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
6. JULIA[244] (B.C. 34). This source is on the cross-road from Grotta
Ferrata to Marino, on the old Via Latina, 14 miles from Rome, and also 2
from the Via Latina (there are still washing-places at each of these two
sources). The two streams, when they arrived on the level ground at the
foot of the hill, were carried on the same arcade as the Marcia for 6
miles into Rome.
7. AUGUSTA[245]. This name is a mistake of the artist for Aurelia; it
is the aqueduct made by Marcus Aurelius for the Villa de Quintilii on
the old Via Appia, and united with the Severiana to supply the Thermæ
Aurelianæ et Severianæ in Rome.
8. ANIO NOVUS[246] (A.D. 52). “The source of this is 42 miles from Rome,
on the Via Sublacensis; the length of the channel is 58 miles 700 paces,
of which 49 miles 300 paces are underground, 9 miles 400 paces above
ground, 2 miles 3 paces in the upper part and near the City, 609 paces on
substructure, 6 miles 491 paces on an arcade of the highest arches, in
some places 109 ft. high.” This stream was part of the river Anio itself;
a great dam was made across the river in a rocky part, about 2 miles
above Subiaco. A great loch (_lacus_) was formed between this dam and a
natural cascade about a hundred yards higher up the river, and a _specus_
was cut in the rock by the side of it at rather a lower level than the
top of the dam, so that the water of the river must go into the _specus_
and so into Rome, before any of it could fall over the artificial cascade
made by the dam. From this cause the water of this aqueduct never failed
in the hottest and driest weather, but it was sometimes muddy after a
flood in the upper country, and had many _piscinæ_ or filtering-places
for that reason; there is usually one at each half mile in the arcades
near Rome, and a _castellum aquæ_, or reservoir along with it, at each of
the angles, made to break the force of the water.
9. CLAUDIA[247] (A.D. 38). The source of this is 38 miles on the Via
Sublacensis, just above Subiaco, about 2 miles nearer to Rome than the
Anio Novus. They are carried in two distinct _specus_ as far as Tivoli
and to the foot of the hill, but on the level ground; both _specus_ are
carried on a lofty arcade, which turns at an angle at every half-mile,
and there has a _piscina_, and at each of these points it was carried
across the lower arcade, which served for the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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