The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome; Traced from Their Sources to Their Mouths, Chiefly by the Work of Frontinus Verified by a Survey of the Ground (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 Excerpt: ...atque in ipsius urbis sordidiora exiret assignarentur, sicut Anio Vetus pluri-ministerial' (Frontinus, c. 91, 92.) been supposed to have been gradually stopped up by the deposit of clay, and thus rendered useless; and so total was the failure of all these waters in the fourteenth century, that the population (said to have been not more than 17,000 during the absence of the Papal Court at Avignon) were without any supply of running water, except from the TiberT. The first restoration, in the fifteenth century, was that of Agrippa VI., by Nicholas V., whose aims and efforts were renewed by Sixtus IV., and by later Pontiffs. Sixtus V. Felice Peretti determined to restore to Rome the water then supposed to be the Marcia, but really of Hadrian XIII. The arcade of the Claudian VIII. and Anio Novus IX., was the most magnificent of all, and conveyed its several streams along a distance of forty-six miles. This had been restored by Vespasian and Titus, by Trajan, Septimius Severus and Constantine; but, in the greater part, especially within the first few miles from Rome, the existing stone arcade is of the time of Claudius, with repairs in the brickwork of the Flavian emperors. At the beginning of the ninth cen tury, it was certainly still serviceable, and was known by the name Forma Claudiana. The piers of this arcade were used by the engineers of Felice to carry that specus on the part near Rome; but the greater part of the Marcian arcade, and considerable parts of the Claudian, near Rome, were used as a stone-quarry by them. The channels through which the Anio and the other streams flowed, were the first, 9 ft. in height and nearly 3 in breadth, the second 6 ft. by 3, as seen in their ruins at the Porta Maggiore. The more ancient portion is not in brickwork, but ...