The archæology of Rome, Part 8 : $b The aqueductsParker, John Henry
History
The archæology of Rome, Part 8 : $b The aqueducts
Parker, John Henry
Rome -- Antiquities
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*).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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