[409] Procopius, Gothicorum lib. i. c. 9. Fabretti Diss. de aquis et aquæductibus vet. Romæ, p. 176. Grævii Thesaur. Antiq. Rom. iv. p. 1677. [410] The account of Procopius, in the first book of the War of the Goths, deserves to be here given at length:--“When these aqueducts were cut off by the enemy, as the mills were stopped for want of water, and as cattle could not be found to drive them, the Romans, closely besieged, were deprived of every kind of food (for with the utmost care they could scarcely find provender for their horses). Belisarius however being a man of great ingenuity devised a remedy for this distress. Below the bridge which reaches to the walls of Janiculum, he extended ropes well-fastened, and stretched across the river from both banks. To these he affixed two boats of equal size, at the distance of two feet from each other, where the current flowed with the greatest velocity under the arch of the bridge, and placing large mill-stones in one of the boats, suspended in the middle space a machine by which they were turned. He constructed at certain intervals on the river, other machines of the like kind, which being put in motion by the force of the water that ran below them, drove as many mills as were necessary to grind provisions for the city,” &c. [411] “Si quis ingenuus annonam in molino furaverit.... Si quis sclusam de farinario alieno ruperit.... Si quis ferramentum de molino alieno furaverit....”--Leges Francorum Salicæ, edit. Eccardi, Francof. et Lipsiæ 1720, fol. p. 51. _Sclusa_ is translated _sluice_, and there is no doubt that the French word _escluse_ is derived from it. All these words come from _schliessen_ to shut up, or the Low Saxon _schluten_: but by that word in these laws we can hardly understand those expensive works which we at present call sluices, but probably wickets and what else belonged to the dam. Lex Wisigothorum, lib. viii. tit. 4, 30, may serve further to illustrate this subject: “De confringentibus molina et conclusiones aquarum. Si quis molina violenter effregerit, quod fregit intra triginta dies reparare cogatur.--Eadem et de stagnis, quæ sunt circa molina conclusiones aquarum, præcipimus custodire.” The _sclusæ_ are here called _conclusiones aquarum_, to which belong also the mounds or dykes. See Corpus Juris Germanici Antiqui, ed. Georgisch. Halæ 1738, 4to, p. 2097. Gregory of Tours calls them _exclusas_. But what is _ferramentum_? The iron-work of our mills cannot be so easily stolen as to render it necessary to secure them by particular laws. [412] Auson. Mosella, v. 362. Fortunati Carmina, Moguntiæ 1617, 4to, p. 83. [413] Gregorii Turonensis Opera, Paris, 1699, fol. Hist. lib. iii. 19, p. 126. Ibid. Vita Patrum, 18, p. 1242. [414] Gul. Britonis Philippidos libri xii. lib. vi. v. 220. [415] Chronicon Hierosolymitanum, edit. a Reineccio. Helms. 1584, 4to, lib. i. c. 10.