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
the marks of a small cascade in each place, in the form of stalactite, a
solid deposit of chalk or lime or tartar against the side of the piers,
down which it ran. These petrifactions continue all along the line as
far as Cento Celle, and near that point there is a part where the stones
and bricks of the arcade have been carried away for building-materials,
and the masses of hard chalk remain standing up from the ground, in
small pyramids, having very much the appearance of concrete respirators
belonging to a subterranean aqueduct; but this appearance is deceitful.
There is no pipe in them; they are merely petrifactions formed by the
deposit of the chalk from the water.
By the side of the line there are some fine _piscinæ_ and reservoirs,
of _Opus Reticulatum_, at intervals, belonging to the time of Trajan
or Hadrian. Some of the arches near the sources seem to be earlier. The
brickwork is so fine that it appears more like the work of Nero; but most
of the work agrees well with the time of Hadrian, and Visconti states
that an inscription of Hadrian[175] was found at the reservoir in his
time, towards the end of the eighteenth century, and given up to the
Borghese family, the proprietors of the ground, who also drained the
lake of Gabii, with the aid of Canina the architect. This inscription is
believed to have been sold to the French, with other things.
The character of the construction of the _castella_, or reservoirs, does
not agree with the time of Alexander Severus, but suits perfectly well
with those of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian, whose works are so well known.
It is work of the first or second century, not of the third. It does not
follow the line of the Via Gabina, but is carried at once to the south of
it, towards the Via Labicana, and passes nearly parallel to it between
those two roads until it crosses the Via Labicana at five miles from
Rome, at the place called Cento Celle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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