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
[Illustration: MAP OF THE AQUEDUCTS ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF ROME
Whiteman & Bass, _Photo-Litho’ to the Queen_, 236, Holborn]
This map is reduced by photography from one made for this work on a
very large scale, which was thought necessary in order to shew the
line of the course of each aqueduct, which, being to a large extent
subterranean, are not shewn in the usual maps of the country. In the
immediate neighbourhood of Rome the lines are so complicated that they
could only be shewn on this large scale. (At the Tor Fiscale, for
instance, they remind English travellers of the railways at Clapham
Junction near London. There are many coincidences between the aqueducts
and the railways; both are carried at different levels in order to
cross each other; both are in some parts in tunnels, and in other parts
carried on embankments, or on arches). This map was made by Signor
De Mauro, an engineer and surveyor, who took much interest in the
work, and is generally very careful and accurate, under the direction
chiefly of Dr. Fabio Gori, who is a native of Subiaco, near which the
principal aqueducts have their sources. The author of this work went
with them from time to time to verify what they had done, but as it was
a work of several months, and necessarily done in the summer, it was
not practicable for him to do more than to go to the source of each
aqueduct and follow it down to its mouth. The large map, which covers
one side of a room, being 135 ft. long and 90 ft. wide, has been reduced
by photography to three different sizes; the first makes eighteen
photographs of the usual size, called the “normal size,” and the whole
on this scale is about 15 ft. long and 10 ft. wide; this again has been
reduced to two sheets[238], 21 ins. long and 14 ins. wide; and then to
the same size as this outline; but on this small scale the lettering
requires a powerful magnifying-glass, and therefore the bare outline
has been taken from it to shew the general features of the line of the
great aqueducts. The reservoir at the source of each is marked by a dark
circle, and from each of them the line can be traced into Rome. Within
the walls a separate and careful examination was required, as so much of
the work is subterranean; this examination has been made, and the line of
each of the aqueducts has been traced to its mouth. It will be observed
that the _specus_ or conduit of each aqueduct is of a separate form, and
this was no doubt necessary to distinguish one from the other, as they
frequently intersect and cross one another in a very singular manner, and
in case of repair being necessary, it would have been very difficult for
the workmen to know which aqueduct was at fault, or how to find the part
that wanted repair, without this arrangement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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