and 4200 ft. long, building within the tunnel a channel 3 ft. broad and 11 ells deep. The water, flowing by an accurately reckoned declivity, and all along open to the fresh air, was received at the lower end by a conduit of masonry, and so led into the town, where it supplied fountains, pipes, baths, cloacae, &c., and ultimately passed into the harbour (Herod, iii. 60). In Athens, under the rule of the Peisistratids (c. 560–510 B.C.), a similarly extensive, if less difficult, series of works was completed to bring water from the neighbouring hills to supplement the inadequate supply from the springs. From Hymettus were two conduits passing under the bed of the Ilissus, most of the course being cut in the rock. Pentelicus, richer in water, supplied another conduit, which can still be traced from the modern village of Chalandri by the air shafts built several feet above the ground, and at a distance apart of 130–160 ft.; the diameter of these shafts is 4–5 ft., and the number of them still preserved is about sixty. Tributary channels conveyed into the main stream the waters of the district through which it passed. Outside Athens, those two conduits met in a large reservoir, from which the water was distributed by a ramification of underground channels throughout the city. These latter channels vary in form, being partly round, partly square, and generally walled with stone; the chief one is sufficiently large for two men to pass in it. The precise location of the reservoir depends on the value of Dr Wilhelm Dörpfeld’s theory as to the site of the Enneacrunus of Thucydides and Pausanias (see Athens: Topography and Antiquity). Dörpfeld places it south-west of the Acropolis, where there is a cistern connected with an aqueduct which passed under the theatre of Dionysus and on towards the Ilissus (see map under Athens). Others have placed it south of the Olympieum in the Ilissus bed. Beside these works water was brought from Pentelicus in an underground conduit begun by the emperor Hadrian and completed by Antoninus Pius. This aqueduct is still in use, having been repaired in 1869.
In Sicily, the works by which Empedocles, it is said, brought the water into the town of Selinus, are no longer visible; but it is probable that, like those of Syracuse, they consisted chiefly of tunnels and pipes laid under the ground. Syracuse was supplied by two aqueducts, one of which the Athenians destroyed (Thuc. vi. 100). One was fed by an affluent (the mod. Buttigliara) of the Anapus (mod. Anapo); it carried the water up to the top of Epipolae, where the channel was open, and thence down to the city and finally into the harbour. The other also ascends to the top of Epipolae, skirts the city on the north, and then proceeds along the coast. Its course is marked by rectangular shafts (spiragli) at the bottom of which water is still visible.
An example of what appears to have been the earliest form of aqueduct in Greece was discovered in the island of Cos beside the fountain Burinna (mod. Fountain of Hippocrates) on Mount Oromedon. It consists of a bell-shaped chamber, built underground in the hill-side, to receive the water of the spring and keep it cool; a shaft from the top of the chamber supplied fresh air. From this reservoir the water was led by a subterranean channel, 114 ft. long and 612 ft. high. (J. M. M.)
In comparing Greek and Roman aqueducts, many writers have enlarged on the greatness of the latter as an example of Roman contempt for natural obstacles, or even of Roman ignorance of the laws of nature. Now, in the first place, the Romans were not unacquainted with the law that water finds its own level (see Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxi. 57, Roman.“subit altitudinem exortus sui”), and took full advantage of it in the construction of lofty fountains and the supplying of the upper floors of houses. That they built aqueducts across valleys in preference to carrying pipes underground was due simply to economy. Pipes had to be made of lead which was weak, or of bronze which was expensive; and the Romans were not sufficiently expert in the casting of large pipes which would stand a very great pressure to employ them for the whole course of a great aqueduct. Secondly, the water was so extremely hard that it was important that the channels should be readily accessible for repair as well as for the detection of leakage.[1] Moreover, as we shall see, the Roman aqueducts did not, in fact, preserve a straight line regardless of the configuration of the country. A striking example is the aqueduct of Nemausus (Nîmes), the springs of which are some 10 m. from the town, though the actual distance traversed is about 25. Other devices, such as changing the level and then modifying the slope, and siphon arrangements of various kinds, were adopted (as in the aqueduct at Aspendus).
Sextus Julius Frontinus, appointed curator aquarum in A.D. 97, mentions in his treatise de aquaeductibus urbis Romae (on the aqueducts of the city of Rome) nine aqueducts as being in use in his time (the lengths of the aqueducts as given here follow his measurements). These are: (1) Aqua Appia, which took its rise between the 6th and 7th milestones of the Via Collatina, and measured from its source to the Porta Trigemina 11 Roman miles, of which all but about 300 ft. were below ground. It appears to have been the first important enterprise of the kind at Rome, and was the work of the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, from whom it derived its name. The date of its construction was 312 B.C. (2) Anio Vetus, constructed in 272–269 B.C. by the censor Manius Curius Dentatus. From its source near Tivoli, on the left side of the Anio, it flowed some 43 m.,[2] of which only 1100 ft. was above ground. At the distance of 2 m. from Rome (Frontinus, i. 21), it parted into two courses, one of which led to the horti Asiniani, and was thence distributed; while the other (rectus ductus) led by the temple of Spes to the Porta Esquilina. (3) Aqua Marcia, reconstructed in 1869–1870 under the name of Acqua Pia or Marcia-Pia after Pius IX. (though from Tivoli to Rome the modern aqueduct takes an entirely different course), rising on the left side of the Via Valeria near the 36th milestone. It traversed 6134 m., of which 5414 were underground, and for the remaining distance was carried partly on substructions and partly on arches. It was the work of the praetor Quintus Marcius Rex (144–140 B.C.), not of Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, as Pliny (N.H. xxxi. 3) fancied, and took its name from its constructor. Its waters were celebrated for their coolness and excellent quality. Its volume was largely increased by Augustus, who added to it the Aqua Augusta; and it was repaired and restored by Titus, Septimus Severus, Caracalla and Diocletian. (4) Aqua Tepula, from its source (now known as Sorgente Preziosa) in the district of Tusculum, to Rome, was some 11 m. in length. The first portion of its course must have been almost entirely subterranean and is not now traceable. For the last 612 m. it ran on the same series of arches that carried the Aqua Marcia, but at a higher level. It was the work of the censors Cn. Servilius Caepio and L. Cassius Longinus, and was completed in the year 125 B.C. Its water is warm (about 63° Fahr.) and not of the best quality. (5) The Aqua Julia, from a source 2 m. from that of the Tepula, joined its course at the 10th milestone of the Via Latina. The combined stream, after a distance of 4 m., was received in a reservoir, and then once more divided into two channels. The entire length of the Julia was 1512 m. It was constructed in the year 33 B.C. by M. Vipsanius Agrippa, who also built the (6) Aqua Virgo which, from its origin at a copious spring in a marsh on the Via Collatina, measured 14 m. in length; it was conveyed in a channel, partly under and partly above ground. It was begun in the year 33 B.C. and was celebrated for the excellence of its waters. It was restored to use by Pius V. in 1570. (7) Aqua Alsietina or Augusta, the source of which is the Lacus Alsietinus (mod. Lago di Martignano), to the north of Rome, was over 22 m. in length, of which 358 paces were on arches. It was the work of Augustus, probably with the object of furnishing water for his naumachia (a basin for sham sea-fights), and not for drinking purposes. Its course is
- ↑ There have been found at Caerwent, in Monmouthshire, clear traces of wooden pipes (internal diameter about 2 in.) which must have carried drinking-water, and almost certainly a pressure supply from the surrounding hills. Some patches of lead also have been found obviously nailed on to the pipes at points where they had burst (see Archaeologia, 1908).
- ↑ This distance will not agree with the length given on some of the cippi (Lanciani, Bull. Com., 1899, 38).
