpose was the Julia (V.), (which see,) and the ancient arches mentioned probably mean the tunnel through which the water of the Aqua Crabra and the Marrana united is brought. Its course has been already described, the great reservoir or lake (_lacus_) opposite to the Porta Lateranensis is very distinctly visible in the vineyard by the side of the stream, between that and the Aurelian wall. It is still swampy ground, and is planted with canes; when these are cut at the end of the month of January, it can be clearly seen, and the remains of the lake intercept the path on the bank of the stream. This reservoir might be restored to use with great advantage to the neighbourhood, and at little expense.

There are two mills on bridges across the stream on the side of this lake, and several other mills on the line of the stream, as has been mentioned. The water must always have flowed out of the lake in the old deep bed of the small river Almo, and passed under the bridge on which the Porta Metronia is built, into Regio I., and then under the foot of the Aventine by the side of the Circus Maximus into the Tiber, as before described. The tower built in the twelfth century, against the inside of the gate and the bridge, conceals this from view.

XVIII. AQUA FELICE, A.D. 1587.

This aqueduct is named after the Pope, Felice Peretti, whose title was Sixtus V.; he brought it from a place near La Colonna, the ancient Labicum, about twelve miles from the city, to the fountain of Moses (now so called from a statue) at the Termini on the Esquiline, as recorded on an inscription[199]. It is still in use, supplying the fountains at the Termini, near the Thermæ of Diocletian, of Monte Cavallo, near those of Constantine, and the whole of the upper town. The waters of the Aqua Hadriana were united with some others in the territory called Pantano, at about twelve miles from Rome, where they emerged from the mountains. All these sources or springs of water were collected during the pontificate of Gregory XIII., A.D. 1572-1585, in an immense reservoir, repaired in 1869, with several other smaller ones subservient to it for purification. The aqueduct was built in the time of Sixtus V. (A.D. 1585-1590), but the reservoirs were not completed until the time of Urban VII. or VIII. [1623-44]. From this point the water is carried into the canal or channel through an opening called the _fistula Urbana_, made in a piece of marble. According to Fontana, this water was brought to the Porta Maggiore on a new arcade made out of the materials of the old aqueducts in a very clumsy manner. It was the intention of the Pope to have made use of the canal or conduit of the Aqua Marcia, but that was found to be at too high a level, and his clumsy engineers were obliged to make a new arcade at immense expense. He availed himself, however, of the old arcades as far as he could, by building his new conduit up against the side of the piers of the old ones, sometimes on the Marcian, as may be seen at the place called _Sette Bassi_, and near the Porta Furba, sometimes against the Claudian as near Rome. After bringing it into the city in this canal of rough stone, the water was carried in leaden pipes into the old subterranean channels, as may still be seen in the deep _specus_ on the Cœlian, and the metal pipes pass through the tall brick piers of the arcade of Nero, and are supported on flat arches across from one pier to the other, with a rapid descent over the first or ancient road from S. Croce to the Porta Maggiore, and into the Specus Vetus underground, before arriving at the second or modern one from S. Croce to S. Maria Maggiore. The point of descent is marked by a respirator.

Pantano is about two miles from Gabii, and this reservoir is still in use. It is very near to the ancient _castellum aquæ_, which was made originally by Hadrian[200] for his aqueduct, as is shewn by an inscription found there. The other streams coming from Tivoli are said to have emerged also near this point, and the first engineer of the Felice, Matteo da Castello, considering the Claudian and Marcian lines as the best, followed those to the _piscinæ_; but having made a mistake in the levels, instead of using the Marcian _specus_ and arcade from the _piscinæ_ into Rome, and merely repairing it as the Pope had intended, Fontana was obliged to rebuild it entirely of the materials of the old Marcian arcade, with the help also of those of the Claudian, all the way to Rome. This was done in great haste and in a very clumsy manner[201].

From the Porta Maggiore one branch of the Aqua Felice is carried across the great foss to the Lateran, through the piers of the arches of Nero, and down a cascade-pipe into the old _specus_ of the Appia, and along that to the fountains and reservoirs at the Lateran. This is the branch that goes straight on from the corner of the Sessorium to the west. Another more important branch of the Aqua Felice turns short to the north from the same angle and over the Porta Maggiore, along the city wall to the Porta S. Lorenzo, in a new channel very badly and clumsily built of rough stone from the materials of the old aqueducts, making use of the piers of the Claudian arcade as far as they go, and then of the inside of the wall of Aurelian over the Marcian arcade. The Aqua Felice having here been brought to a higher level, that is to say, the descent from the _piscinæ_ being less rapid than that of the Marcia, after passing the Porta Maggiore, goes over the Marcia upon the Arch of Augustus at the Porta S. Lorenzo. There is a _castellum aquæ_ for it in the wall just to the south of the Porta S. Lorenzo, where the water may be heard rushing through, and the surplus water runs off into an ancient drain on the outside of the wall. With the rapidity of all the public works under that energetic Pope, the undertaking, a decree for which he had signed in April, 1585, was completed in two years, by the labours of from 2,000 to 3,000 men, and the waters were seen to gush from their sculptured fountain in the Piazza di Termini, on the 15th of June, 1587. The Aqua Felice was conducted for fifteen miles underground, and for seven miles upon arcades. Besides the Aqua Felice, the Via Felice and the Via Sistina (Sixtus) in continuation of it, and many other great works were inaugurated by the same Pope, who has been called the real founder of modern Rome. Other old subterranean conduits are employed to carry the pipes of the Felice where convenient for the purpose of conveying water to different parts of the town.

Junctions of the arcade of Sixtus V., or Aqua Felice, with that of the Claudia, take place at an angle where the Torre Fiscale has been built, and again at another angle where there is an archway called the Porta Furba, about two miles from Rome, and a most picturesque ruin of a _piscina_, with a tall tower by the side of it, in which is the ventilating-shaft of the conduit. The difference of construction and of level is very evident, and the three conduits carried on the same arches may be seen distinctly. The construction of the Claudia (VIII.) is of large square blocks of stone. The Anio Novus (IX.) is merely an additional brick conduit, the work is part of that of Claudius and Nero, and is carried over the original one at a great height from the ground. Near the city only small portions of this upper conduit remain here and there, as, for instance, over the Porta Maggiore, and in a few places on the wall. In some places, the arcade of the Aqua Felice runs parallel to the Claudian for a considerable distance, and is joined to it at both ends, as near the Porta Furba. This lower arcade carried part of the conduits of the Aqua Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, which ran from the Porta Furba into the city parallel to the later one of Claudius, at a lower level.

Where the Aqua Felice enters the city, it is carried on the piers of the arcade of Claudius, from the junction with the arches of Nero, over the Porta Maggiore to the old _castellum_ at the corner of the wall, where it turns at a sharp angle. Here the arches of Claudius cease; but the conduit of the Aqua Felice is continued along the city wall, of which it forms part, upon the ancient embankment as far as the Porta S. Lorenzo, and over the archway of Augustus there, using one of the older conduits. It then makes a sharp turn to the west, and after being carried along the north side of the road for a short distance, crosses it again on an archway built for the purpose by Sixtus V., as recorded by an inscription upon it; then it turns sharply to the west again, and is carried on an arcade between the road on the north and the railway on the south, to the great inner _agger_, which it reaches at a point near the Thermæ of Diocletian and the railway station. It is then carried in an old _specus_ in that bank along the east side of the Thermæ, and turns at an angle to the north, at the Via Nomentana, near the Porta Nomentana, a little to the south of the modern Via di Porta Pia; then along the north side of the Thermæ till it arrives at the great reservoir behind the fountain of Termini. The _specus_ is three feet wide, and the water in it is usually from three to four feet deep, running with a rapid current about five miles an hour, and constantly flowing day and night. Thence it is carried in pipes to the different reservoirs and fountains of the upper town. It also supplies the lower part of the city from the Ghetto to the Marmorata, along the bank of the Tiber.

SUMMARY.

Frontinus, who wrote in the time of Nerva and Trajan, mentions (as we have seen) nine aqueducts[202], reckoning as distinct several branches, or additional channels, subordinate to others more important. There is one more important record to which reference has not hitherto been made, namely, the summary at the end of the _Curiosum_ and _Notitia_, in which nineteen are enumerated.

The entry in the Summary of the Regionary Catalogue is as follows:—

Aquæ XIX. I. Traiana [X.] II. Annia (or Anio Vetus?) [II.] III. Attica (Anio Novus) [IX.] IV. Marcia [III.] V. Claudia [VIII.] VI. Herculea [XVII. Almo?] VII. Cerulea [IX.] VIII. Julia [V.] IX. Augustea [I.] X. Appia [I.] XI. Alseatina [VII.] XII. Ciminia (?). XIII. Aurelia [XII.] XIV. Damnata (Cloaca Maxima?). XV. Virgo [VI.] XVI. Tepula [IV.] XVII. Severiana [XIII.] XVIII. Antoniana [XIV.] XIX. Alexandrina [XV.]

Those not previously mentioned are (1.) Attica, (2.) Herculea, (3.) Cerulea, (4.) Augustea, (5.) Ciminia, (6.) Damnata.

1. Attica is supposed by Fabretti to be the same as Alseatina [VII.], but then how is the number of nineteen to be made up? It was probably the Anio Novus, as already described. [See IX.]

2. Herculea. This is mentioned by Frontinus[203] as receiving a part of the Aqua Marcia after its entrance into the city[204]. Another stream of the same name, thirty-eight miles from the city, was added to the Anio Novus[205]; but it seems most probable that the stream here intended is the Almo, which enters Rome under the Porta Metronia, and conveys the water of the Marrana, or Aqua Crabra, coming from these two mountain-streams united, as already described. This is always a very strong stream. It follows the line of the aqueducts for miles towards Rome, and received the surplus water in many places, where there were _piscinæ_; it passes very near to the point where the aqueducts enter Rome at the Porta Maggiore, and may very well have received the surplus water there also of the Marcia, as stated by Frontinus.

3. Cerulea. This is the name of one of the branches of the Claudia, among its sources, and is mentioned in the inscription at the Porta Maggiore; but again, this does not account for one of the nineteen Aquæ.

4. Augustea. A stream was added to the Aqua Marcia by Augustus, and called after him[206]; but that would not account for another stream in Rome here indicated as one of the nineteen Aquæ. It is more probable that the water here intended is the Augustan branch of the Aqua Appia, which was united at the Gemelli within the outer wall of Rome. Frontinus (c. 4), indeed, mentions that the Alseatina was also called Augustea, but that would not account for another of the nineteen streams[207].

5. Ciminia, another name for the Sabbatina [X.], according to Onuphrius Panvinius; but the sources of the Sabbatina are very distant from the Monte Cimino. Ciminia is perhaps written for Curtia, another source of the Claudia; but again, this does not account for another of the nineteen streams.

6. Damnata. This may be the stream that comes from the Quirinal and the Palatine, and which formed the lake of Curtius, whence it was conveyed into the Cloaca Maxima, as it still is. It was therefore _condemned_ to serve for washing out a drain only.

There is reason to believe that some of these nineteen streams are the natural watercourses, and others merely branches from the great aqueducts, as has been said.

There were 1,452 _lacus_, that is wells, or cisterns of water, supplied by the aqueducts in Rome, according to the _Horum Breviarium_ of the _Notitia_, or Catalogue of the fourth century, and they must in many instances have been very near together. A reservoir for the distribution of the water was almost a necessary termination of an aqueduct, and at a junction it was equally necessary.

Rutilius describes the aqueducts about A.D. 417, in such terms as shew that they were not destroyed in the first siege of the Goths[208]. Cassiodorus represents them as perfect, about twenty years before the siege carried on by Vitiges[209]. At the time of the siege by that king, Procopius (i. 19), writing in the sixth century, records only the fourteen aqueducts already mentioned[210].

APPENDIX.—AQUEDUCTS.

Since this chapter was printed, the great excavations that have been carried on in Rome have brought to light many remains of the old Aqueducts in places where they were not previously known or thought of. These are so numerous that we can do little more than mention them, beginning at the Sessorium, where the principal aqueducts entered Rome. In the Sessorian or Palatian gardens, now those of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a pit was dug in the reservoir which was used for the Thermæ of S. Helena, which is a large cistern of two narrow chambers, with others similar under them; this was ascertained by digging this pit. Remains of other reservoirs along the line of the north wall of the garden, which is made out of the old aqueduct, were brought to light more clearly. Just outside of this garden is the road from the church of Santa Croce to the Porta Maggiore[211], which is carried on a bank of earth that was the boundary of the Sessorian garden, and on the outer side of it, this bank is supported by a wall of the time of Constantine, no doubt built when his mother, S. Helena, resided there. Just beyond this bank, and in the great foss of the ancient fortress, are two large reservoirs close together, one on either side of the foss. These appear to correspond with the _Gemelli_, or twin reservoirs of Frontinus; an excavation made here was stopped by water, but enough was seen to make it evident that there were other chambers under them, and that they were very deep, but have probably been used for one of the later aqueducts, at a higher level also. It was very usual to carry one aqueduct nearly over another, in order that the older subterranean reservoir might receive the surplus water of the later and higher ones. It is probable that in this instance the Claudia and Anio Novus had each a reservoir here on the higher level, and that the water of the two was here united and carried on along the Cœlian Hill in one _specus_, on the arches of Nero, to the middle of the city.

The inscriptions on the Porta Maggiore record the distances from the sources of the aqueducts to this point, clearly shewing that this was the entrance into Rome in the outer wall, though not into the CITY, until the boundary of the city was extended to this outer wall by Aurelian, in the third century. On the northern side of this great gate remains of the Marcian arcade were found going from this point, where the three aqueducts pass through the outer wall at one of the angles, and go straight on to the high bank on which the wall of Aurelian was afterwards carried, to the Porta Tiburtina (now di S. Lorenzo), and the reservoirs there. The _specus_ passes underground for some distance, about half-way between the two gates, and is carried on arches near the gates. The fine building called Minerva Medica was full of fountains, as was all the great public garden in which it stands, and all the fountains in Rome were supplied by the aqueducts. Between this building, of the third century, and the wall, is another large reservoir, turned into a house, where considerable excavations have been made. The later aqueduct, called Aqua Alexandrina, was carried in the wall over the earlier ones, to a point just opposite, to the remains of the Minerva Medica. The piers of the arches that supported the _specus_ can be seen in the wall, both outside and inside, as far as this, but they go no farther. This point, where they cease, is close to the place where the railway passes through the wall. Beyond these arches other excavations were made by the archæologists near the Porta di S. Lorenzo, and the arches that carried the Marcia, etc., were shewn. There are remains of two reservoirs near this point; the outer wall of one now forms part of the city wall, and is foolishly called “the house of Cicero;” the other is just within the line, but still on the bank, with the wall of Aurelian built close against it on the outer side. There are remains of another reservoir on the other side of the gate, and one branch goes on from thence to the Prætorian Camp, passing by the Porta Chiusa, where the _specus_ was shewn in some other excavations of the archæologists; and near to it, on the south side, is a large reservoir on the bank, cut through the middle by the wall of Aurelian. This proves that the great bank of earth was there, and had the aqueducts carried upon it, before the time that the wall of Aurelian was built. The _specus_ then goes upon the bank round this camp, but is for the most part concealed; it is visible again on the northern side, which is the only perfect part of the fortification of the camp by Tiberius, and his wall stands upon the earlier _specus_ of the aqueduct; the latter is faced with _opus reticulatum_ where perfect; the wall is of fine brickwork.

The branch that goes from the Porta di S. Lorenzo to the other reservoir, under the Trophies of Marius, is carried on a fine arcade of the first century; this has been brought out far more clearly than it had been for many centuries. The remains of the reservoir at this very high level are also made visible. Signor Ernest de Mauro, the surveyor who took the levels, considers this branch so high, that the only water that could reach it was that of the Claudia and Anio Novus united, which we know from Frontinus was carried into all the fourteen Regiones of Rome, but it was considered by Fabretti to have belonged to the Aqua Julia; the difference of level between the two aqueducts is only ten feet. At this high point the water was divided, and carried in different directions; one branch, of which part of the _specus_ is visible, went to the other great reservoir called the Sette Sale, which supplied the Thermæ of Titus and Trajan on the Esquiline, and the surplus water passed on to the Colosseum and to the fountain called the Meta Sudans. From the other great division of the aqueducts, at the corner of the Sessorian gardens, near the Porta Maggiore, the well-known arches of Nero go along the bank to the Lateran, and from thence along the Cœlian Hill to the great central reservoir of Nero, over the Arch of Dolabella. At that point it has been already shewn that several of the aqueducts met, and were divided into three branches, one straight on to the Palatine, on a double arcade across the valley from the Cœlian, of which there are considerable remains of the lower tier of arches, and one arch of the upper tier, which forms a sort of back gate to the palaces of the Cæsars. A second branch passed over the Porta Capena to the Aventine, at different levels; the earliest and lowest, the Aqua Appia, is the one that can now be the most distinctly traced. After passing over the short _agger_ of Servius Tullius it goes underground under the cliff, at the north end of the Pseudo-Aventine, and at the further end under the hill on which S. Sabba now stands; a series of stone-quarries have been made by cutting away one side of the _specus_, leaving the wells to give air to the quarry.

At this point excavations have repeatedly been made by the archæologists, and as often filled up again by the workmen in the summer months, until 1876, when an arrangement was made with the proprietor to make a more complete excavation, and put up a door to protect it. In this part, which is just before the _specus_ crosses the last road on its way to the Tiber, seven different branches of other aqueducts cast their surplus water into this earliest and lowest; in many parts this was only a tunnel cut in the bed of tufa, and generally half full of a deposit of clay, left by the water which comes from the clayey fields of Lucullus, but in one part it is built of large blocks of tufa, like the walls of the Kings; it is here six feet high and two feet wide; on each side of it is a terra-cotta water-pipe of very early character, and bringing different water in the same tunnel[212].

Near this point it crossed _over_ the road on a bridge (?), or perhaps from the low level _under_ it, at the site of a gate where the four roads meet, to another old stone-quarry of the same kind nearly under Santa Prisca, where the _specus_ was visible in 1874, but is now concealed by some of the vault having fallen in; and from that it has been traced through another series of old stone-quarries to the mouth on the bank of the Tiber, in the very curious cave called that of Picus and Faunus, and Hercules—having previously passed through another reservoir, with water still in it knee-deep, remaining at a considerable distance under the hill, with a _specus_ from thence to the cave at the mouth, partly a natural channel for the water to escape, and partly cut when the aqueduct was made.

The third great branch from the Arch of Dolabella went direct to the Colosseum, and two subsidiary springs still flow there, one under the garden of the Villa Celi-Montana, the other under the garden of the monastery of SS. John and Paul, near to the Colosseum, the latter a very abundant stream, bubbling up copiously; and there are three small pools supplied by it in that quarry, which was formerly called the _Vivarium_, and supposed to have been the place where the wild beasts were kept, but this was a mistake[213]. From that reservoir another branch went in a _specus_ at a considerable depth under the garden of the Marchese Rappellini, behind the monastery of S. Gregory. In this garden there was a landslip in the spring of 1876, and the Marchese thought it probable that the palace of Scaurus had stood there, as it is close by the sloping road called the Clivus Scauri; I thought it more likely to have been the aqueduct which had fallen in, but agreed that the archæologists should excavate it, which was done in May. It turned out to be an old stone-quarry that had fallen in, at the depth of more than 20 ft., but the _specus_ of the aqueduct had passed through the quarry, and remained visible in the pit coming from the cave called the _Vivarium_, and going over the Porta Capena. There is, however, so little of interest left, that the pit was filled up again, after a plan and sketch had been made by Signor Cicconetti.

Another branch of the three aqueducts (Marcia, Tepula, and Julia) went from the Porta di S. Lorenzo along the side of the road or _via_, so called, partly in the bank, by the side of it; the upper _specus_ is now visible, the other two are under it. The whole were underground until the levels were altered in the arrangements for the new city. This branch led straight to the _Mons Justitiæ_, in the centre of the great _agger_ of Servius Tullius. Near this point the four young princes found in their excavation, in 1870, two _cippi_ near together, with inscriptions upon them, stating that the _three aqueducts_ passed between them, and the _specus_ of the upper one, the Julia, was brought to light; the other two, Tepula and Marcia, remained underground. Not much more than a hundred yards from this, another _cippus_ had previously been found, on the top of a well, recording that it descended into the Anio Vetus, which therefore ran under the others, at a great depth in this part, on account of the different levels of the ground, and was then carried along the inner side of this great bank both right and left. The one to the right, or north, going to the gardens of Sallust, or at least a branch from one of the three, went along the horn-work at that corner of the old city, and had a reservoir under the house (now rebuilt by Mr. Spithœver), and then to the _nymphæum_ at the end, and (to the east) of the _Porticus Milliarius_ of Aurelian. In the opposite direction, the left, or south, it went along the inside of the _agger_, on which a row of houses of the first century had been built. It has been found at intervals in several places, one of which is close to the house of Mæcenas. Another branch of an early aqueduct has been found in the tufa rock behind the houses, near the great church of S. Maria Maggiore, on a high level, at the south end of some great building of the first century, or earlier, which was formerly called the _Porticus Liviæ_ and an account of it was published under that name, but the fragment of the Marble Plan of Rome, with the plan of that building and the name upon it, clearly shews this to have been an error. The _Macellum Livianum_, or meat-market of Livia, was found in these excavations near the arch of Gallienus, but there is no connection between the _Macellum_ and the _porticus_, which is represented as an oblong platform, with steps up to it at one end, and with a grand double colonnade all round it. Nothing like this was found near the _Macellum_, and as the earth was carried away to the depth of several feet, if it had been there it must have been found.

In the third century, when nearly all the temples in the Forum were rebuilt, the great public building which forms the north end of that Forum (by whatever name it may be called), was also very much altered in many ways; the main fabric, at the west end, is still original, as it was in the time of Varro, when it was justly mentioned as one of the oldest buildings in Rome. But in the interior great alterations were made, and amongst these, at the west end of the Ærarium (or bank-vaults as they might have been called), the arrangement was entirely altered; the public treasury was transferred to the imperial offices on the Palatine, in what are called the palaces of the Cæsars, and at the west end of the Ærarium an aqueduct was introduced, with a reservoir and a well. A _specus_ of brickwork of the third century is visible, but to which aqueduct it belonged is not easily ascertained; from its level it would agree with the Marcia; it is not high enough for the Anio Novus carried over the bridge of Caligula, though that must have passed near this point; and it is too high for the Anio Vetus, although remains of this have been found also at a short distance; but on lower ground, under, and at the back of a wine-shop in the Via del Consolazione, but quite at the east end of it, and near the corner of the steps that ascend from it to the door of the Municipio, on the level of the Tabularium, a reservoir that must have belonged to that aqueduct has been found, and the _specus_ traced at the back, parallel to the street, apparently cut out of the tufa rock. Two doors further from the steps the _specus_ is again visible at the back of the shop; and at the same point, but going in an opposite direction, a subterranean passage, which also appears to be cut in the tufa rock, going in the direction of the Piazza del Campidoglio, and said to go as far as the statue of Marcus Aurelius. Whether this had any connection with the aqueduct, or what its object was, is at present not known.

The Plan and Section of the Aqueducts at the Claudium which is also at the end of the arches of Nero, on the Cœlian Hill, the point from which the water was divided into three branches, have been partially shewn in this work, but this could not be done completely until the explorations were made in 1875 and 1876. Subsidiary springs were continually used for the old aqueducts, that no water might be lost that could be used. Of these springs two were found in the space indicated in this Plan, one under part of the garden of Baron Hoffman, near the Navicella, the other under the garden of the monks of SS. John and Paul, in the cave or old stone-quarry which was formerly called a _vivarium_, but which really was a reservoir of the old aqueducts, and this is the most copious spring of the two. It seems almost certain that the water from both these springs found its way into the Colosseum, after the great excavations were made there in 1874-75. To get rid of this water is now (in 1876) a great object. The Government and the Municipality propose, at an enormous expense, to make a new drain from the Colosseum to the Tiber at a great depth. Careful enquiries have been made of the workmen employed in repairing the original drain of the time of Sylla and Scaurus; it was found in a very bad state, and the workmen were afraid to go along it without putting a wooden centering under the old vault, as they were made to fear lest the earth should fall in behind them. This was done for the whole length of the Colosseum, nearly as far as the Arch of Constantine, but the men were then obliged to give up this examination of it for want of air. They state that the main body of the water appeared to come in from under the road from the Navicella, and to run in a continuous stream as if from an aqueduct, and not to bubble up out of the earth as in a spring. This led to the exploration shewn in Plate XXXVI., to ascertain where the water came from[214]. The two springs above mentioned are both on a much higher level than the Colosseum, as will be seen by the Section; and as both are good drinking water, always fresh, it is certain that they must each have some outlet, or they would soon be stagnant and putrid. Every probability seems in favour of these being the springs that supply the inundation of the Colosseum, and if they could be turned off in another direction, as suggested in this Plan, the chief difficulty would be removed. A steam-engine would soon pump the water out, if it did not come in again. The so-called _vivarium_, under the Claudium, is marked on the excellent map of Nolli, in the eighteenth century, as a reservoir for water, which probably had been true; there are three small reservoirs there now which might easily have been united, and the whole be filled by closing the outlet.

Frontinus tells us that the aqueduct of Nero terminated at the temple of Claudius, which was in the centre of the Claudium; this was in fact the sacred enclosure round his temple. A fragment of the Marble Plan of Rome also confirms this, but it is equally clear that soon after the time of Claudius and Nero the water was carried on in three branches, one to the Aventine, another to the Palatine, and the third to the Colosseum, as has been before stated, and there are remains of the arcades of each in all three directions. The _specus_ found in April, 1876, under the garden of the Marchese Rappini, must have come from the reservoir mis-called the _vivarium_, but it had been long out of use.

Many other remains of the aqueducts within the walls of Rome have been found during the great excavations of 1874-1876, in different parts of the city. Some of these have been already mentioned.

Dr. Fabio Gori has sent me an important notice of some excavations recently made between Subiaco and Vico Varo, which throw new light on the line of the _specus_, or channels of the aqueducts, in several places.

On p. 13, note h, it is stated that “the Anio Vetus has its source in the district called _La Connotta_, and passes under the hill of Marano;” but it now appears that the aqueduct in La Connotta belongs to the Anio Novus, because they have discovered at the sources of the Aqua Marcia another aqueduct on a lower level, which must be the Anio Vetus. This is on the opposite side of the river Anio, and passed over the river on the bridge at Vico Varo, of which the great stone piers remain in the bed of the river. He could not find the sources of the Anio Vetus at the fortieth mile, near the bridge of Agosta (twenty miles above Tivoli), because the torrents, in time of flood, have brought down such a quantity of stone in the bed of the river Anio, and the valley through which it flows, that the level of the ground, and of the bottom of the river in this part, is now nearly twenty feet higher than it was when that aqueduct was made.

At p. 60, it is said that Dr. Gori had found the _Piscina Limaria_ of the Anio Novus, made by Claudius, “at the _Prata della Cartiera_ of Subiaco;” that was written when they had found a large aqueduct by the side of the _Emissarium Barberini_; but the recent excavations have shewn that the water for that aqueduct came from the third loch, near the bridge of S. Mauro, where the opening at the entrance to the _specus_ was found, covered with an iron grating. From this it was inferred that there was a special aqueduct with a private _specus_ to supply the baths and thermæ of the _Villa Neronis Sublacensis_. A quantity of marble of very rare kinds, from this villa, on the margin of the river, has been found, and in the bed of the river the foot of a colossal bronze statue.

The question of the true site of the _Piscina Limaria_, of Frontinus, still remains to be settled, and with it the beginning or source of the great Aqueduct of Claudius, called the _Aqua Claudia_. After carefully examining the bank of the river at a quay at the forty-second ancient mile of the Via Sublacensis, that is to say, between three and four modern miles below Subiaco (which is forty-five miles from Rome), they found the remains of an aqueduct called the _Muraccio_, almost always washed by the water of the river, which enters into it, and then turns at an angle.

On entering into the _Muraccio_, Dr. Gori became convinced that it was the Piscina Limaria of Claudius, as described by Frontinus, c. 15, because the water enters freely into the lower chamber, and to the right the _specus_ of the Anio Novus is seen. The water, according to Frontinus, between the entrance from the river and the _specus_ (_inter amnem et specum_), was stopped and purified in the same chamber, before it entered into the conduit. Considering also that between the three lochs, where the water is now pure, and this piscina, there is a considerable distance. In the rainy season the floods bring down a considerable quantity of earth from the neighbouring fields, which makes the water of the Anio Novus muddy; for which reason the Emperor Trajan began, as Frontinus states, to lengthen that aqueduct to the second upper loch, above the Villa Neroniana Sublacensis. Dr. Gori has found that this work of Trajan was completed, by tracing the whole line of it along the left bank of the river Anio.

ANOTHER AQUA AUGUSTA.

At a meeting of the “Institut de Correspondance Archéologique,” in 1873, the Commendatore G. B. D. Rossi gave an account[215] of another Aqua Augusta, the springs and source of which have been found with that inscription, in the district called _Le Macchie di Rocca di Papa_. This aqueduct appears not to have gone to Rome, but descending into the meadow called the Camp of Hannibal, it went on to the imperial villa at Tusculum, where the magnificent piscina of the time of Trajan or Hadrian is miscalled the House of Cicero.

ERRATA ET CORRIGENDA.

THE AQUEDUCTS.

=Transcriber’s Note:= The errata have not been corrected. Since all notes were reindexed as part of producing this e-text, the note references below have been updated to match the new numbers.

_Errata._ _Corrigenda._

_p._ x. Julia (v.) Sources on Mons The Sources are near Grotta Algidus (near Tusculum), Frascati, Ferrata, not Tusculum: and Grotta Ferrata. see p. 42.

_p._ x. _col._ 1. (vii.) Lacus Lacus Alsietinus. Alsietina.

_col._ 2. Lacus Sabatina. Lacus Sabatinus. At the Cariæ. At the Careiæ. Casale Bianca. Casale Bianco.

_p._ xi. _col._ 1. (x.) Lacus Lacus Sabatinus. Sabatina.

_col._ 2. (xi.) Torre de’ Scavi. Torre de’ Schiavi.

_Ibid._ (xii., xiii.) Villa de Villa de’ Quintilii. Quintilii.

_p._ xii. (xvi.) (Algentiana). The That opinion is not correct (?). water is said to have been brought The name of _Algentiana_ given by a branch from the Marcia at the to the water is from the Mons Porta di S. Lorenzo. Algidus, near Tusculum. This water now supplies the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati.

_p._ 3, _note_ 9. loco nomen Gemellorum. respondenti Gemellarum.

_p._ 5, _note_ 14. Torre de’ Scavi. Torre de’ Schiavi.

_p._ 10, _note_ 21. under the _for_ Monastery _read_ S. Maria di monastery of S. Maria del Trinita Malta. Aventinense, or il Priorato di Malta.

_p._ 27. (i.) et ... novum ramus ... novum, i. 5 ... hac tres ... Augustæ, hac tres. fluentes ad Viminalem usque portam. i. 19.

_Ibid._ (iii.) que vocantur ... qui vocantur ... hi directi. hi directe.

_Ibid._ (iv.) intra portam intra portam exquilinam. exquelinam.

_Ibid._ (v.) que locus infra. qui locus est infra.

_p._ 35, _note_ 79. Delle varie Delle vere Sorgenti. Sorgenti.

_p._ 41, _line_ 32. Squaricarelli. Squarciarelli.

_p._ 42, _line_ 8. Canina cleared That _specus_ was of the Aqua out the ancient _specus_ of the Algentiana, and not of the Julia. Julia. The source of the Angelosa is not that of the Julia but of the Aqua Crabra.

_p._ 43, _line_ 8. Near Rocca di This arcade was of the _Aqua Papa an arcade, ... probably a Algentiana_. See Canina, tom. v. part of the Julia. This arcade is called _Arcioni_.

_p._ 50, _line_ 20. _Cariæ._ _Careiæ._

_Ibid._, _line_ 22. _Lacus Lacus Alsietinus. Alsietina._

_Ibid._, _line_ 30. Strachia Capra. Stracciacappe.

_Ibid._, _line_ 32. Lacus Alsietina. Lacus Alsietinus.

_p._ 51, _line_ 5. from the from the lake Alsietinus. Alsietina Lake.

_Ibid._, _line_ 8. Lacus Sabatina. Lacus Sabatinus.

_Ibid._, _note_ 109. This lake, This lake is called Sabatinus ... called Sabatina ... from the from the names of those villages, names of the proprietors. _Anguillara_ and _Bracciano_.

_Ibid._, _note_ 110. ALSEATINA. ALSIETINA.

_p._ 52, _line_ 1. Cariæ. Careiæ.

_p._ 53, _line_ 5. Lacus Sabatina. Lacus Sabatinus.

_Ibid._, _line_ 8. Cariæ. Careiæ.

_Ibid._, _note_ 116. Lacus Lacus Alsietinus. Alsietina.

_p._ 89, _note_ 178. _Torre de _Torre de’ Schiavi._ Scavi._

_p._ 90, _note_ 179. Aquarum Aquarum ductus etiam infinitos. ductus etiam infinitas.

_p._ 100, _line_ 2. from the Aqua The Aqua Algentiana really comes Marcia. from Mons Algidus, near Tusculum.

_p._ 106, _line_ 19. _fistula the fistula Urbana is of lead, not Urbana_, made in a piece of marble. marble.

_p._ 110. (xi.) Alseatina. Alsietina.

_p._ 118, _line_ 33. Garciano. Carciano.

_p._ 121, _line_ 33, _col._ 2. Torre de’ Schiavi. Torre d’ Scavi.

_p._ 122. (vii.) ALSEATINA. ALSIETINA.

_Ibid._ Cariæ. Careiæ.

_p._ 132, _line_ 6. Alseatina. Alsietina.

_Ibid._ Pantana. Pantano.

LEVELS OF THE AQUEDUCTS, TAKEN BY ERNEST DE MAURO, 1871.

THE SEVEN SPECUS AT THE PORTA MAGGIORE, ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE LEVELS ABOVE THE SEA.

I. Anio Novus, 65.000.

II. Claudia, 62.336.

The _specus_ at the Trophies of Marius, 59.936.

III. Felice, 59.560.

_Specus_ on the high ground, between the Porta Maggiore and S. Lorenzo, 59.100.

Reservoir at the fountain of Termini, 58.600.

IV. Julia, 58.192.

Reservoir behind the wall near the Porta S. Lorenzo, 53.000.

V. Tepula, 56.712.

Reservoir in the wall near the Porta S. Lorenzo, 49.525.

VI. Marcia, 54.788.

_Specus_ at the Porta S. Lorenzo, 54.405.

VII. Anio Vetus, 45.688.

Reservoir near Porta Furba, two miles from the Porta Maggiore, 47.193.

Reservoir in the Vigna Berardi, 41.731[216].

Reservoir between the Porta Asinaria and the Amphitheatrum Castrense, 34.030.

Reservoir in the Vigna Mangani, near the Minerva Medica, 47.735.

Two small _specus_ in the Via Labicana, 43.857[217].

Antoniana—_Specus_ in the City wall and over the Arch of Drusus, 40.374.

Aurelia—Reservoir on the south side of the Porta Latina, 36.000.

Severiana (?)—Reservoir on the north side of the Porta Latina, 33.400.

Aqua Marcia Pia[218], 60.088, at the Porta Pia.

HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE AQUEDUCTS.

[_The numbers refer to Mr. Parker’s Catalogue._]

_Those marked with * are from drawings, valuable for historical purposes_, but not as photographs.

In his admirable treatise on the Aqueducts, Frontinus mentions in his first book, as an introduction, that before they were made, the Roman people, for the space of 441 years after the foundation of the City, were content with the water from the Tiber and from certain natural springs which from their salubrity were supposed to be sanctified.

One of the springs, called Aqua Argentina, deserves special attention; it comes out of the rock in a considerable body, and with much force, under the north-west corner of the Palatine Hill, at a great depth, in the cave called the Lupercal, which from its situation may very well have been a wolf’s cave at the time of the foundation of Rome. (702* is the plan and section of this). It falls into the larger stream that comes from the Quirinal and Capitoline Hills, and now runs in the Cloaca Maxima (690*). The point of junction of these two streams can be seen in an opening where the vault has been destroyed (158), near the arch of Janus and the church of S. Georgio in Velabro, which was the silversmiths’ quarter in Rome, as is shewn by the arch they erected in honour of Septimius Severus near this spot, the inscription on which remains.

The stream that comes from the foot of the Quirinal, and now runs through the Cloaca Maxima, emerges in a cellar under a house at the back of the church of S. Hadrian, and a great body of water rises with considerable force. Such a spring is no doubt in its original place. Another spring that runs into this stream is the one that rises in the crypt under the church of the Crucifixion, at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, called the Prison of S. Peter, which is another natural source.

Of the wells or reservoirs of rain-water, we have one remarkable example still preserved; it is on the Palatine Hill, at the north-west corner, just behind the most perfect part of the Wall of Romulus, and at one corner of his _arx_ or citadel, called Roma Quadrata, and there are certain peculiarities about it. It has _specus_, or subterranean conduits, to carry water to it from different parts of the hill. The cistern itself is seven feet high, of about the same width, and of considerable length. Into this reservoir descend certain wells of a peculiar and unusual form, like a hollow cone with the wide mouth downwards. This form of well is said to be common in the east; but the only examples known in this part of Italy are this one on the Palatine under the _arx_ of Romulus, and one at Alba Longa, under the corner of the _arx_ or citadel of that ancient city, from which the Romans are said to have been originally a colony. This is certainly a remarkable coincidence, if it is nothing more. One of these wells is shewn in 764 and 765 from nature, and in 366*, 384*, from a drawing. 1630 is a view of the reservoir at Alba Longa (mis-called the Prison). 1940* is from a drawing of the two compared.

The remains of the aqueduct and reservoir at Tusculum (shewn in 1903) are of _opus quadratum_, of very early character, and seem to shew that the inhabitants there had aqueducts before the Romans. Frontinus, indeed, makes no claim to invention, nor were the Romans generally inventors, they rather turned to useful account the inventions of other people whom they had conquered.

I. THE APPIA—was made by the Censor, Appius Claudius Crassus (Cæcus[219]), in the year of Rome 441, B.C. 312, and has its origin in and near to the Latomiæ or Stone Quarries of the time of the Kings of Rome, on the bank of the river Anio, in which one of the sources of this aqueduct is found.

865, 866, 867

The Caves of Cervaro are a continuation of these Quarries, shewn in 1557.

1155* and 1968* are plans of the sources of the Aqua Appia and Aqua Virgo, in the Meadows of Lucullus, near Collatia.

These meadows are now known by the medieval towers called La Rustica, Sapienza (1551), and Cervaro (1552), and the lines of the aqueduct, crossing them from different springs and meeting in a central reservoir, can be traced by the clumps of shrubs over each well. The aqueduct itself being at a great depth, but still having water in it for the greater part of the year, and moisture always, the line of these wells is thus distinguished. From the central reservoir, in which the water was collected, the _Specus_ or Conduit was carried into Rome, always at a great depth.

The spring of the Augustan branch (added A.D. 10) is found under a cottage (1550), near the town or castle of Cervelletta.

The _Specus_, or Conduit of each of the aqueducts, is distinguished by a slight change of form, and often of size also. Sections of fifteen of these are given in the map, and shewn in the photographs of it, 1982*. That of the Appia being the lowest, and always at a great depth, has been the most difficult to distinguish; but within the walls of Rome it passed along the Cœlian Hill[220] (691*, 890*), and then across the short space between the Cœlian and the Aventine, upon the bank or Agger of Servius Tullius (1100, 1136, 1164, 1165, 1289, 1288, 1166), and very near to (_proxima_) the Porta Capena (1138*). After passing the Piscina Publica, and serving as a drain for the surplus water, it is continued at the foot of the cliff of the Pseudo-Aventine, under S. Balbina and S. Sabba, to the mouth of it (84*) on the bank of the Tiber, under the Priorato near the Marmorata and the Porta Trigemina. The _specus_ is here distinctly visible, filled up with the clay deposit to one-third of its height (1116); the view in the stone quarry and a section of one of the wells is shewn in 889*. A Plan of the stone quarry under S. Sabba shews several aqueducts meeting in it, and throwing their surplus water into the Appia, as the lowest (this is given in 834*, 1941*).

The Reservoirs of this most ancient and very deep aqueduct were first in the quarries before mentioned, and even in Rome were chiefly also in quarries, as at the mouth; but just within the Porta Maggiore, and close to the gardens of S. Croce, formerly the Sessorian Palace, are two large reservoirs very near together, supposed to have been the Gemelli or twin reservoirs mentioned by Frontinus, and these are so deep that they appear to have belonged to the Aqua Appia. Some excavations attempted in them in 1867 were stopped by water (410, 411, 695*). This aqueduct is believed to have entered Rome on the northern side of these gardens, and to have been first received in the reservoir afterwards called after S. Helena, which is very deep, and in this situation (546).

II. ANIO VETUS, MADE IN THE YEAR OF ROME 481, B.C. 272.[221]

The Anio Vetus and the Anio Novus are in fact branches of the river Anio, which falls into the Tiber a short distance above Rome. The water is there seen to be much more pure than that of the Tiber, and after it falls into the muddy Tiber its clear water can be distinguished for a long distance. Several of the aqueducts, as the Appia and the Virgo, are springs, that fell into that river; but part of the water was intercepted and brought into Rome, each in its own distinct _specus_. This was the case with the Anio Vetus, at a much higher level above Tivoli, but below Subiaco. The river itself may be considered to belong to the system of the Aqueducts, and the series of magnificent cascades by which it falls from its high level, are partly artificial, are connected with them, and illustrate their history. Those in Tivoli (1545, 1546, 1547, 1548), the engineers had great difficulty in avoiding. The one near Vico-Varo (1544), above Tivoli, is near the point from which the aqueduct was taken, which is near the valley called Arsoli (1549). It can be seen in the valley of the Arches, two miles above Tivoli, at the foot of one of the piers of the Marcian Arcade (1054), and the one seems to have followed the other all the way into Rome. It passes along with it over the Ponte di S. Antonio, which is one of the finest bridges on the whole line of the Aqueducts, eight miles below Tivoli, across the valley and mountain stream called S. Antonio (1530). This aqueduct can generally be distinguished by being half-underground, or very near the surface. It was repaired or restored by Augustus and Trajan[222], and most of the remains now visible are of their time, and both the _specus_ and the _castella_ can generally be known by being faced with _opus reticulatum_, so much used at that time. There is a fine reservoir or _castellum_ for it near Tivoli, with very peculiar work of this description, and extremely picturesque (950). Another is against a bank, and half underground, near the Torre Fiscale, three miles from Rome, and close to the foot of the Claudian Arcade (896, 1028, 1029). Remains of others may still be seen at the foot of the Wall of Rome in several places, they were distinctly visible in 1870, when these photographs were taken; but have been almost obliterated since in the _restoration_ (?) of the wall by the municipal architect. One is near the Porta Metronia (983), and another at the Porta Latina (985). Remains of other _piscinæ_ are visible near the Amphitheatrum Castrense, on the rock at the foot of the wall (868, 969, 970); at this point one branch of it seems to have been brought into Rome along the line of the Via Appia Nova, which runs near the spot, and entered Rome just beyond, by the Porta Asinaria. It can also be seen at the foot of a wall by the side of the Via Labicana, near the Porta Maggiore, and readily distinguished by the usual reticulated work (1337). One branch enters Rome at the foot of the Marcian Arcade, close to the Porta Maggiore (59), and the _specus_ was visible at that gate, until it was concealed by a brick wall by the modern builders. It passes through the City Wall there, and is visible on the other side in the inner road, in the wall of the garden still under the level of the Marcian Arcade (1876). Here it forked off, one branch went to the left, along the line of the wall of the garden, to a great reservoir for it at an angle close to the junction of two roads, one called the Via Labicana the other the Via di Porta Maggiore, coming from the church of S. Maria Maggiore. At this spot there is a very large and fine reservoir in several chambers at a considerable depth, corresponding to the level of the Anio Vetus; 538 is a view of it, and 700* is a section of it. From this great reservoir two small _specus_ in this part appear to have gone into the _specus_ of the Appia in the Cœlian, under the Arches of Nero, and are visible going into the bank on which this fine arcade stands (854).

Another important branch turns to the north upon the high bank of the Kings, on which the Wall of Aurelian was afterwards built. There are remains of _castella_ for it near the Porta S. Lorenzo (869), and further to the south near the Porta Nomentana (871), after passing the Prætorian Camp. It had previously gone under the Porta Chiusa, which was shewn in the excavation of 1868, and in the photograph 1057. The _specus_ runs under the wall of the Camp all round. It is still visible on the north side, faced with the reticulated work under the fine brickwork of Tiberius (870). There was an opening into it at the north-east corner of the camp, into which a dog or a boy might be sent (981, 982), until it was closed in the recent _restoration_. Remains of it may still be seen at the foot of the wall in several places by experienced eyes. The general plan of this aqueduct is shewn in Nos. 1970*, 1971*, 1976*, 1977*, and 1967*.

III. MARCIA, MADE IN THE YEAR OF ROME, 608, B.C. 145.[223]

This aqueduct was made in the year B.C. 145, and has its source a few miles below Subiaco; the springs are collected in a small lake called Aqua Serena (1537), the water from which flows into the river Anio; but a portion of it was intercepted for this aqueduct, and is now again taken from the same spot and brought into Rome. It has always been celebrated for its extreme coldness and great purity. The old _specus_ or viaduct was found in 1870 in this lake, having long been concealed by being under water; but by drawing off some of the water it was brought to light, and the engineer of the new company decided on carrying his new _specus_ up to this point. The previous plan had been to draw the water from another lake nearer to Rome, which is nearly equally good water, but not the real Aqua Marcia so much prized, and this is now again brought into Rome. The source of the old aqueduct is celebrated for its extremely picturesque character, as well as for the fine construction of the arcade of large square stones, and the scientific arrangement of the reservoirs (_castella aquarum_) and filtering-places (_piscinæ_). The sources in the Aqua Serena are shewn in Nos. 1538, 1539. Another source for an additional supply was on the lake of the Mole d’Agosta, 1543.

In the earlier part of its course the _specus_ is underground; but on arriving at the valley called the Valley of the Arches, about two miles above Tivoli, it emerges upon the fine arches which give the name to the valley, and is here carried across the river Anio. These arches are in two series, and are among the most picturesque objects in the neighbourhood of Rome; the effect is improved by a medieval tower built upon the first pier of the bridge. This is shewn in Nos. 1053, 1054.

It then appears again on the other side of Tivoli, on the road called the Promenade of Garciano, which is on the edge of the hill looking towards Rome, and above the winding road up the hill; S. Peter’s is visible from this point. On this platform there are a number of fine remains of the _specus_ and of the _castella_ of the Aqueducts, some of the finest of which are of the Marcia. The Plan and Section of a very fine Reservoir and Piscina here is given in No. 535*.

Another very fine one has a wall on the edge of the cliff of the character called Cyclopean (Nos. 1513 and 1528). Chambers of this remarkable early reservoir are shewn in Nos. 1520 and 1521.

A considerable part of this aqueduct was rebuilt by Augustus[224] (B.C. 11), and again about a century afterwards by Trajan[225], and of the _specus_ of that time we have examples in 1524 and 1525, shewing a very peculiar kind of the ornamental construction called _Opus Reticulatum_. Another reservoir of this time is shewn in 1526, and an earlier one belonging to the original construction of the kind called _Opus Incertum_, which probably belongs to the earlier period, is shewn in 1527.

From Tivoli the Aqueducts again pass underground for some miles, gradually winding down the hill from the high level to that of Rome on the Campagna, at about seven miles distance. They were carried upon bridges, some of which are very fine and picturesque, across the gorges of the hills and the mountain streams. At the place where they arrive at the lower ground, there are large reservoirs and filtering-places for them, and the locality is called from them the Piscinæ.

From thence they are carried on the fine and celebrated arcades across the Campagna, presenting some of the finest pictures in the neighbourhood of Rome.

At the Piscinæ, the Tepula and Julia, from the Alban Hills near Marino, were added to the Marcia, and carried on the same arcade. The greater part of them was destroyed, and used for building materials by the engineers of the Aqua Felice in the sixteenth century; but there are some very remarkable and picturesque remains of the arcade at intervals, the more interesting because so little is left of it. One fine piece remains at a locality called Sette Bassi and Roma Vecchia, five miles from Rome (1435), where a small portion of each of the three Aqueducts on an arcade can be seen in Nos. 1006 and 536, and the Piscinæ near to it, 534, 1434, 1438.

This arcade is seen again at the Torre Fiscale, a medieval tower built upon the aqueducts at one of the points of junction, and at one of the angles, which they made at every half mile. Here the more lofty arcade of the Claudia and Anio Novus is carried over that of the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia; while the Anio Vetus runs underground at the foot of it, and the Felice is built up against it; so that at this point seven aqueducts cross each other, and have a tall medieval tower built on the top of them[226]. The Torre Fiscale, with this remarkable junction, is shewn in Nos. 528, 529, 530, 531, 532. A plan and section of it are given in 689*.

There is another angle and crossing at the Porta Furba, half-a-mile nearer to Rome, which makes another very picturesque point of view (shewn in Nos. 551, 552). A small portion of it remains built into a gardener’s cottage at another angle, about a mile from Rome, and a fine large reservoir near to it. The ground then rises, and the arcade is buried for some distance; the upper part of the arches of brick, as rebuilt by Trajan, are then visible by the side of the old road that runs close to the northern side of the great Claudian arcade, on the line of the Marcian, which was parallel to the Claudian for some miles into Rome.

It then occurs again very conspicuously at the last angle, close to the Porta Maggiore, where the Claudia was again carried over it, and afterwards incorporated in the City Wall of Aurelian. Here the last pier of the arcade remains with the three _specus_ of the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia passing through the wall at a right angle (31, 59). Inside the wall a part of the first arch remains with the _specus_ upon it (60); on the other side of the road, the pier of the same arch remains built into the wall of the garden; and a little further on in the garden or vineyard, a gardener’s house is made out of another reservoir or _castellum aquæ_ (538; section, 700*).

It then passes again underground parallel to the city wall for a short distance, and near the Minerva Medica it runs into the bank on which that great wall is carried. A portion of this underground arcade was brought to light in some excavations in 1871, but is now covered up again (2320). After passing underground in the bank on which the wall stands for some distance, it emerges near the Porta Tiburtina, now called Porta di S. Lorenzo (see a plan and section of this in No. 1938*). As the ground here is lower it is on an arcade, one arch of which is made into the gate (21, 1870), and a portion of the _specus_ is very distinctly visible on the southern side of the gate, with an opening into it by which persons can go inside of it (shewn in Nos. 69, 572*, and 1487).

After passing the Porta Tiburtina, it went on upon the bank or outer _mœnia_ of Rome to the Prætorian Camp, and there was a large reservoir for it near the Porta Chiusa, remains of which were visible in the excavations of 1868, with the wall of Rome built across it (shewn in 1059). From this reservoir the three aqueducts, Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, were carried along the side of the old road to the inner gate in the great _agger_ of Servius Tullius on the Viminal, where the railway station has now been made, and where the three Roman princes carried on excavations in 1869, in which they found the upper _specus_; that of the Julia, which was left open for a time, passing between the _cippi_ or boundary-stones, with inscriptions upon them, recording that _the three aqueducts_ passed there between them.

Another division of the Marcia went along the same line as the Arches of Nero to the Cœlian, and along that hill as far as the great reservoir over the arch of Dolabella; then turning to the left or south, it came to an end above or over the Porta Capena[227]. These words may mean—either, in the reservoir on the cliff of the Cœlian Hill just _above_ the gate, rebuilt in the time of Trajan, of which the remains are shewn in 1147*;—or, in the reservoir in the valley close to the west side of that gate (also rebuilt in the time of Trajan, and now a gardener’s house, as before mentioned). In that case it must have passed over the gate, and the _specus_ that is cut in the wall of the western tower belonged to it (710*).

The general plan of the Aqua Marcia near its source is shewn in 1972*, and the line of its course in 1981*, 1982*; the bridge for it in 1983*.

In the early part of its course, above Tivoli, the new aqueduct for this water, called the Aqua Marcia Pia, is carried on a stone _specus_ upon an arcade, after the same fashion as the old one (a portion of this new arcade is shewn in No. 1553).

IV. THE TEPULA, and V. THE JULIA, being carried on the same arcade as the Marcia for the seven miles into Rome, have left remains visible in some places, especially at the Gates of Rome, the Porta Maggiore (31), and the Porta Tiburtina (21, 572*); in other places, they have generally been destroyed. Near the Sette Bassi, there is a portion of the _specus_ of the Julia visible just at the surface of the ground, the other two being then subterranean, as the level is rather higher in this part than usual. This portion has been examined by Signor Moraldi, at a junction whence a branch was carried to supply a reservoir at the great villa called Sette Bassi, and there are remains of the loch in the channel to turn off the water, shewing the same arrangement as in a modern canal. (A plan and section of this is given in 696*.) The _specus_ near this point, built of concrete faced with brick, is also shewn in 1006. The _specus_ of the Marcia is always of squared stone, so that one is readily distinguished from the other. There are remains of a _castellum aquæ_ or reservoir for the Tepula, near the Porta Tiburtina, or Porta Viminalis of Frontinus, now called Porta di S. Lorenzo. This is shewn in the Plan of that Gate, Nos. 1111* and 1238*, and a view of it in No. 25. It is a remarkable building of brick of the first century, and has on a level with the _specus_ a series of small corbels projecting from it, evidently intended to carry a _hourd_, or wooden balcony as a passage for the Aquarii, and perhaps for defence also. It is incorporated in the great Wall of Aurelian. It projects slightly from the line of that wall, and the end of the _specus_, with its triangular head, is visible in the angle.

V. JULIA.

Between this building and the gate, but within the wall, though on the bank on which it stands, are slight remains of another _castellum aquæ_, supposed to have been for the Julia (Nos. 26, 869, 1873), which has its external face in the direction of the wall, and must have been concealed by it when that was built. This is also of the first century, as is shewn by the brickwork, and it seems to have been a _castellum aquæ_ by the disproportional size of the buttresses used to support the weight of the water, one of the invariable marks of such a structure. The other mark is the peculiar cement with which the wall is lined, called _Opus Signinum_ in Latin, _Coccio Pesto_ in Italian, which is made of broken pottery, and is the hardest cement that is known; it is often impossible to break it, even after it has been exposed to the weather for centuries.

A plan and section of the ground between the two gates, called by Frontinus Esquilina (S. Lorenzo) and Viminalis (Maggiore), shew the difference of level, and the three aqueducts passing underground in the middle between the two gates, and carried on arches at both ends near the gates (see No. 1938*).

The plan of the ground at the sources of the Tepula and Julia is given in 1980*.

VI. THE VIRGO (NOW CALLED AQUA DI TREVI) WAS MADE IN THE YEAR OF ROME 732, B.C. 21.

This aqueduct has its sources in the meadows of Lucullus, on the banks of the river Anio, on the old Via Collatia, eight miles from Rome, about a mile further than the Aqua Appia, not at the same level, but comparatively near the surface. There are several springs, each of which has its own separate reservoir just below the surface of the ground; in some of them the vault is scarcely perceived. These are also called conduit-heads (864, 863, 862). From each of these small reservoirs a conduit runs into the central reservoir (860, 861), which is considerably larger, circular in form, surrounded by a wall, lined with the cement called _coccio pesto_, and one part of this central reservoir under the road now remains. This is near Salone, with its medieval tower. (See the Plan, 1155*.)

From this large central reservoir the surplus water is carried off by short conduits into the country ditches, and so into the river Anio. The main _specus_ into Rome begins at the central reservoir, and runs generally underground along the line of the old Via Collatina, now called Lunghezza. The course of the aqueduct can be clearly traced by the small pyramidal or conical structures over the wells at regular intervals, called Respirators (660*), or which might have been called Ventilators, as they give air to the _specus_ below. It runs in the high bank of the old road for two or three miles, behind the ruin called Torre d’ Scavi, supposed to be the Thermæ of the Gordiani, in a direct line towards the Porta Maggiore; but about half-a-mile before arriving there, it turns sharp to the north along the bank of the great _foss_ or valley, and being underground is traced by the Respirators. Further to the north, beyond S. Agnes, at some little distance, the old line can be traced in the catacomb of S. Priscilla on the Via Salaria, where the _specus_ is visible, half filled up with the deposit of clay (1109*, 1466). In the road on the bank on which the Wall of Aurelian is built, near the Porta Salaria, it can be traced by the low arcade at the foot of the wall which is built upon it (5).

But when the line was altered, it was carried still further to the north, and it enters Rome under the garden of the French Academy (the Villa Medici); it here is marked by two _cippi_ (2088, 2089), with inscriptions upon them, and under the garden is a large reservoir very deep, level with the ground in the great foss on the outside, and with the Campus Martius inside the walls. It was then divided into two branches, one of which went along the Via de Condotti, the other along the Via del Nazzareno (83, 1108*) to the Fountain of Trevi, rebuilt in A.D. 1735 (1356); originally, it went to the north end of the Septa, near the Pantheon. Some remains of this were shewn in 1871 in the Piazza di S. Ignazio (2326). The _specus_ can be seen, with an inscription upon it recording repairs by the Emperor Claudius (82), in the yard behind a house near the Palazzo del Buffalo.

The plan of the ground at the sources of the Aqua Virgo (or de Trevi), is given in 1968*, and Sections of it in 1979*.

VII. THE ALSEATINA.

This aqueduct was made by Augustus in the year of Rome 763, A.D. 10, to bring water for his great Naumachia, or sham naval battles in the Trastevere; the water was not good for drinking[228]. It was brought from the lake called Alseatina, in the hills on the western side of Rome. It is altogether distinct from the great series of aqueducts on the eastern side. The source can be seen in the bank of the lake, and the _specus_ or subterranean conduit can now be entered, the water of the lake having recently been drained, and reduced to a much lower level.

To these was added from another lake about three miles distant from the Alseatina, another branch called the Sabatina. The two conduits were united after a few miles near the old city of Cariæ, at a _castellum aquæ_ or reservoir, now made into a house, and called the Osteria Nuova. The Alseatina was at the lowest level of all the aqueducts, and it is now very difficult to see any remains of it, except the _specus_ in the lake at its source.

Trajan afterwards adopted the Aqua Sabatina, but omitted the Alseatina, and carried the Sabatina at the highest level instead of the lowest (see Aqua Sabatina, Aqueduct X.) Pope Paul V., who restored these aqueducts to use, went back to the Alseatina lake, and his _specus_ can be seen there on a different side of the lake to that of Augustus; both are now left dry. There is, near the junction at the Osteria Nuova, a remarkable flight of steps for the use of the _aquarii_, or the men who had charge of the aqueducts. It passes through the upper _specus_, and goes down to the lower one (No. 2959*). The respirators of these two lines can be seen and traced; they are of a different size and form. The two can be seen close together at the Osteria Nuova (No. 2960*). The _specus_ is also seen in No. 2961*.

VIII. THE CLAUDIA, AND IX. THE ANIO NOVUS, A.D. 38-52.

These two aqueducts were made together, or were so closely connected that we cannot separate their history, although they were not the same water; the Anio Novus came from some miles higher up the river Anio than the Claudia. The latter was, like the previous aqueducts, taken from springs, that were intercepted before they fell into the river Anio; but the Anio Novus was part of the river itself, in which a gigantic loch was made by building a great wall across it, about a hundred yards in front of a natural waterfall, and forcing the water to flow over it, forming a magnificent cascade, and at the same time causing some of the water to flow through the _specus_ which was cut in the cliff by the side of the river, at a rather lower level than the top of the wall. The sources of the Claudia are below this cascade, those of the Anio Novus are above it. The line of each of these aqueducts is distinct in all the early part of its course; but after they come down to the valley of the Campagna of Rome, at the Piscinæ, the two are carried on the same fine lofty arcade into Rome.

These were the highest, and passed over the Marcian arcade with the three aqueducts upon it. They form the finest feature in the landscape on the eastern side of Rome. The sources are above Subiaco, and in what is considered by artists as some of the most picturesque scenery in the world. The photographs illustrating this are very numerous, the subjects being some of the best that can be imagined for this purpose. The history of these two most important aqueducts can now be better seen in this series of photographs than in any other manner, and better understood than by any written description of them, after the outline of their history is once given.

They were begun in the year of Rome 789, A.D. 38, under the Emperor Caius Cæsar, or Caligula; carried on and completed by his successor, Claudius, in the year of Rome 803, A.D. 52. They were therefore fourteen years in construction, according to Frontinus[229]; but Nero was then married to Octavia, he was the actual governor of Rome, and he carried on the great work upon what are called the Arches of Nero, along the Cœlian Hill, as far as the arch of Dolabella, where a large reservoir for this water was built. This work was afterwards carried on by his successors in three branches, one to the Colosseum, a second to the Palatine, and over it to the Capitol, and a third to the Aventine. Frontinus himself, who has left us his admirable treatise on the subject, had the direction of these works for many years; he was Curator Aquarum under the Emperors Nerva and Trajan, and some of the greatest works were done in his time,—at his suggestion, and according to his plans.

Some of the sources of the Claudia were in the lake of S. Lucia, below Subiaco, between that and Vico Varo (see 1536). In its course through the hills the _specus_ is almost entirely underground, and cannot be shewn in photographs; but the line of its course is shewn in the map of the aqueducts from Rome to Subiaco, reduced by photography in Nos. 1967* to 1984*, especially in Nos. 1976*, 1978*, 1979*, 1981*. It crosses mountain streams on the bridges called Ponte Lupo (1532) and Ponte di S. Antonio (1530); and an inscription relating to it, of _A.D._ 88, is given in No. 1976*.

When it reaches the level ground of the Campagna, nearly on the same level as the hills of Rome, the _piscina_ for it is subterranean, and only the summit of this is visible, looking like a _tumulus_ only (688); but from this the _specus_ is seen to emerge, at first only just above ground, but gradually getting higher (or the soil, in fact, is getting lower), until it is carried on the grand series of arches or arcades across the country, which remain nearly perfect for some miles, as far as the Sette Bassi and Roma Vecchia. In 1002, a long line of this arcade is shewn with the Claudian _specus_ upon it, and the Anio Novus over that in many places; the two can readily be distinguished, by the Claudian being built of large blocks of stone (with the edges chamfered off), and the Anio Novus being faced generally with brick, occasionally with _opus reticulatum_. Nearer to Rome, this fine arcade has been very much damaged, or carried off altogether as building material by the farmers, and by the engineers of Pope Sixtus V. to build the Aqua Felice; but some portions of the old arcade remain, and are shewn in No. 1006, where the distinction between the two _specus_ comes out very clearly. In 1005, two of the brick arches with which it had been strengthened by Trajan are shewn, the stone-work having all been carried away.

In 689*, a plan and section of the Torre Fiscale is shewn, with the crossing of six aqueducts. 528 is a view of this tower and of the arches of the aqueducts crossing each other under it, with the Aqua Felice in the background. 529 shews the arch of the Claudia separately, and the construction of it, with the Aqua Felice passing under this arch of the Claudia. 530 gives very distinctly the arch of the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, with that of the Claudia passing over it. 531 and 532 are more distant and general views of that tower, and the aqueducts passing under it. 1439 is a side view of it, and of the old tombs on the Via Latina in that part. 1004 shews the arches of the Claudia and Anio Novus in perspective, and the opening into the _specus_ of the Claudia. In 550, another fine portion of the arcade is shewn, with brickwork of Trajan. The Porta Furba and a long line of the arcade is seen in the distance. 548 shews the Porta Furba at another crossing, with the fountain, and a portion of the arcade of the Felice; with the Marrana in the bed of the river Almo passing under it.

62 is a portion of the Claudian arcade, about half a mile nearer to Rome, with the arches filled up with brickwork of the time of Trajan; at this point there is another crossing. 63 shews a portion of the brickwork of Trajan, originally built to strengthen the stone arcade; but the latter has been carried away by the engineers of the Felice. 549 shews some interesting repairs of the time of Nero, with massive square buttresses faced with reticulated work. 70 is a medieval tower at the angle of the garden of the Sessorian Palace, now of the monastery of S. Croce, near the point where the aqueduct enters the wall.

547 shews the interior of the Tower and a _piscina_, at the entrance into Rome, the four chambers of which are visible, the inner wall of this tower having been destroyed; and into the interior of this the water of the Claudia entered in the first chamber and went out at the fourth. This photograph also shews the remains of a large _castellum aquæ_, now forming part of the Wall of Rome, on the north side of the garden, with a continuation of the arcade in the Wall of Rome in this part. In 544 the _specus_ of the Claudia is plainly visible on the top of the wall, and remains of the Anio Novus over it. In the distance are seen some of the arches of Nero, across the valley and foss (?), from the angle near the Porta Maggiore to the Cœlian Hill. This garden might very naturally be called by Lampridius “The Garden of the Specus,” for the _specus_ in the time of the Emperors must have been the most conspicuous object in it, or visible from it (542).

412 shews another of these reservoirs in the same garden, with repairs in brick by Trajan. The arcade of the Aqua Felice, built against the outside of the Wall, is also seen through the arches of the Claudia.

31. The exterior of the Porta Maggiore, with the _specus_ over it, the lower one the Claudia, the upper one the Anio Novus. (The inscription of A.D. 404 is given in 1872.) Under these, but still on the top of the wall, the _specus_ of the Aqua Felice may be seen, built as usual of rough stone concrete. To the right or north of this may be seen the three _specus_ of the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, passing through the wall in the opposite direction, now under the Felice, and originally under the Claudia and Anio Novus. These three _specus_ are carried upon one of the piers of the Marcian arcade, built into the great wall. Just beyond these, further to the right, is part of the last tower of the Claudian arcade.

32. The Porta Maggiore, with the _specus_ on it, seen sideways, and the north side of the Baker’s tomb.

The last tower and _piscina_ of the Aqua Claudia; it stands at an angle of the wall projecting from it, and shews clearly that it stood there when the wall was built by Aurelian, and then incorporated into it. When the fortifications of Honorius at this gate were destroyed in 1833, the inscription relating to the aqueduct was preserved and built up to the right or south of the gate (shewn in 1872). Within the wall, behind the tower, is a large reservoir or _castellum aquæ_, of which there are slight remains, shewn in 967 and 968.

A panoramic view of the line of the Claudian arcade, on the north side of the Sessorian gardens, taken from the extreme end of them at the west, is shewn in Nos. 542 and 543. On the left hand is the beginning of the arches of Nero, going across the foss towards the Cœlian; then the Porta Maggiore is seen sideways, with the two _specus_ on the top of it. Under this is part of one of the two great reservoirs believed to have been the Gemelli of Frontinus. Then comes the western wall of the Sessorian gardens, rebuilt by S. Helena, the construction being of the time of Constantine. To the extreme right is the ruin of the Basilica or Great Hall of the Sessorian Palace, repaired by him. This is miscalled a temple of Venus and Cupid on some of the maps.

Having thus traced the Aqua Claudia from its sources into Rome, we must now do the same for THE ANIO NOVUS, which in its early part is distinct from it, as we have said.

1514. Sources of the Anio Novus above Subiaco. The river Anio in the highest point, with which the aqueducts are connected, is seen winding through a gorge in the rocky mountain, with remains of the bars or dams, across the river, forming the two upper lakes or lochs. The celebrated monasteries of S. Scholastica and S. Benedict are visible on the hill to the left.

1515. The River Anio, a little lower down, with remains of the second barrage or dam across it, forming the third loch or lake, with the modern bridge built upon the ruins of the old wall that formed the bar. Chapels of the monks of S. Benedict are visible on the hill to the right.

1534. The Bridge of S. Francis, over one of the branches of the Anio that meet near the rocks before mentioned, above Subiaco.

1517. Remains of a great reservoir or _castellum aquæ_, of the time of Trajan, on the bank of the lake or loch before mentioned. The wall is faced with _opus reticulatum_, with layers of brick at intervals, the usual construction of the time of Trajan.

1518. The modern bridge, far below, and remains of the old high wall on which it is built, are seen under it; below are the cliffs of the third lake or loch, cut into a circular form. In the bed of the stream are large stones fallen from the wall or bar across the river.

1519. Remains of another _castellum aquæ_ above Subiaco, and the mouth of a cave connected with the aqueduct.

1555. _Specus_ of the Anio Novus cut in the cliff of the valley of the Anio. This is below the level of the great bar, and the water was forced to go through the _specus_ into Rome by the bar being higher than the _specus_. A modern winding road has now been cut here, and the rock has been in part cut away, shewing an opening into the _specus_, which is six feet high and two feet wide. Above is seen a tower and an embattled wall of the modern Villa Gori.

1516. Part of the _specus_ of Trajan, who repaired this aqueduct. The _specus_ is cut as a tunnel in the cliff, with a reservoir by the side of it.

1556. A view of the gorge in the mountains above Subiaco, where the three lakes are situated.

1536. A small lake at the source of the spring called Fons Novus Antoninianus, one of the sources of the Anio Novus.

1558. Cascade at the Paper Mill, on the site of a _piscina_ of the Anio Novus, above Subiaco.

1057. Arches of the bridges of the Marcia and Anio Novus, in the Valley of the Arches above Tivoli.

1052. Arch of the bridge on the Anio Novus, in the Valley of the Arches above Tivoli, with a medieval tower built upon it, forming one of the most picturesque objects in the neighbourhood of Rome.

1522. Specus of the Anio Novus below Tivoli, on the road to Garciano, called the Promenade, with openings into it, and an old tomb in front of it. This promenade is through an olive wood, and the roots of the olive trees run into many of the ruins.

1523. One side of a _castellum aquæ_ of the aqueduct above the road to Garciano, faced with _opus reticulatum_.

1529. A bridge across a valley that passes the road to Garciano. This bridge is above the road on the left, in the valley called the Arcinelli.

1531. Ponte de S. Antonio, a fine bridge for the aqueduct below Tivoli, across a gorge. It is seen from above looking down upon it, with the chapel of S. Antony at the end of it, and a medieval castle in the distance. The road for horses, and the remains of the _specus_ by the side of it, are here visible.

1532. Ponte Lupo, near Poli, west side, below Tivoli, the finest of all the bridges of the aqueducts. It crosses a valley from one cliff to the other, and is a solid wall for part of the way, the rest on arches. The two _specus_ are here visible, as seen from below on the west side.

687. Arrived in the valley of the Campagna, the great _piscina_ of the Anio Novus and that of the Claudia, which is near to it, is underground, and the summit of it only is visible, appearing like a tumulus. It is near the old Via Latina, and below the present roads to Albano, Frascati and Marino.

74 and 75. After leaving the great _piscinæ_, the two _specus_ are carried on the fine arcade, of which a panoramic view is here given, shewing its general effect for some miles.

554. Passing by the remains of Roma Vecchia to the Torre Fiscale and the Porta Furba (given under the head of the Aqua Claudia), the _specus_ rises to a remarkable reservoir, which from its great elevation must have belonged to the highest of the aqueducts. It is a most picturesque one, near the Mausoleum of S. Helena, but is earlier than her time; it belongs rather to that of Trajan, being faced with fine reticulated work, with layers of bricks on the exterior. The interior is distinguished by remarkably solid central buttresses, to support the wall against the pressure of the water (553).

926. Another large reservoir of the same period and style, and at nearly the same level; it occurs about a mile further from the main line of the aqueducts, at the place called Torre de’ Scavi, where the Thermæ of the Gordiani were afterwards made. This appears also to have belonged to the Anio Novus, as no other aqueduct is high enough for the water to have reached it.

ARCHES OF NERO.

At the great reservoir inside the Porta Maggiore (the Porta Esquilina of Frontinus), the water of the Claudia and the Anio Novus was united for the general use of the City. This aqueduct entered on the highest ground in Rome, and the water supplied the deficiencies of any of the other aqueducts in case of need. Being a part of the river Anio, it never failed. It was forced to come through Rome, as has been shewn by the arrangements in the bed of the Anio above Subiaco. This united water was carried to all the fourteen Regiones of Rome, and in order to ensure an abundant supply, it was conveyed in the great stone _specus_, on the fine arches of Nero along the whole length of the Cœlian Hill for more than a mile; at the west end of the Cœlian an enormous reservoir was built for it on the level of the _specus_ at the top of these arches, so that the base of the reservoir was fifty feet from the ground, and the road passed under it. From this great central reservoir, at a very high level, the water was distributed in various directions.

Before arriving at the Cœlian Hill, it had to be conveyed to and along the Cœliolum (now the Lateran Hill). It had come through the gardens of the Sessorium, as we have seen, in the two separate _specus_, after it had entered Rome at the extreme eastern corner, on the north side of these gardens, which are nearly half a mile long. These are _the palace gardens_ mentioned by Frontinus. The Sessorium with its gardens (now the monastery of S. Croce in Gerusalemme) had been one of the two Prætorian camps, this one being at the south end of the great _agger_ of the Tarquins, which formed the outer _mœnia_ of Rome on the eastern side. The one, called the Prætorian Camp, is at the north end of the same great bank.

Each of these fortified camps was surrounded by a great wide and deep foss or trench. These great banks and trenches are usually mistaken for natural hills and valleys; but natural hills and valleys are not merely high banks fifty feet high and perhaps a hundred feet wide, nor are natural valleys long narrow trenches of the same dimensions, running on each side of the great banks, being in fact the trenches from which the earth has been thrown to form the banks. Such a bank with such trenches can be clearly traced all round Rome by eyes that are accustomed to examine such things, although modern buildings have disguised them so much that an ordinary observer does not see them. People cannot see over modern walls of twelve feet high, still less over the great Wall of Aurelian fifty feet high, and they do not think of comparing the level of the ground on each side of that wall, nor can they easily do so. These great ancient earthworks were extremely convenient for the engineers of the Aqueducts, which were brought upon the high banks at the farthest corner. They were carried along the bank on the north side of the Sessorium, from its north-east corner to the south-west angle, where the great bank of the Tarquins joins on to it. Some branches of the Aqueducts, perhaps the main stream in some cases, were then carried along this high bank of the Tarquins to the north, as far as the other Prætorian Camp, and beyond it along the outer wall of Rome, as we have seen in the case of the Anio Vetus, the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia. These did not pass through the Sessorium, but parallel to it about a hundred yards on the north of it. The Claudian arcade had been at about that distance on the north of it, all the way from the Piscinæ into Rome. The Marcian arcade was made nearly over the Anio Vetus, which ran between that arcade and the Claudian, but much nearer to the Marcian.

On entering Rome, this main stream went straight on through the great bank to the large reservoir on the inner side. The reservoirs for the Tepula and Julia were much to the north, near the Porta di S. Lorenzo (the Porta Viminalis of Frontinus), as we have seen; that of the Marcia was much closer to the Porta Esquilina. The two great reservoirs, called by Frontinus the Gemelli, were made in the great foss between the Sessorium (S. Croce) and the Cœliolum (the Lateran). They had probably been originally made for the Aqua Appia and the Anio Vetus, being both at a low level, though one was much deeper than the other. Advantage was taken of these ancient reservoirs to erect the higher one required for the reception of the waters of the Claudia and Anio Novus over it, or by the side of it, as was very usual throughout Rome. The later reservoirs are always made nearly over the old ones. This is equally the case here at the entrance into Rome and at the other end of the Cœlian. The great high reservoir of Nero is close by the side of, and really over, the great subterranean reservoir of the Aqua Appia (now under the garden of the Villa Cœlimontiana, as described in the account of the Appia).

The foregoing explanation seems necessary to explain the photographs that now follow, belonging to the Arches of Nero. The first of these (No. 77) shews the junction with the Porta Maggiore; the two _specus_ that pass over that great gate are visible to the right of the photograph. The beginning of the Arches of Nero is then seen, where they have to cross the great wide and deep foss of the Sessorium, and were therefore strengthened by sub-arches, as seen in No. 76. A more close view of these arches, nearly at the same point, is seen in 66.

These arches were used by the engineers of the Aqua Felice whenever they suited their purpose, and cut about or destroyed without mercy; they also made use of an old _specus_ to carry their metal pipes whenever it was convenient to do so, and the _old specus_ that ran along the Cœlian was very convenient for that purpose. 1295* is from a drawing made to shew this. The _specus_ of the Aqua Felice was first carried on the lower arches of the double arcade of Nero, the upper part of the arcade being destroyed. The metal pipes were then carried down into the old subterranean _specus_ (_the Specus Vetus_ of Frontinus). This is in the same garden or vineyard as the Gemelli, in the great foss between the Sessorium and the end of one of the banks of the Tarquins, (on which the garden of the Villa Volkonski has been made, and along which the Arches of Nero run.) A portion of the grand arcade, with the _specus_ very visible on the top of it, is shewn in 759. This is close to the Scala Santa of the Lateran; the arcade carrying the aqueduct passed along the bank on the north side of the Lateran fortress on the Cœliolum, and supplied that with water.

On the western side of the Lateran fortress is another great foss, between the Cœliolum and the east end of the Cœlian Hill. It was either thought more convenient to make a bank across that great foss for the aqueduct to rest upon, or this bank which traverses that great foss had been made before for an upper road, and was used first for the Aqua Appia and the Anio Vetus, and afterwards by Nero. The existence of such a foss between the east end of the Cœlian Hill and the Cœliolum is denied by those who have not paid attention to the subject, and have not been into the gardens and vineyards to examine it; but the fact is a matter of demonstration. The tomb of the first century (miscalled the House of Verus, probably a tomb of the great Lateran family), being on the western bank of that fortress and the eastern bank of the foss, and the other tomb of the first century also, in the garden of what was the Museum of Campana (_under_ an arch that carries the modern road), on the western side of that great foss, are a demonstration that there was such a foss on the east side of the City of Servius Tullius, i.e. that the Cœliolum and Lateran did not form part of the City at that time. (See my chapter on the Tombs, and the photographs of these two tombs, 174 and 1942).

The Arches of Nero remain on the Cœlian in many parts of the line, by the side of the road from the Lateran to S. Stefano Rotondo and the Navicella, with the arch of Dolabella, which was under the great reservoir of Nero, and formed the entrance of the Claudium. The Arches of Nero are faced with the finest brickwork in the world (ten bricks to the foot, as usual at that period, and are chosen as typical examples). This is well shewn in 78, and the internal construction of rubble, faced only with the fine brickwork, in 358. A line of these, shewing the picturesque effect, is shewn in 131 and 357. The aqueduct formed one of the usual angles between the Lateran and the arch at the west end of the Cœlian. It has been destroyed in this part; but this accounts for the arches being sometimes on one side of the road and sometimes on the other.

We have now arrived at the arch of Dolabella, built when he was consul, A.D. 10, as an entrance to that part of the Cœlian Hill which had been the keep when it was a separate fortress, and was afterwards made the Claudium. This arch is of very simple construction, of travertine, the same construction as the early part of the Basilica Julia, built by Julius Cæsar and Augustus. It was used by the engineers of Nero as a foundation for their great reservoir, or rather for one corner of it, as we clearly see in 72. The work of the time of Nero terminated here, but the design was carried on by his immediate successors. The water was then divided into three branches; the one on the right hand, to the north, went to the great reservoir between the Cœlian and the Esquiline, called the _Stagna Neronis_, and was used for the sham naval battles. Around these Stagna the Colosseum was afterwards built. A portion of the arcade on which the _specus_ was carried is visible in the garden of the monks called the Passionists of SS. John and Paul, and is well shewn in No. 1773, looking towards the east, with the ruins of the reservoir over the arch of Dolabella, and the church of S. Stefano Rotondo in the distance. There are remains of a reservoir for this, of the third century, in the garden of the monks on the terrace of the Claudium, opposite to the Palatine, shewn in No. 1765. The ruins of the fine arcade of the Claudium stand on this terrace; the _specus_ also is in a wall here, behind the arcade. A portion of another reservoir or _piscina_ for them can be seen at the foot of the cliff of the Claudium, at its north-east corner, opposite that part of the Colosseum near the Meta Sudans; this is also shewn in No. 1743, with _opus reticulatum_ of the time of Nero. This branch continued in use in the third century; for there are remains of another reservoir for it, again at the foot of the Claudium opposite to the Colosseum, but more to the east, near the north-east corner of the Claudium, and near to the eastern end of the Colosseum. The remains of this reservoir are shewn in No. 1735. A colonnade carrying the _specus_ from this reservoir to the second story of the Colosseum, is shewn on one of the coins of Septimius Severus, who probably built this reservoir. In the corridors of the Colosseum are open stone troughs lined with the cement for water. These carried water from this aqueduct in a constant running stream to cool the air. They are work of the third century, with old inscriptions on some of them, shewing that they were made of old materials.

Another branch from the great reservoir went straight across to the Palatine, and from thence to the Capitol; it first follows the line of the road down the Clivus Scauri, on the left or southern side, and a fragment of it is visible opposite to the church of SS. John and Paul, as seen in No. 305. At the foot of the Clivus Scauri it formed an angle, and passed against the cliff on which the apse of the church was afterwards built; it now forms the lowest and last of the series of arches that are carried across the road to support the side of the church. Then, after this angle to the north, it resumes its course to the west upon the arches across the valley to the Palatine, which was a double arcade; but the lowest tier of it only remains, as is shewn in 116. A portion of the upper tier is also visible at the end of it; an arch of this upper tier remains, which, having been made into a back gate of the Palatine, has been suffered to remain, and is shewn in No. 72. A large reservoir for it was made at the south-west corner of the Palatine, on which the palace of Commodus was afterwards built; part of this reservoir and _specus_ is shewn in 683 (made from a drawing). The _specus_ went across the middle of the Palatine, and has been found more than once in some of the recent excavations, but not understood. It was then carried on the bridge of Caligula to the Capitol, a small portion of which remains connected with his palace, as is shewn in Nos. 1447 and 1451.

The third branch from the great reservoir over the arch of Dolabella on the Cœlian was made in the time of Trajan, to carry water to supply the thermæ on the Aventine, called after Sura, the cousin of the Emperor; these thermæ were closely connected with the private house of his family, rebuilt in his time, and called in the Regionary Catalogue “Privata Trajani,” of which there are considerable remains, now subterranean. The first place where this branch of the aqueduct is visible is in another reservoir (1147) against the cliff of the Cœlian, opposite to S. Balbina. This is partly above the level of the hill, and has been thought part of the Palace of Commodus, on the Cœlian (which may possibly have been built over it, but the existing remains are of the time of Trajan). The lower part is under this, and is excavated in the cliff. These were brought to light in the excavations of A.D. 1868 (559, 1008, 1009, 1010, 1011). The plan and section of it are to be seen in 1150*, 692*. Against the cliff the aqueduct formed one of the usual angles towards the north, and this was carried across the valley on the _agger_ or bank of Servius Tullius, first passing over the arch of the gate of the Porta Capena, above the Aqua Appia, on a much higher level, and on an arcade, probably a double arcade, like the Arches of Nero near the Porta Maggiore, on account of the great height at which the water had to be carried from one hill to the other. All that remains of this lofty arcade is a line of brick piers passing across from the Cœlian to the Aventine, over the Aqua Appia, before described, and passing by the north end of the Piscina Publica, as rebuilt in the time of Trajan over the old one, which had belonged to the older aqueducts. There are considerable remains of the walls of this period, that divided the chambers shewn in 557, 558, 1288.

This arcade can then be traced against the cliff of the Pseudo-Aventine, on the north side of S. Balbina, though partly concealed by the filling up of the space against the cliff before mentioned. The tall arcade then crosses the valley from the Pseudo-Aventine to the other part of the Aventine, and from the garden of S. Balbina to that of S. Prisca, and, in the latter garden, there are considerable remains of it on the cliff opposite to the Palatine. At the north end is the _specus_ upon the arcade (the top is open, and there is a walk upon it), 79. A small portion of the Thermæ of Sura is also shewn, with the _specus_ in front of the ancient wall of tufa, called the Wall of the Latins (833).

From the _piscina_ and reservoir on the cliff of the Cœlian another branch went to the south, over the spring of the Camenæ (?) 692, and near that of Egeria (?); it was carried over the Porta Metronia, and on the bank of the City Wall as far as the Porta Latina.

Another fine arcade of the time of Nero (No. 1317) leads to the Nymphæum before mentioned, where the Trophies of Marius were hung. The elevation shews that this water must have come from the highest of the aqueducts, the Anio Novus; and the remains of the reservoir near the Porta di S. Lorenzo, supposed to have been for the Aqua Julia, being on high ground, may have been for this branch, which conveyed water to the Thermæ of Titus.

X. SABATINA TRAJANA.

Great works for the aqueducts were carried on in the time of Trajan. One great work of his time was to bring water from the lake Sabatina to the top of the Janiculum. Augustus had previously brought water from that lake, supplementary to his aqueduct, from the lake Alseatina (VII.), to supply his Naumachia in the Trastevere; but the Aqueduct of Augustus was on the lowest level, that of Trajan on the highest. It does not appear that Trajan made use of the old _specus_ of Augustus; but his aqueduct was afterwards made use of by the engineers of Pope Paul V. for the Aqua Paola, although they also brought a branch to it from the Alseatina, as Augustus had done.

That of Trajan is chiefly subterranean, and has been described under the head of the Alseatina (VII.), but nearer Rome it is above ground, and is carried on an arcade against the wall of the Villa Pamphili-Doria, near the Porta di S. Pancratio. Both the arcade and the _specus_ are faced with the _opus reticulatum_ of that period. (664* is from a drawing, 1065 from nature.) In some parts, one side of the _specus_ has been cut away (1063). Just on the outside of that garden a large _castellum aquæ_ of this aqueduct has been made into a farm-house, and in the yard of that house a branch from it can be seen (665*), apparently for the purpose of irrigation; or, as some think, this was formerly the point of division, one branch going to the Vatican, the other to the great fountain on the Janiculum (960), above S. Pietro in Montorio. The division now takes place at a short distance from this point. Procopius, writing in the sixth century, admires the enormous quantity of water brought by this aqueduct to the highest point in Rome; as it descends the hill, it turns the wheels of the flour-mills. After it arrived at the low level of the ground in the Trastevere, the respirators of the pipes for this aqueduct are carried in tall pyramids resembling chimneys (540). Part of the arcade and _specus_ rebuilt by Paul V., near the garden before mentioned, is shewn in 1064, with the inscription of A.D. 1609 above it.

XI. HADRIANA (?), TRAJANA (?) OR ALEXANDRINA (?).

The next great work of the period of Trajan or of Hadrian, on the eastern side of Rome, was probably begun in the time of Trajan. It brought water from springs under Labicum, now La Colonna, the same that is now brought for the Aqua Felice. The water from several springs was collected in a central reservoir, on which an inscription of Hadrian was found by E. Q. Visconti in the eighteenth century. This is between Pantana and Gabii, in the valley under La Colonna (1540). There are several other reservoirs of the time of Trajan or Hadrian along the line (1637, 1638). This aqueduct was considered by Fabretti to be of the time of Alexander Severus, and since his time it has usually been called the Aqua Alexandrina. It may have been partly rebuilt and brought into use again in his time, after having been choked up with stalactite, one of the springs used proving to be a petrifying spring.

Near the sources this arcade is low and much damaged, and the _specus_ where it remains is nearly filled up with stalactite (1541, 1542). In some parts of the line the stalactite has all the appearance of a petrified cascade, and is evidently formed by the water oozing out and dripping and petrifying as it fell (1436). Further on there is a fine arcade for it across the country in the direction of Cento-Celle; and in some places the arcade is double to raise the _specus_ to the necessary level, as in the Arches of Nero (1428, 1429). A portion of the arcade, where it is broken off, is seen in 1427, with the tower of Cento-Celle in the distance. Another portion of this fine arcade is shewn in 1640. It is of two periods; the upper part is of the third century, and may have been rebuilt by Alexander Severus (as has been said). At Cento-Celle the ground is high, and the aqueduct passes underground for some distance, along the side of the road towards Rome.

About a mile nearer to Rome, there is a branch aqueduct from the foot of the Marcian arcade, in the direction of the Mausoleum of S. Helena, which Fabretti considers as part of the same aqueduct; but it is difficult to see upon what grounds. There is a fine arcade here also for about a quarter of a mile; but it is of the time of Constantine, and I have not been able to trace any connection between this and the other. This arcade has been originally double, and the lower one only now remains, with a modern _specus_ made upon it (555 and 556); but the water now flows _from_ the Marrana, at the foot of the arcade of the great aqueducts, which were here on higher ground, and _runs down_ upon this arcade to the garden and small monastery of S. Peter and Marcellinus, at the Mausoleum of S. Helena, called the Torre Pignattara, from the earthenware pots of which the vault was made.

XII. AURELIA, A.D. 185, AND XIII. SEVERIANA, A.D. 190.

These two aqueducts were made to convey water to the Thermæ of Commodus and Severus in Regio I., of which the remains were found in the excavations of 1870, just within the Porta Latina. The first part was originally made by Marcus Aurelius, for the use of his great villa on the Via Appia, called the Villa dei Quintilii, and the great reservoir and thermæ connected with it remain (2346, 2349, 2350, 2351, 2352). From thence it was brought into Rome by his successor, Ælius Aurelius Commodus. The water came from the Alban hills, near Marino (2358, 2359, 2360, 2361, 2362, 2363), at first underground, and then on an arcade, of which there are considerable remains near the Torre di Mezza Via di Albano (1626 and 1627).

From the Villa dei Quintilii it went parallel to the Via Appia. One of the reservoirs of it nearer to Rome is made into a farm-house, with a tower to it, and has the appearance of a church at a little distance; it is called the Casale di S. Maria Nuova (2348); it then passed again underground. Near the head of the valley of the Caffarella there remains a _piscina_ for it nearly perfect (1372); this is very near also to the Circus of Maxentius and his son Romulus. There is another _piscina_ or small reservoir for it near the church of S. Urbano, often mistaken for a tomb; here it again forms an angle, and the _specus_ descends (plan and drawing, 831*) to the Nymphæum, or so-called Fountain of Egeria (262). The _specus_ is then continued in the cliff of the valley of the Caffarella, from that fountain towards the tomb of the first century called Dio Ridicolo. Nearly opposite to that tomb the _specus_ is visible in the cliff, with large openings into it, between which it passes underground. Wherever it was above ground it has been carried off as building materials and destroyed, so that it has not again been found until it arrives at the remains of a _piscina_, just to the south of the Porta Latina (984). It then entered the city of Aurelian through the bank on which his wall is built, and supplied the Thermæ of Commodus within that gate (as has been said), 1485, 1486.

XIV. ANTONINIANA, A.D. 215.

This aqueduct was used to supply the great Thermæ of the Antonines, now called after Antoninus Caracalla. It is more easily traced backwards, passing along the inner side of the bank on which the Wall of Aurelian is built, then upon an arcade which has been destroyed in this part, but of which remains are visible inside of the Porta Ardeatina (986), by the side of the Arch of Drusus, just within the Porta di S. Sebastiano (73, 1772, 1202). It then passes underground through the bank, and emerges in the city wall at the angle between the Porta di S. Sebastiano and the Porta Latina (539, 883). It here crosses the road, and is visible in the garden on the opposite side (884).

XV. ALEXANDRINA, A.D. 225.

The Aqua Alexandrina is mentioned by Lampridius in his life of Alexander Severus, but it was probably a branch from the Anio Novus only, as the Nymphæum engraved on one of his coins[230] has been identified with the ruins near S. Maria Maggiore (2126, 2127). This stands on very high ground, and the only aqueduct that could reach it was that of the Anio Novus. This branch can be traced in the wall by the piers of the arcade, which have been built into the Wall of Aurelian near the Porta Maggiore (80 A, B). The _specus_ and the arches were destroyed by the engineers of the Aqua Felice; the piers only remain, and these cease just before we arrive at the point where the railway now enters Rome through the wall (99). They come to an end directly in a line with a large reservoir, now a gardener’s house, near the Minerva Medica, almost between that and the wall, but a little to the south of it; one pier, however, of the tall arcade of the third century remains, as a sort of buttress, against that side of the fine building of the same period called the Temple of Minerva Medica (537). There are great remains of thermæ and fountains in the large vineyard in which this building stands. Some of these are of an earlier period; but a considerable part of them are of the third century, and of the time of Alexander Severus. The Nymphæum before mentioned was at the north end, and is a fine picturesque ruin, with very evident remains of the aqueduct in it (61, 963, 964). The water was here divided into several branches, of which we see portions of the _specus_ going in different directions. One of the most important of these goes to the great reservoir of the Thermæ of Titus and Trajan, called the Sette Sale. This was made long before the time of Alexander Severus, who only rebuilt the Nymphæum; and there is an arcade of the first century leading to this Nymphæum from a reservoir near the Porta di S. Lorenzo.

At a short distance to the south of this celebrated Nymphæum is another very curious reservoir, now in a very bad state, having been turned into a gardener’s house, but which must have been of considerable importance, and probably belonged to the thermæ of the third century (2322, 2323). There is a _cippus_ with an inscription, which indicates that the building was a _castellum aquæ_ (2324).

XVI. ALGENTIANA, A.D. 300.

This aqueduct was made to supply the great Thermæ of Diocletian on the Viminal Hill, but is believed to have been entirely subterranean, so that little is known about it. There was a reservoir for it on the eastern side of the Thermæ, under the present railway station. Drawings and a plan of this were preserved by Visconti[231].

XVII. THE AQUA CRABRA, THE MARRANA, A.D. 1124, AND THE RIVER ALMO.

These three may all be treated as one aqueduct for the supply of Rome, partly natural and partly artificial. They all come from the Alban Hills; the first from near Rocca di Papa on very high ground, the second from about a mile above the small and very picturesque town of Marino; the third lower down the same hill. They are all mountain streams, and partake of the usual character of such streams; in dry weather the springs that supply the Almo bring so little water, that it is only sufficient to fill some ponds for cattle at the foot of the hill. The deep bed of the river, which winds about the Campagna for miles, is therefore dry for a great part of the year, but the other two streams never fail; they are united at the foot of the hill, not far from the place where the Aqua Aurelia came from. The greater part of their united waters runs into the river Anio, but a portion of it is diverted near the ruins of the ancient fortified village or _pagus_, called _Centroni_ (2315, 2316, 2317, 2318, 2319), on the road to Tusculum, (now Frascati,) about eight miles from Rome. This branch to supply Rome is first brought through an ancient tunnel of the Aqua Julia, at each end of which remains can be seen of the stone _specus_ and the flood-gates (2310, 2311, 2312, 2313). The water is then conveyed in a bank of clay for about a mile, and then in the bed of one of the many branches of the mountain stream called the river Almo, and so brought into Rome (1309, 1318), under the Porta Metronia, which is built upon a bridge over it. The stream passes under some other bridges with mills upon them, and eventually falls into the Tiber through an aperture left for it in the Pulchrum Littus, or fine tufa wall of the Kings (drawing, 1235*; plans, 368*, 1234*; views, 77, 166, 157).

Another branch from it is carried from the junction or separation between the Torre Fiscale and Roma Vecchia (1937*) by the side of the cross road from the Via Appia Nova to the Via Appia Antiqua. Sometimes in the bed of the Almo, and in other parts, where the ground is low and the stream is liable to floods, an artificial canal is made for it, which may be seen in the valley of the Caffarella. This excellent plan was carried out in the most economical but effectual manner by a company in the twelfth century. This is really an aqueduct, though not usually so called; it is kept in repair by the present Water-Company, and is of great importance for Rome; as the floods to which the Almo was always liable along its whole line, and within the walls of Rome, (as is mentioned by Cicero,) are effectually kept out of Rome, and a constant, regular supply of water is obtained.

XVIII. AQUA FELICE, made A.D. 1587 by Pope Sixtus V. (Felice Peretti).

The sources of it are the springs under the hill on which La Colonna stands. The same water had been used long before, and brought into Rome by the aqueduct (XI.) of Hadrian and Trajan before mentioned. The large reservoir for the water now in use is very near to the remains of the old one of Hadrian. The construction of this aqueduct is very rude and rough, of concrete and rubble-stone only, and this stone consists entirely of old materials; still the large scale of the work, and the height at which the _specus_ is carried upon the arcade, give it a grand effect. At a little distance, the inferior construction is not seen, and this almost modern aqueduct is frequently mistaken by strangers for one of the old ones of the time of the Empire, of which it is only an imitation. It is seen in several of the views of the older aqueducts in the Campagna, especially those at the Torre Fiscale (531, 1028, 1029) and the Porta Furba (68, 1437). Here it crosses the road to Frascati on an arch, with an inscription upon it. In the latter part of its course it is made on the piers of the Claudian arcade, and it enters Rome at the same point, the north-east corner of the gardens of S. Croce. After passing along the north side of them, it is divided into different branches by a reservoir at the angle, close to the south side of the Porta Maggiore (30). The principal stream then passes along upon the Wall of Aurelian (80 A, B, 81), on the same high bank as the earlier aqueducts had done; it was cut through in making the railway, but a new bridge over that road was built for it (29). Near this it can be seen that it is carried on the piers of an older aqueduct for some distance (28). See Alexandrina (XV.)

Further on towards the Porta di S. Lorenzo the ground is higher, and in order to keep the level necessary for the _specus_, it is brought within the wall, and built up against the inside of it (1871). The Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, over which it is carried, as is seen at the two gates where their arcade is visible _under_ the _specus_ of the Aqua Felice, are here still under it, but _underground_ also, owing to the higher level of the ground. It passes over the Porta di S. Lorenzo to a reservoir on the north side of it, and then turns to the west by the side of the road, which it crosses upon an arch, with an inscription upon it, at a short distance within that gate (81). The principal termination of it is at the Fountain of the Termini (called of Moses,) 71. Behind the fountain is a reservoir after the old fashion, which is illustrated by a plan and section (704*). The celebrated Fountain of the Triton (1196), in the Piazza Barberini, is also supplied by this aqueduct, as well as all the upper terraces upon the hills. The lower range, on the Campus Martius, is chiefly supplied by the Virgo. Another branch goes from the reservoir at the Porta Maggiore along the bank on which the Arches of Nero are carried, to the Lateran, where the fountains are supplied by this water. The old aqueduct was used according to the custom of the time, and there is a cascade _specus_ from the level of the Marcia to that of the Appia (shewn in 541).

The _specus_ of each of these old aqueducts was used to carry the metal pipes of the Aqua Felice, when it was convenient to do so (1295*), as has been previously mentioned.

THE AQUA MARCIA PIA was made by a Company between 1860 and 1870, and has been mentioned under the head of the Marcia (a part of it is shewn in 1553).

THE AQUEDUCTS.

ANIO NOVUS.—THE RIVER ANIO.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PHOTO-ENGRAVINGS.

PLATE I.

Source of the Aqua Appia, in a very ancient Stone-quarry of the time of the Kings, in the meadows on the bank of the river Anio, formerly called the meadows of Lucullus. They are not far from Lunghezza, the site of the ancient city of Collatium. This cave has two springs of water in it, and the two streams meet at the mouth of the cave in a channel, which is at first open at the top, and crosses the low meadow with the appearance of a ditch only, to a central reservoir, also in a cave, from which the tunnel _specus_ begins that runs on, into and through Rome. Three streams meet at the same central reservoir, and their united water goes through the _specus_. Each _specus_ can be traced by the line of bushes in the meadows, each bush being over one of the wells; these descend at regular intervals into the _specus_. These wells are also called respirators or ventilators, as they give air to the current of water, or as the people say, enable it to breathe. This cave is easily overlooked, and any person passing on the higher ground over it, is almost sure not to see it. It is scarcely visible until close to it. The ancient quarry from which it comes is earlier than others in the neighbourhood. The celebrated Caves of Cervaro are also ancient quarries; they are about a mile from this point, and although very early, are not quite so early as this, which is more distant from the river Anio. It seems probable that this was one of the quarries for the city of Collatium, before the time of Servius Tullius.

PLATE II.

SOURCE OF ANOTHER SPRING OF THE AQUA APPIA, in another ancient stone quarry on the bank of the river Anio. This is one of a fine series of ancient quarries, now caves, about a mile higher up the river than the Caves of Cervaro. These are believed to have been the quarries from which the large blocks of tufa for the walls of the Kings of Rome were taken, especially the great wall of Servius Tullius, which was a mile long, fifty feet high, and in some parts twelve feet thick, and which would require an enormous quantity of stone. This was probably floated down the Anio on wooden rafts, which served for timber also. The pool at the source of this spring appears as if it came from the water dripping through the rock above, which serves for a roof; but the old shepherds, who have watched it for years, say that the water never fails, and that it is a natural spring, although the quantity of stone refuse thrown into it makes it impossible to see exactly where it rises. These caves are extremely picturesque, more so even than the Caves of Cervaro, though these are the favourite resort of the German artists in their annual festival.

PLATE III.

1. THE AQUEDUCTS ABOVE SUBIACO.

2. RIVER ANIO, THE UPPER LOCHS.

—— THE THIRD LOCH AND THE BRIDGE.

The water for the aqueducts of Rome was chiefly drawn from the river Anio, or from springs or tributary streams that fell into that river. It rises in the high mountains above Subiaco, which are generally covered with snow for the greater part of the year, and the supply of water never fails entirely, though it is not always equally abundant. It is generally a clear, bright mountain stream, coming through rocks, but it is liable to sudden and violent floods, which bring down a great deal of mud, and therefore great precautions are taken for filtering it. The latest and most important of the great aqueducts were the Claudia and Anio Novus; the latter was the most abundant of all, being in fact a branch of the river compelled to pass through Rome by clever engineering. A series of great lochs was made by building dams across the river, with cascades from one to another. There were three of these about two miles above Subiaco, and about forty-two miles from Rome. The uppermost one of them is seen in the upper part of the plate, but in the third loch, the lowest of the three (shewn in the lower part of the plate), the bed of the river is so deep, that the water is not seen. The country through which it passes is celebrated as among the most beautiful in Italy.

PLATE IV.

1. ANIO NOVUS, THE THIRD LOCH, as seen from below, where the dam, that formerly kept up the water and formed a great cascade, has been thrown down, and appears only as rocks in the stream; the modern bridge seen in this view is built upon the two ends of the old dam.

2. ANIO NOVUS, SPECUS. The _specus_ is here a tunnel cut in the cliff, on the side of the valley on which the town of Subiaco stands; it is six feet high, and only eighteen inches wide (an opening into it may be seen in the cliff, on the left-hand side of the view). The round tower, seen on the right, is that of the Villa Gori, about a mile above Subiaco.

PLATE V.

AQUEDUCTS ABOVE SUBIACO—ANIO NOVUS, CASTELLUM.

This is the loch below the modern bridge, which is made upon the remains of the old dam across the river, destroyed in the fourteenth century by making a hole at the bottom to let the water escape from a flood in the upper country. The force of the water once let loose soon destroyed the dam, and the large stones of which it was built are still lying as rocks in the river, and are seen in the photograph and the photo-engraving.

LINE OF THE SPECUS OF THE ANIO NOVUS. It is here carried in the cliff of the valley of the river Anio, seen on the left of the picture. Both of these views are continuations of those seen in Plate IV., and one helps to explain the other. The _specus_ continued in this way for many miles underground, in one sense, when seen from above, but not underground when seen from below. When it has to cross the mouths of the small subsidiary streams that fall into the Anio, it has to be carried over bridges or arches, at other times it is cut in the rock or cliff.

PLATE VI.

THE CLAUDIA, ANIO VETUS, AND NOVUS, AND MARCIA IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARCHES ABOVE TIVOLI.

This valley is about two miles above Tivoli, where there is a junction of another stream with the Anio, in rather a wider valley than the usual valley of the Anio only. One arch of the lofty Claudian arcade is left on the side of the valley next Tivoli, and on the top of this a medieval tower has been built, which has an extremely picturesque effect. Through the arch may be seen a small portion of the Marcian arcade, and at a few yards to the left the Anio Vetus, which there passes half-underground at the foot of the tall arcade of the Anio Novus.

PLATE VII.

TWO OTHER VIEWS OF THE RUINS OF THE ARCADES OF THE CLAUDIA AND ANIO NOVUS, in the Valley of the Arches above Tivoli. In the foreground, the Marcian seen through the arch, and the Anio Vetus again through the arch of the Marcian. These views are celebrated for their picturesque character, as indeed is all the country about Tivoli and Subiaco.

PLATE VIII.

AQUEDUCTS AT TIVOLI. CASCADES OF THE ANIO, WITH THE ROUND TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL AT THE TOP.

This cascade shews the character of the country through which the aqueducts had to be carried, but the waters of the aqueducts taken out of the river Anio were necessarily confined each within its own _specus_, here in tunnels, which are carried in a zig-zag course gradually down the hill to the level of the Villa of Hadrian in the valley below.

PLATE IX.

AQUEDUCTS BELOW TIVOLI.

THE MARCIA, A GREAT CASTELLUM AQUÆ OR RESERVOIR ON THE VIA DI CARCIANO. This is sometimes called the “Promenade” of Carciano, being a favourite walk on the brow of the hill, from which there is a distant view of S. Peter’s at Rome. This fine reservoir (of which two sides are here shewn) is of the time that this aqueduct was made, B.C. 145. It was probably from this reservoir that a branch _specus_ descended to the Villa of Hadrian below, to which there is a bridle-road from near this point.

PLATE X.

AQUEDUCTS BELOW TIVOLI. AQUA MARCIA, RESERVOIR.

This is another of the great reservoirs to receive and retain a supply of water on the edge of the hill, both as one of the many such reservoirs for the supply of water to Rome, and for the purpose of local irrigation. It consists of two large chambers, divided by an arcade, which is the usual plan, and is probably part of the original construction of B.C. 145. These reservoirs are remarkably picturesque and finely situated.

PLATE XI.

AQUEDUCTS BELOW TIVOLI. ANIO NOVUS, CASTELLUM.

This is another of these fine reservoirs, about a mile further on; it is faced with the reticulated-work of the first century, and is part of the original work of the time of Nero.

MARCIA, CASTELLUM OF TRAJAN, who repaired the aqueducts in several places, as is recorded by inscriptions. The reticulated-work with which this is faced is very peculiar, and is believed to be unique, at least it has not been observed elsewhere.

PLATE XII.

THE CLAUDIA AND ANIO NOVUS IN THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME, NEAR ROMA VECCHIA.

This grand arcade is the most perfect part of this finest of the aqueducts, and extends for about a mile, from near the farm-house called Roma Vecchia, about four miles from Rome, to the piscinæ where the arcade becomes gradually lower as the ground rises towards the foot of the hills. The two _specus_ are clearly seen with their usual characteristics, the Claudia built of large squared stones; the Anio Novus is visible, faced with brick in most parts, but here is faced with reticulated-work. In the first part of this view are seen the ruins of one of the enormous reservoirs, or Castella Aquarum, at one of the angles which occur at each half mile along its course. The object of these very numerous reservoirs probably was two-fold, one for local irrigation, the other for keeping up a constant and never-failing supply for Rome, even in the hot season, when many springs cease to flow.

PLATE XIII.

THE MARCIA, TEPULA and JULIA passing under one of the arches of the CLAUDIA and ANIO NOVUS, now under the TOR FISCALE. A medieval tower built upon the celebrated crossing of the aqueducts, where seven aqueducts crossed each other at different levels. The Anio Vetus passes under it just underground, and the AQUA FELICE by the side of it. The _specus_ of the Aqua Marcia, built as usual of squared stone, is seen upon the arch that carried it; the others are concealed by a modern wall, but can be traced passing under the stone arch of the Claudian. The other view in the upper part of the plate shews another crossing, at one of the angles made to break the force of the water. The Marcian and the Claudian arcades running parallel to each other at a short distance only, the angle of this goes across the intervening space, and then changes sides for a time. The road which here runs between the two arcades passes under the arches at both ends of this junction, near the Porta Furba, which is seen in the distance. The character of the brickwork of the arch in the foreground indicates the time of Trajan, with later repairs, which were made at all periods in this arcade.

PLATE XIV.

The upper view represents the stone _specus_ of the Aqua Marcia at the PORTA TIBURTINA, now of S. Lorenzo, just within the gate, and in the wall on the southern side, with an opening by the side of it, through which a man can now walk into the _specus_ and along it. To the right of this, still in the wall, is a Castellum of the Aqua Felice, which is here, as at the Porta Maggiore, above the Marcia, Tepula and Julia, and below the Claudia and Anio Novus.

In the lower view is the Claudia and Anio Novus, at the north-east angle of the gardens of the Sessorian Palace (now of S. Croce in Gerusalemme). One of the stone piers of the Aqua Claudia is seen just within the projection of the tower at the angle, which is an addition of a later period. Within this portion of the City wall is a great Castellum Aquæ, extending from the corner to the tower, through which the aqueducts entered Rome. The interior of the tower is a piscina, which is shewn in another plate.

PLATE XV.

AQUEDUCTS AT THE PORTA MAGGIORE. THE MARCIA, TEPULA, AND JULIA ENTERING ROME.

The upper view shews the exterior of the wall, with the three _specus_ passing through it, under an arch of the Claudian arcade, now destroyed. These are carried upon one of the piers of the Marcian arcade, built of squared stone, as the part near Rome always was. In the left lower corner of this view may be seen the Anio Vetus, half underground, as usual for this aqueduct. [This opening has been built up since the photograph was taken. The demolition of all traces of the old aqueduct as far as possible was part of the plan of the architect, who directed what were miscalled the _restorations_ of the City wall.]

The lower view represents the _specus_ of the Aqua Marcia, of squared stone, carried on one of the arches of the Marcian arcade through the wall, within it at the same point as that of the exterior shewn above.

PLATE XVI.

CLAUDIA AND ANIO NOVUS.

I. OVER THE PORTA MAGGIORE. In the lower view the two _specus_ are seen endways, built of squared stone, as part of the gateway. The point of view for this is nearly the same as that of Plate XV., looking south instead of west. The curious tomb of the Baker Eurysaces is seen on the left, with the stone kneading-troughs of which it is built.

II. The upper view is one corner of the great reservoir of Nero on the Cœlian, near the west end, over the Arch of Dolabella, which is seen built of well-cut stone, and perfectly plain. This has an inscription, with the names of the Consuls of the time of Augustus (A.D. 10), forty years afterwards; the arch, which was the eastern entrance into the Claudium, was used by the engineers of Nero as a substructure for the corner of the great reservoir of water for the supply of that part of Rome, which was carried at the height of thirty feet from the ground. Some small square windows are seen in the wall, which belonged to the chapel of S. Thomas _in formis_ (or in the arches), made in the remains of the arcade in the eighth century, and removed in the twelfth for a larger chapel, now in the garden of the Villa Celi-montana near to it. At the left-hand corner of this view is seen the gateway of the small monastery of the Redemptorists, with the celebrated mosaic picture over it, representing Christ between a black and a white slave, shewn in another plate of this work.

PLATE XVII.

ARCHES OF NERO WITHIN THE PORTA MAGGIORE.

This double arcade crosses the valley or inner foss of the Sessorian Palace. It was built on this plan for greater strength, as the piers are of a great height. This arcade is a continuation of the one that forms the northern wall of the Sessorian gardens, in a direct line to the west, over the Cœlian to the great reservoir over the Arch of Dolabella (shewn in the last plate). The _specus_ was carried at the top, and conveyed the water of the Claudian and Anio Novus, _united_ at _the Gemelli_ (a great twin reservoir which was close to that point, and at the north-west angle of the Sessorian gardens). The Claudian as a separate water turns at a sharp angle, and goes on to the Porta Maggiore, with the Anio Novus over it, and terminated at another tower just to the north of the place where the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia pass through the wall. But they left a considerable part of their water at that angle to be united to that of the Anio Novus at the Gemelli.

The lower view represents a fragment of the Aqua Marcia, as repaired and restored by Trajan, to the north of, and near the Porta Maggiore, in the vineyard in which the Minerva Medica stands, which has been the Exquiliæ, and afterwards the gardens of Mæcenas. This, which is parallel to the City wall, is joined to it a little further on. It was accidentally brought to light by some excavations in 1871, and is now buried again.

PLATE XVIII.

THE CLAUDIAN AND THE ANIO NOVUS, IN THE NORTH WALL OF THE SESSORIAN GARDENS, NEAR THE PORTA MAGGIORE.

The wall for about a quarter of a mile is entirely made out of this arcade, with the arches filled up, but it is built upon the old earthwork of the Sessorium, probably of the time of the Kings. The arcade extends from the angle at the north-east corner, where the aqueduct entered Rome, to the north-west angle near the Porta Maggiore, which was called Porta Sessoriana, because it entered into the Sessorian gardens.

The lower view represents the NYMPHÆUM OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS, WHERE THE TROPHIES OF MARIUS WERE HUNG.

This is identified by a representation of it on one of the coins of that Emperor. It is commonly miscalled a Castellum of the Aqua Julia, but it is on too high a level for that water, and there is no other but the Anio Novus which is high enough; this was brought along the wall to another reservoir near the Porta Tiburtina, and then by a branch arcade to this point, where there is another large reservoir on high ground, from which the water was dispersed in different directions. One branch went to supply the great reservoir called the _Sette Sale_, which supplied the Thermæ of Titus and Trajan on the Exquiliæ, and from thence went on to the Colosseum and to the Tiber. Another branch supplied the Thermæ of Constantine, on the Quirinal.

PLATE XIX.

RESERVOIR ON THE ARCHES OF NERO OVER THE ARCH OF DOLABELLA.

This Plate is almost a repetition of Plate XV., but from a different point of view, and this great reservoir is of so much importance for the history of the aqueducts in Rome, that it was necessary to shew it as clearly as possible. Without repeating what has been said before, we may add that the arch seen to the right in this view is the beginning of an arcade which led to the Colosseum. Another branch in a more direct line led to the Palatine, after passing first along the north wall of the garden of the Villa Celimontana, then by the western side of the Clivus Scauri, parallel to the church of SS. John and Paul, and at the foot of the hill passing across the road, and under the apse of the church; then turning again southwards on an arcade across the valley to the Palatine, of which there are remains; afterwards passing along the whole length of the Palatine underground, it is visible at the mouth of a tunnel on the platform opposite to the Capitoline Hill, and went across the Forum Romanum over the bridge of Caligula. The work of Nero stopped at the Arch of Dolabella, but it was taken up and completed by his successors.

Another branch went also to the left, on the west wall of the garden of the Villa Celimontana, to the valley between the Cœlian and the Aventine. There is a large reservoir for it on the cliff of the Cœlian, partly below and partly above it, and in the garden of the monks of S. Gregory. It then went on a tall arcade, over the Porta Capena and the _agger_ of Servius Tullius, to the Piscina Publica, and from thence, again crossing the valley between the two parts of the Aventine, to the Thermæ of Sura, and the private house of Trajan, and the temples on the edge of the Aventine, and to the mouth of the aqueducts in the cave under the Priorato at the Porta Trigemina, and so to the Tiber.

THE AQUEDUCTS.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DIAGRAMS.

PLATE I.

PLAN OF THE SOURCES OF THE APPIA (I.) AND VIRGO[232] (VI.)

1. Farm-house of Cervaro. 2. —— Cervelletta. 3. —— La Rustica. 4. —— Salone. 5. Church. 6. Sources of the Aqua Appia. 7. —— Virgo. 8. —— Augusta. 9. Tombs. 10. Aqueduct of the Virgo. 11. Road of Cervaro. 12. —— La Rustica. 13. —— Prænestina (?). 14. —— Collatia. 15. Bed of the stream of the Fontanille. 16. —— of Tor Sapienza. 17. —— of Ponte Nono, the Rivus Herculaneus. 18. Direction of the Aqueduct of the Appia. 19. Stone-quarry of Collatium and Necropolis.

PLATE II.

THE APPIA (I.) at the PORTA CAPENA, in the eastern tower of the gate, now in the house of the gardener of the monks of S. Gregory. The _specus_ is built of large blocks of tufa, and the lower part of it cut in the tufa wall of Servius Tullius; it was distinctly visible in the excavations of 1870, when this drawing was made. The line of the aqueduct upon the short _agger_ between the Cœlian and the Aventine was also visible for several yards, and in three different places, where pits were dug fifteen feet deep, the last was where a branch was carried into the Piscina Publica. The middle pit was in waste land on the western side of the present south road through the gate of S. Sebastian, or the modern line of the Porta Appia. It was to this pit that his holiness Pius IX. was taken to see it by the Cavaliere Guidi, and he said there was no denying that this was part of the wall of Servius Tullius, but he was surprised that his Roman friends had not discovered this. The greater part of the pits that he opened might have been left open, if it had not been for the prejudices of the subordinate officers of the Government. The particular pit in question was in waste ground by the side of the road, and might have been left open without any inconvenience.

PLATE III.

The Appia (I.) under S. Sabba, in an old subterranean stone quarry. Several branches of other and later aqueducts here cast their surplus water into the _specus_ of the Appia, the earliest and the lowest (as shewn in the plan). The _specus_ is also visible in several places, filled up to one-third of its depth by the deposit of clay left by the water, which comes from swampy meadows on the bank of the river Anio, in which the soil is clay, upon tufa rock, called the “Meadows of Lucullus.”

Over the plan in this plate are two sections of the _specus_; in the one to the right the clay deposit left by the water is shewn, in the one to the left a small pipe coming into the _specus_, probably part of the system of irrigation, which was one great use of the aqueducts; the green lines winding through the quarry represent the lines of the various streams of water coming at different levels, sometimes with a very rapid descent, and all falling into the old deep _specus_ of the Appia, before that was carried across the last road that it had to pass. In this instance it was probably carried under the road, and not over the arch of the gate. At this point four roads meet, which is almost a certain indication of the site of a gate. In most cases the _specus_ was carried over the gate, but here the level seems too low, unless the old foss-way has been filled up even more than the usual fifteen feet. The _specus_ is visible again in another subterranean stone quarry under S. Prisca, in the same large vineyard formerly of the Jesuits, now of Prince Torlonia, in which, at a higher level, are also the remains of the Wall of the Latins on the Aventine, and of the Thermæ of Sura and the private house of Trajan. Another aqueduct passed over this to supply the Thermæ; this is on a very high level, and was carried on a tall arcade across the valley, from the Cœlian to the Aventine, passing over the Porta Capena and on the old _agger_. There are remains of the tall brick piers in several places, and of the arcade and _specus_ on the hill near S. Prisca, visible from the Palatine.

PLATE IV.

Mouth of the Appia (I.), in a cave under the Priorato or Priory of the knights of Malta on the Aventine, near the Marmorata and the Porta Trigemina. At the back of the cave, and connected with it by a natural tunnel, is a large reservoir of water in the heart of the hill, supplied by a natural spring, which was added to the water brought by the aqueduct for distribution. The latter part of this cave, behind the part here shewn, is under the garden of the monastery of S. Alessio, and the cave belonged to those monks. A plan and section of it is given in another plate. In the inner part of the cave is the natural spring, so that it is always knee-deep in water. This seems a likely place to have driven cattle into for concealment; there is no other natural cave under the Aventine, and this is close to the Porta Trigemina. The idea that there was a cave near the Forum Boarium seems to have arisen from a misunderstanding as to the exact site of the Porta Trigemina, which was supposed to be close to that Forum, instead of being a quarter of a mile from it, and close to the Sublician, or wooden bridge, where some remains of it have been found. The _specus_ of the Aqua Appia leads directly into this cave, and other aqueducts also meet there. The surplus water of the Trajan, far above this level, descends into it by a vertical pipe of terra cotta. Piranesi, in the last century, recognised the cave as the mouth of the Aqua Appia, and gives one of his admirable etchings of this part of the Aventine, with the cave at its foot. He was in advance of his time, but a great deal of fresh evidence has come to light since that period.

PLATE V.

I. AQUA APPIA.

The Aqua Appia (I.) is at so great a depth near the Porta Maggiore (which stands on very high ground), that it is difficult to trace it, but the _specus_ was found in making the railway in a deep cutting about half-a-mile outside of that gate, and was described in the _Bulletino di Correspondenza Archæoligia_ at the time it was found. There is reason to believe that it entered Rome under the wall on the north side of the Sessorian Gardens, and was received in a reservoir, of which there are remains at a considerable depth, especially the lower story. This is near the reservoir of the great Basilica or Hall of the Palace, of which the apse remains. The plan and section of this reservoir are shewn in this diagram. The _specus_ from this point turned to the west, and passed along the Cœlian Hill at a low level, nearly under the arches of Nero; but before arriving at these, it passed through another large and deep reservoir to the south of the Porta Maggiore, now in a vineyard, with another large reservoir close to it. These two are believed from the situation to be the Gemelli of Frontinus. An inscription was found on the one in the garden of the Sessorium relating to the Thermæ of S. Helena, who resided in that palace, and probably the water for her bath-chambers was taken from this reservoir.

PLATE VI.

II. ANIO VETUS.

The reservoir, of which the plan and section are given in this plate, is situated at about a quarter of a mile from the Porta Furba, near the junction of the old Via Latina with the Via Appia Nova. It is just two miles from Rome, and so agrees with the text of Frontinus. It seems clear that at this point part of its water was carried by the Octavian _specus_ to the Porta Maggiore, while the main stream went on along the side of the Via Appia Nova to the Asinian Gardens, just within the Porta Asinaria. It was shewn in some excavations made under my direction in 1871. We had long been looking for it, and the gardener informed us that there was a vaulted chamber under part of that garden or vineyard, where we found it, a few feet underground, and about a hundred yards from the arcade of the great aqueduct on the southern side, nearer to the present road than the reservoir.

PLATE VII.

LOCH IN THE AQUA JULIA, NEAR THE IMPERIAL VILLA, CALLED THE SETTE BASSI (SEPTIMIUS BASSUS?).

The Aqua Julia at this point, which is about four miles from Rome, is just underground, and this loch and branch to supply the Villa was discovered about 1850 by Signor Moraldi, when he was making a map of the Aqua Marcia, with a view to having it brought again into use; which has since been done, but by a different line.—To save carrying it so far round as the old aqueduct was carried (in order to avoid the mouths of the many streams that run into the river Anio), the modern engineers used metal pipes in this part. Above Tivoli they built a stone _specus_ after the old fashion, as in that stone country they found it the cheapest and the best plan. They now say they regret that they did not continue the stone _specus_ over the level Campagna also, as the metal pipes are continually bursting from the force of the water. Previous to this discovery of Signor Moraldi, it was not known that there were lochs in the aqueducts, though it is obvious that when branches had to be taken from them, such an arrangement would be required. The Tepula and the Marcia are underground in this part. The Julia, being the uppermost of the three, was close to the surface. This was also the case on the side of the great _agger_ of Servius Tullius near the railway station, where the Julia only was excavated, with two cippi, on which were inscriptions stating that _the three_ aqueducts passed there.

PLATE VIII.

AQUEDUCTS AND RIVER ALMO, NEAR THE PORTA FURBA.

A. Arcades of the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia; the Claudia and Anio Novus at one of the angles and crossings; and the Aqua Felice, which is carried first on one and then on the other of the old arcades. Also, there is an indication of the situation of the great tumulus and tomb called “Monte del Grano,” in which the fine sarcophagus was found which is now in the Capitoline Museum, and was long supposed to be that of the Emperor Alexander Severus and his wife Mammea. This is given to indicate the situation. The river Almo is seen crossing the two arcades near the gate or arch over the road.

B. The same two arcades, at about a quarter of a mile nearer to Rome, or just two miles, with the river Almo winding between them; and a Section to shew the elevations.

C. Plan of the junction of the old Via Latina, with the modern road to Albano, at two miles from Rome, shewing the situation of the aqueduct in a stone-quarry at the back of the “Albergo dei Spiriti,” near C.

D. Plan and Section of the reservoir, at two miles from Rome, near the Porta Furba.

PLATE IX.

THE SEVEN AQUEDUCTS AT THE TOR FISCALE.

At this important junction and crossing of the aqueducts the Marcian arcade originally made one of the usual angles. The more lofty arcade of the Claudia and Anio Novus was then carried over it, with the Anio Vetus half underground, nearly on the same line; and the modern aqueduct, called the Felice, is here carried against and partly upon the old Marcian arcade. The medieval architects took advantage of this crossing to build a tall tower upon it; the five conduits or _specus_ can be seen inside the tower, and half arches abutting against it in a very picturesque manner, all of which are shewn in the Section in the upper part of the plate, and in the Photo engravings.

The Plan in the lower part of the plate shews the arrangement, and also the small river Almo, now called the Marrana, winding round it.

PLATE X.

Piscina of the Anio Novus at the entrance into Rome, in a tower of the Wall of Aurelian, and of the gardens of the Sessorian Palace, now of S. Croce in Gerusalemme.

A. The Section.

B. The Plan.

By a singular coincidence it happens that the inner wall of this tower has been destroyed, so that the whole of the interior is displayed, and shews exactly what an ancient piscina was. The water comes into the right-hand upper chamber, it then descends into the chamber under it, as is marked by the arrow in the drawing, it then passes through small holes in the partition wall into the left-hand lower chamber. [The artist has represented a _large_ opening through this wall, but this must be a mistake, owing to the wall being partially broken away; there are always _small_ holes through this partition wall.] The space between this tower and the corner of the wall in the Sessorian gardens, where it turns sharp to the west, was a large reservoir, or Castellum Aquæ, for the Claudia; it is not at a sufficiently high level for the Anio Novus.

PLATE XI.

THE AQUEDUCTS AT THE PORTA MAGGIORE AND THE PORTA TIBURTINA.

In the lower part of this plate is seen the Wall of Rome on the northern side of the Porta Maggiore, with the tomb of Eurysaces the Baker in front of it. The wall here makes an angle, and the section of it is shewn just beyond the gate; the Claudia and Anio Novus (which here passed over it) are shewn in section, the _specus_ of the Claudia being nearly square, that of the Anio Novus over it considerably higher in its proportions. The Marcia, Tepula, and Julia here pass under these at a right angle, and through the wall, which in that part is made by filling up the arches of the Claudian arcade of the aqueducts. A pier of the Marcian arcade is shewn in the lower part of the section. The Aqua Felice is carried between the Julia and the Claudia, and it continues on to the Porta Tiburtina, always at the same level, over the Marcian arcade, but between the gates it passes through higher ground, and is therefore in that part underground, but emerges on arches at the two ends, near the gates, as Frontinus mentions. The Claudian arcade terminated at a tower in an angle of the wall, just to the north of this view, and with a great reservoir within the wall. In the upper view the Porta Tiburtina is shewn, with the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia passing over it. The different levels of the old road and the new one are also shewn. The arch on which the aqueducts are carried has inscriptions upon it of the time of Augustus, A.D. 10, and is of his time; it is buried up to the springing of the actual arch; the jambs are entirely buried by the filling up of the foss-way, but the two arches of the time of Honorius, A.D. 405, are tall arches, standing on the ground at its present level; the raising of the level of the road, therefore, took place between A.D. 10 and A.D. 400.

PLATE XII.

ANIO NOVUS—NYMPHÆUM, WHERE THE TROPHIES OF MARIUS WERE HUNG.

A. SECTION OF THE TOWER AND ARCHES.

B, C. PLANS OF THE THREE STORIES.

This Nymphæum is represented on one of the coins of Alexander Severus, and belonged to the great Thermæ of the third century on the eastern side of Rome, which, having been long in progress, are called by the names of different emperors of that period. The ground had been originally the Exquiliæ, the great burial-ground of the time of the Republic, afterwards the garden of Mæcenas; it is full of aqueducts of different periods, and at different levels, and there are several reservoirs for them, some underground, others at a higher level. This one was formerly considered to have belonged to the Aqua Julia, but on taking the levels it appears that the only water in Rome that is high enough to reach it is the Anio Novus, the highest of the aqueducts, and the water has been brought from a reservoir belonging to that, near the Porta Tiburtina; having just been brought along the high bank on which the Wall of Rome stands, part of an arcade of an aqueduct leading to it remains, coming from that gate. Near the Porta Maggiore there are also remains of an aqueduct at a very high level, coming from the Anio Novus, but the construction of the arcade is of the third century. It is now part of the wall.

This Nymphæum or reservoir at that high level has several branches leading from it, one of which goes in the direction of the other great reservoir on the Esquiline Hill, called the _Sette Sale_, and this, from the high level, probably supplied the Sette Sale and the Thermæ of Titus and Trajan.

PLATE XIII.

RIVER ALMO. DIVISION INTO TWO BRANCHES, NOW A LOCH OF THE MARRANA.

This loch is situated about half-way between the Tor Fiscale and the farm-house called Roma Vecchia, rather more than three miles from Rome, and a quarter of a mile to the left of the Via Appia Nova. The Almo is a mountain stream coming down from the Alban hills, often flooded in the rainy season and dry in the hot season, with a very deep bed called a foss. This bed was convenient for the engineers who made the mill-stream, now called the Marrana, in the twelfth century, and they used it when the ground was high and the foss deep; but in other parts, when the ground was low and liable to be flooded, they banked up the stream, or made a new channel for it on a raised bank, for sometimes half a mile together, then joined the old winding bed again for perhaps another mile. At the point where the division into two streams takes place, one branch is banked up and comes through Rome, the other remains in the deep bed and receives the surplus water from the loch, made at this point, and this second stream runs through the valley of the Caffarella, and has its mouth near the church of S. Paul f. m. The Plate shews the plan at the division, one section of the loch, and the lasher. The second stream has no other beginning than this division, and the deep bed or foss can be traced in its winding course by the side of the cross-road from the Via Appia Nova to S. Urban, at the head of the valley of the Caffarella.

PLATE XIV.

RIVER ALMO, NOW THE MARRANA.

ENTRANCE INTO ROME UNDER THE PORTA METRONIA.

A. Elevation, with the bridge under the gate.

The lower bridge under the modern road is of the time of the Early Empire, and can be seen, though not without some little difficulty, by climbing upon the bank of the mill-stream, which now runs in the deep winding foss of the Almo, and makes a bend under the gate, as is seen in the small plan in the centre, marked M.

B. Plan and sections, longitudinal and transverse, of the bridge, with the gate upon it. The longitudinal section A B has the line of it, marked on the small plan M; the transverse section is marked C D.

C. Map of the corner of the Wall of Rome, shewing the great bend that it makes to the south at this point. The wall is indicated by the towers at short intervals, and the stream of water by its winding course. The roads within the walls, and the road on the outside under the wall are also indicated. The house shewn in the lower part, to the left in the plan, is believed to be on the site of that of Crassipes, the father-in-law of Cicero, near the Via Appia. The stream after passing the road turns sharply round to the north, under the cliffs of the Aventine, and runs through the Vallis Murcia, in which the Circus Maximus was made, first having passed by the Piscina Publica, under that part of the Aventine on which the Reformatory of S. Balbina now stands.

PLATE XV.

RIVER ALMO. MOUTH IN THE PULCHRUM LITTUS. VIEW.

This is the mouth within the Walls of Rome from the earliest period, and it was here in all probability that the priests washed the blood off their knives, and not at S. Paul’s, a mile outside the town. The remains of the early wall of tufa in this part are well shewn in the drawing, and the mouth for the stream to pass through, left when the wall was built. This was part of the second Wall of Rome, built when the peace was made between the Romans and the Sabines. The construction of that period, of the usual large blocks of tufa with very fine joints, is clearly shewn in the drawing.

PLATE XVI.

RIVER ALMO. MOUTH IN THE PULCHRUM LITTUS. PLAN.

In the Plan the old arrangement is clearly shewn, and the division of the stream into two branches, one of which now turns a mill-wheel, and is probably part of the alterations in the twelfth century,—this is the straight line. The other is probably the original end of the stream, or at least of this branch of it. The frequent change of the sand-banks by the great floods of the Tiber sometimes obscure this part. Advantage was taken of the water being low in the Tiber to get this plan and the view in Plate XV.

THE AQUEDUCTS.

PLATE XVII.

SOURCES OF THE AQUA APPIA.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XVII.

SOURCES OF THE AQUA APPIA[233].

A. Spring in a very ancient stone-quarry on the bank of the river Anio, probably one of those from which Servius Tullius had obtained the stones for his great wall, which had been floated down the river on rafts. The spring is so filled up with broken stones that it looks like merely a pond formed by drippings from the roof and the earth above, but the shepherds are certain that it is a spring, and the water never fails.

B. Central reservoir where two streams meet and are united in one _specus_, which conveyed the water into Rome. The aperture in the rock above is not original, or it has been greatly enlarged. This was probably a well to draw water for the cattle, and to give air to the _specus_.

C. Two streams coming out of a sort of double cave, and meeting at the mouth of it, from whence they are carried across the meadow in a _specus_ open at the top for a certain distance, and having the appearance of a ditch only; but the water from this spring also never fails, and these two streams united gave a certain steady supply to the aqueduct. The meadow through which these streams flow has a clay soil, and the water is always liable to be muddy after rain, and left a large deposit of clay in the _specus_, as is shewn in other plates.

THE AQUEDUCTS.

PLATE XVIII.

AQUA APPIA, OR APPIAN AQUEDUCT.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XVIII.

AQUA APPIA, OR APPIAN AQUEDUCT.

Crossing the valley from the Cœlian to the Aventine upon the _agger_ of Servius Tullius and over the Porta Capena, this was the only part that was above ground, as we are told by Frontinus[234]. In this view the pavement of the Via Appia is seen in the foreground, then the wall of Servius Tullius, twelve feet thick, (as usual with the walls of the Kings;) by the side of this, to the left, is seen the arcade that carried the _specus_ of the aqueduct; this goes as far as the branch of the river Almo (now called the Marrana), which runs through the valley. On the further side of the stream the land is high, and the aqueduct is again underground, but it has been traced not only across the valley, but under the cliff on the northern side of the Pseudo-Aventine, with a branch to the left to supply the Piscina Publica, which was an enormous swimming-bath for the whole population of Rome at that period, extending as far as the north end of the Thermæ of Caracalla, where the hollow with the bank round it can still be seen, and where a great reservoir remains, lined with the cement called _opus signinum_ (or _coccio pisto_). The ruins of another great reservoir rebuilt in the time of Trajan are at the north-west corner, nearly under the Aventine, and are called the Piscina Publica.

THE AQUEDUCTS.

PLATE XIX.

PLAN AND SECTION IN A CAVE IN THE AVENTINE.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XIX.

PLAN AND SECTION IN A CAVE IN THE AVENTINE.

This is the same cave on the Pseudo-Aventine, nearly under the church and monastery of Santa Sabba, which has been before described when partially excavated (Plate III.[235]), but which has now, in 1875-6, been more thoroughly examined and made accessible.

A A. General Plan of this part of the _specus_ of the Aqua Appia, made into a stone-quarry for many years, and part of it still in use for that purpose, but another large part has been long out of use[236].

B. Entrances to the two parts, the steps distinguish that leading to the part excavated.

C C. Section of part of the cave-quarry.

D. View of that part of the _specus_ of the Aqua Appia which is built of squared stones, and has a terra-cotta water-pipe on each side of it.

E E. Longitudinal Section of this part.

F. Transverse Section of the same.

DETAILS OF THE PLAN A.

a a. Entrance to the cave or quarry.

b b. Via di San Paolo, the carriage-road to that gate.

c c. Via di Santa Sabba, the carriage-road up the hill to the south.

d. Via di Santa Prisca, the road up the hill to the north.

e e. The most perfect part of the _specus_ where it is built, and not merely a tunnel cut in the bed of tufa, as in other parts.

f f f f. Windings of the tunnels for the Aqueducts.

g g. Water-pipes of terra-cotta, by the side of the _specus_ in the part where it is built, and not merely cut out of the tufa.

h. The _specus_ half filled up with the deposit of clay.

i. Steps made to give access to the cave.

THE AQUEDUCTS.

PLATE XX.

THE JUNCTION AT THE WEST END OF THE CŒLIAN, NEAR THE CLAUDIUM.

PLAN AND SECTION.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XX.

THE JUNCTION AT THE WEST END OF THE CŒLIAN, NEAR THE CLAUDIUM.

PLAN AND SECTION.

A B C. Line of the Section.

a. Colosseum.

b. Claudium.

c. Arch of Dolabella.

d. Reservoir and Spring of water.

e. Aqueduct of Nero.

f. Cave-reservoir and Spring, with ten wells down into it, erroneously called a _vivarium_.

g g g. Porticus of the Claudium.

h. Church of SS. John and Paul.

i. —— S. John of Mata.

k. —— S. Maria in Domnica.

l. —— S. Gregory.

m. Clivus Scauri.

n. House of the family of S. Gregory the Great.

o. Villa Celi-Montana (formerly called Villa Mattei).

p. Vineyard of Marchese Rappini.

q. Ground called Orto Botanico.

r. Place of S. Gregory.

s. Arch of Constantine.

t. Meta Sudans.

u. Via Sacra.

v. Summa Sacra Via.