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]