The archæology of Rome, Part 8

Another writer of the same period, called Pandolph of Pisa, relates the same thing:—

The ancient aqueduct which was made use of for the purpose was the Julia (V.), (which see,) and the ancient arches mentioned probably mean the tunnel through which the water of the Aqua Crabra and the Marrana united is brought. Its course has been already described, the great reservoir or lake (lacus) opposite to the Porta Lateranensis is very distinctly visible in the vineyard by the side of the stream, between that and the Aurelian wall. It is still swampy ground, and is planted with canes; when these are cut at the end of the month of January, it can be clearly seen, and the remains of the lake intercept the path on the bank of the stream. This reservoir might be restored to use with great advantage to the neighbourhood, and at little expense.

There are two mills on bridges across the stream on the side of this lake, and several other mills on the line of the stream, as has been mentioned. The water must always have flowed out of the lake in the old deep bed of the small river Almo, and passed under the bridge on which the Porta Metronia is built, into Regio I., and then under the foot of the Aventine by the side of the Circus Maximus into the Tiber, as before described. The tower built in the twelfth century, against the inside of the gate and the bridge, conceals this from view.

XVIII. Aqua Felice, A.D. 1587.

This aqueduct is named after the Pope, Felice Peretti, whose title was Sixtus V.; he brought it from a place near La Colonna, the ancient Labicum, about twelve miles from the city, to the fountain of Moses (now so called from a statue) at the Termini on the Esquiline, as recorded on an inscription[199]. It is still in use, supplying the fountains at the Termini, near the Thermæ of Diocletian, of Monte Cavallo, near those of Constantine, and the whole of the upper town. The waters of the Aqua Hadriana were united with some others in the territory called Pantano, at about twelve miles from Rome, where they emerged from the mountains. All these sources or springs of water were collected during the pontificate of Gregory XIII., A.D. 1572-1585, in an immense reservoir, repaired in 1869, with several other smaller ones subservient to it for purification. The aqueduct was built in the time of Sixtus V. (A.D. 1585-1590), but the reservoirs were not completed until the time of Urban VII. or VIII. [1623-44]. From this point the water is carried into the canal or channel through an opening called the fistula Urbana, made in a piece of marble. According to Fontana, this water was brought to the Porta Maggiore on a new arcade made out of the materials of the old aqueducts in a very clumsy manner. It was the intention of the Pope to have made use of the canal or conduit of the Aqua Marcia, but that was found to be at too high a level, and his clumsy engineers were obliged to make a new arcade at immense expense. He availed himself, however, of the old arcades as far as he could, by building his new conduit up against the side of the piers of the old ones, sometimes on the Marcian, as may be seen at the place called Sette Bassi, and near the Porta Furba, sometimes against the Claudian as near Rome. After bringing it into the city in this canal of rough stone, the water was carried in leaden pipes into the old subterranean channels, as may still be seen in the deep specus on the Cœlian, and the metal pipes pass through the tall brick piers of the arcade of Nero, and are supported on flat arches across from one pier to the other, with a rapid descent over the first or ancient road from S. Croce to the Porta Maggiore, and into the Specus Vetus underground, before arriving at the second or modern one from S. Croce to S. Maria Maggiore. The point of descent is marked by a respirator.

Pantano is about two miles from Gabii, and this reservoir is still in use. It is very near to the ancient castellum aquæ, which was made originally by Hadrian[200] for his aqueduct, as is shewn by an inscription found there. The other streams coming from Tivoli are said to have emerged also near this point, and the first engineer of the Felice, Matteo da Castello, considering the Claudian and Marcian lines as the best, followed those to the piscinæ; but having made a mistake in the levels, instead of using the Marcian specus and arcade from the piscinæ into Rome, and merely repairing it as the Pope had intended, Fontana was obliged to rebuild it entirely of the materials of the old Marcian arcade, with the help also of those of the Claudian, all the way to Rome. This was done in great haste and in a very clumsy manner[201].

From the Porta Maggiore one branch of the Aqua Felice is carried across the great foss to the Lateran, through the piers of the arches of Nero, and down a cascade-pipe into the old specus of the Appia, and along that to the fountains and reservoirs at the Lateran. This is the branch that goes straight on from the corner of the Sessorium to the west. Another more important branch of the Aqua Felice turns short to the north from the same angle and over the Porta Maggiore, along the city wall to the Porta S. Lorenzo, in a new channel very badly and clumsily built of rough stone from the materials of the old aqueducts, making use of the piers of the Claudian arcade as far as they go, and then of the inside of the wall of Aurelian over the Marcian arcade. The Aqua Felice having here been brought to a higher level, that is to say, the descent from the piscinæ being less rapid than that of the Marcia, after passing the Porta Maggiore, goes over the Marcia upon the Arch of Augustus at the Porta S. Lorenzo. There is a castellum aquæ for it in the wall just to the south of the Porta S. Lorenzo, where the water may be heard rushing through, and the surplus water runs off into an ancient drain on the outside of the wall. With the rapidity of all the public works under that energetic Pope, the undertaking, a decree for which he had signed in April, 1585, was completed in two years, by the labours of from 2,000 to 3,000 men, and the waters were seen to gush from their sculptured fountain in the Piazza di Termini, on the 15th of June, 1587. The Aqua Felice was conducted for fifteen miles underground, and for seven miles upon arcades. Besides the Aqua Felice, the Via Felice and the Via Sistina (Sixtus) in continuation of it, and many other great works were inaugurated by the same Pope, who has been called the real founder of modern Rome. Other old subterranean conduits are employed to carry the pipes of the Felice where convenient for the purpose of conveying water to different parts of the town.

Junctions of the arcade of Sixtus V., or Aqua Felice, with that of the Claudia, take place at an angle where the Torre Fiscale has been built, and again at another angle where there is an archway called the Porta Furba, about two miles from Rome, and a most picturesque ruin of a piscina, with a tall tower by the side of it, in which is the ventilating-shaft of the conduit. The difference of construction and of level is very evident, and the three conduits carried on the same arches may be seen distinctly. The construction of the Claudia (VIII.) is of large square blocks of stone. The Anio Novus (IX.) is merely an additional brick conduit, the work is part of that of Claudius and Nero, and is carried over the original one at a great height from the ground. Near the city only small portions of this upper conduit remain here and there, as, for instance, over the Porta Maggiore, and in a few places on the wall. In some places, the arcade of the Aqua Felice runs parallel to the Claudian for a considerable distance, and is joined to it at both ends, as near the Porta Furba. This lower arcade carried part of the conduits of the Aqua Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, which ran from the Porta Furba into the city parallel to the later one of Claudius, at a lower level.

Where the Aqua Felice enters the city, it is carried on the piers of the arcade of Claudius, from the junction with the arches of Nero, over the Porta Maggiore to the old castellum at the corner of the wall, where it turns at a sharp angle. Here the arches of Claudius cease; but the conduit of the Aqua Felice is continued along the city wall, of which it forms part, upon the ancient embankment as far as the Porta S. Lorenzo, and over the archway of Augustus there, using one of the older conduits. It then makes a sharp turn to the west, and after being carried along the north side of the road for a short distance, crosses it again on an archway built for the purpose by Sixtus V., as recorded by an inscription upon it; then it turns sharply to the west again, and is carried on an arcade between the road on the north and the railway on the south, to the great inner agger, which it reaches at a point near the Thermæ of Diocletian and the railway station. It is then carried in an old specus in that bank along the east side of the Thermæ, and turns at an angle to the north, at the Via Nomentana, near the Porta Nomentana, a little to the south of the modern Via di Porta Pia; then along the north side of the Thermæ till it arrives at the great reservoir behind the fountain of Termini. The specus is three feet wide, and the water in it is usually from three to four feet deep, running with a rapid current about five miles an hour, and constantly flowing day and night. Thence it is carried in pipes to the different reservoirs and fountains of the upper town. It also supplies the lower part of the city from the Ghetto to the Marmorata, along the bank of the Tiber.

SUMMARY.

Frontinus, who wrote in the time of Nerva and Trajan, mentions (as we have seen) nine aqueducts[202], reckoning as distinct several branches, or additional channels, subordinate to others more important. There is one more important record to which reference has not hitherto been made, namely, the summary at the end of the Curiosum and Notitia, in which nineteen are enumerated.

The entry in the Summary of the Regionary Catalogue is as follows:—

Those not previously mentioned are (1.) Attica, (2.) Herculea, (3.) Cerulea, (4.) Augustea, (5.) Ciminia, (6.) Damnata.

1. Attica is supposed by Fabretti to be the same as Alseatina [VII.], but then how is the number of nineteen to be made up? It was probably the Anio Novus, as already described. [See IX.]

2. Herculea. This is mentioned by Frontinus[203] as receiving a part of the Aqua Marcia after its entrance into the city[204]. Another stream of the same name, thirty-eight miles from the city, was added to the Anio Novus[205]; but it seems most probable that the stream here intended is the Almo, which enters Rome under the Porta Metronia, and conveys the water of the Marrana, or Aqua Crabra, coming from these two mountain-streams united, as already described. This is always a very strong stream. It follows the line of the aqueducts for miles towards Rome, and received the surplus water in many places, where there were piscinæ; it passes very near to the point where the aqueducts enter Rome at the Porta Maggiore, and may very well have received the surplus water there also of the Marcia, as stated by Frontinus.

3. Cerulea. This is the name of one of the branches of the Claudia, among its sources, and is mentioned in the inscription at the Porta Maggiore; but again, this does not account for one of the nineteen Aquæ.

4. Augustea. A stream was added to the Aqua Marcia by Augustus, and called after him[206]; but that would not account for another stream in Rome here indicated as one of the nineteen Aquæ. It is more probable that the water here intended is the Augustan branch of the Aqua Appia, which was united at the Gemelli within the outer wall of Rome. Frontinus (c. 4), indeed, mentions that the Alseatina was also called Augustea, but that would not account for another of the nineteen streams[207].

5. Ciminia, another name for the Sabbatina [X.], according to Onuphrius Panvinius; but the sources of the Sabbatina are very distant from the Monte Cimino. Ciminia is perhaps written for Curtia, another source of the Claudia; but again, this does not account for another of the nineteen streams.

6. Damnata. This may be the stream that comes from the Quirinal and the Palatine, and which formed the lake of Curtius, whence it was conveyed into the Cloaca Maxima, as it still is. It was therefore condemned to serve for washing out a drain only.

There is reason to believe that some of these nineteen streams are the natural watercourses, and others merely branches from the great aqueducts, as has been said.

There were 1,452 lacus, that is wells, or cisterns of water, supplied by the aqueducts in Rome, according to the Horum Breviarium of the Notitia, or Catalogue of the fourth century, and they must in many instances have been very near together. A reservoir for the distribution of the water was almost a necessary termination of an aqueduct, and at a junction it was equally necessary.

Rutilius describes the aqueducts about A.D. 417, in such terms as shew that they were not destroyed in the first siege of the Goths[208]. Cassiodorus represents them as perfect, about twenty years before the siege carried on by Vitiges[209]. At the time of the siege by that king, Procopius (i. 19), writing in the sixth century, records only the fourteen aqueducts already mentioned[210].