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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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