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