Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

112 AQUAEDUCTUS. AQUAEDUCTUS.
and the greater part of the lower city. (2.) The Hadrian and Herodes Atticus, and that at Athelns
Acquta Felice, named after the conventual' name of was commenced by Hadrian and finished by Allto.
its restorer Sixtus V. (Fra Felice) is, probably, a ninus Pius, who also built those at Corinth and
part of the ancient Aqua Claudia, though some Nicomedia. That at Evora, which was built by
take it for the Alexandrina. It supplies twenty- Quintus Sertorius, is still in good preservation;
seven public fountains, and the eastern part of the and at its termination in the city has a very elecity. (3.) The Acqua Paola, the ancient Alsietina, gant castellueo in two stories, the lower one of
supplies the Transtevere and the Vatican, and which has Ionic columns. Merida in Spain, the
feeds, among others, the splendid fountains before Augusta Emerita of the Romans, who established
St. Peter's. Of the ruins of the other aqueducts a colony there in the time of Augustus, has among
the most extensive, within Rome, are those of the its other antiquities the remains of two aqueducts,
Arctus Neroniani, and of the Aqua CGrabra; the of one of which thirty-seven piers are standing,
most interesting are the Porta MAgyiore, with the with three tiers of arches; while of the other
two channels of the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, there are only two which form part of the original
and the remains of the triple aqueduct of Agrippa constructions, the rest being modern. But that of
by the Porta S. Lorenzo. The following woodcut Segovia, for which some Spanish writers have
(after Hirt) represents restored sections of them, claimed an antiquity anterior to the sway of the
preserving their relative proportions: - Romans in Spain, is one of the most perfect and
magnificent works of the kind anywhere remainC. ing. It is entirely of stone, and of great solidity,
the piers being eight feet wide and eleven in
depth; and, where it traverses a part of the city,
b\/ > > t;\\ W the height is upwards of a hundred feet, and it has
two tiers of arches, the lowermost of which are
exceedingly lofty.
l _.; _ WRS'~S\|A We proceed to describe in detail the construcC \ \ -9gS tion and arrangements of Roman aqueducts. There
a\ are three matters to be considered: the source
Q!1,ll%,,, Sfrom which the water was derived; the aqueduct
itself, by which it was conveyed; and the reservoir in which it was received, and fiom which it
l %, ~.~i Ad; lwas distributed for use..1l I (L.) T/he Sources. - It is unnecessary to follow
Vitruvius into the minute rules which he lays
down for the discovery of springs, where they
were not naturally visible, and for testing the
L _______! al 1\ 1'11 quality of the water: it is enough to refer to his
statements as showing the importance attached to
these points. (Vitruv. viii. 1.) It was also neces,
sary that the springs should have such an ele-ation, as that, after allowing for the fall necessary
to give the channel its proper inclination, the water
_i -- - l L ~ t lXshouldl enter the final reservoir at a sufficient
height to permit of its distribution for public and
private use; for there were no engines used, as in
modern waterworks, to raise the water to a higher
elevation than that at which it was requirsed.
When the source had been fixed upon, whether it
was an open spring (fons), or one got at by sinking a well (pIteus), a head was dug for the water,
7l I rF X and inclosed with a wall; and, if necessary, the
~1,,, —-— 0.o supply was increased ly digging channels frlnl
1neighbouring springs: the rules for these operaFig. l.- Section of the Porte Magqiore a3t tions also are minutely laid down by Vitruvius
Rome: a. the Aquc Claudic;. the Anio Novus (viii. 7. s. 6 ~~ 12-15).
c. openings to give vent to the air. (2.) Thle Clhannele or Aquedzct itsel:*- In order
Fig. 2.- Sectioln of the triple aqueduct of to convey the water from its source to its destinaAgrippa: a. the Aqua Mar ia; in. the Aqua tion, a channel was constructed, having a slight,?ippa:l; c. the Aqua J Malia. The two latter are and, as nearly as possible, a uniform declivity.
of brick and vaulted over. The air-vents are also An elaborate description of the means adopted to
shown. secure this object is quite needless for readers of
The magnificence displayed by the Romans in the present day, as they were almost precisely
their public works of this class, was by no means
confined to the capital; for aqueducts more or less Though theword aquaedctus is applied genestupendous were constructed by them in various rally to the whole structure, yet in its special and
and even very remote parts of the empire,- at proper meaning it seems only to have signified
Athens, Corinth, Catana, Salona, Nicomedia, that part of the work in which the water-channel
Ephesus, Smyrna, Alexandria in the Troad, Syra- was carried over a valley, on arches or on solid
cuse, Metz, Clermont in Auvergne, Nimes (the substructions: a channel on the surface of the
Pont du Gard), Lyon, Evora, Merida, and Segovia. ground was properly called riveus; and one beneath
Those at Ephesus and Alexandria were built by the surface, rivets szbte rraneus, or cuaiCulos.