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Water and Aqueducts

The decision of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome, to build their city in this place must have had something to do with the fact that its hydrogeological situation gave solid guarantees of fertile agriculture. This wealth was subsequently ably studied by the Roman engineers, not only by the farmers. From the republic through the empire, fountains and jeux d’eau beautified the city and its gardens. And plenty of water must have reached Rome, if we are to believe Frontinus, who, early in the second century, wrote an important work on Roman aqueducts in which he informs readers that the city was supplied with a million cubic meters of water per day.³⁹

An increase in the population, due also to migration and to the great influx of slaves, is probably why the Aqua Appia was built, around 312 B.C. The first of a series of eleven aqueducts, it started from the eighth mile of the Via Praenestina and, running almost entirely in underground conduits, emerged on the arches at the Forum Boarium.⁴⁰

The Anio Vetus, the next of the great aqueducts, came in 272–69 B.C., paid for with the booty of the war against Pyrrhus, king of Epirus (280–75 B.C.). It took water from the Aniene River, north of Tivoli, and followed the river in underground channels until it reached the city.

The water traveled ever longer distances: in 144–140 B.C., the Aqua Marcia arrived directly on the Capitoline Hill after a trip of sixty miles (one hundred kilometers) from the upper valley of the Aniene, bringing its excellent, cold water to Rome. Much later, in A.D. 212, the emperor Caracalla added a branch, the Aqua Antoniniana.

The need for water became ever more compelling, and so, in 126 B.C., the Aqua Tepula was built, which, as its name suggests, reached the city warm from a group of springs on the Via Latina. Because the water was not the best quality, it was used for fountains and baths. In 33 B.C., Agrippa, at his own expense, built the Aqua Julia, also from the Via Latina on the Alban Hills, to supply his private baths in the Campus Martius. Not satisfied, in 19 B.C., he built the Aqua

John Zahnd, view of the ruins of a Roman aqueduct in the campagna (Biblioteca Clementina, Anzio)

Virgo, which still serves Rome and which, also from the Alban Hills, had the formidable flow of thirteen cubic meters per second. In 2 B.C., Augustus brought the Aqua Alsietina to Rome from its source of Lake Martignano (Alsietina in antiquity) on the Via Cassia, which must have been used for the Naumachia (where mock naval battles were held) in Transtiberim (today’s Trastevere). The Acqua Vergine terminates in the Trevi Fountain and has often been cited as the secret ingredient of the excellent tea and coffee found in the center of Rome.

The most important of the aqueducts, begun by Caligula and completed by Claudius in A.D. 54, was the Aqua Claudia, whose water came from springs on the Via Sublacensis near the sources of the Aqua Marcia, with an excellent flow. It was followed a few years later by the Anio Novus, which, again near Sublacum, present-day Subiaco, caught the waters of the Aniene.

The greater need for potable water in Transtiberim was what convinced the emperor Trajan of the need to intervene anew, and so it was that around 109, the Aqua Traiana flowed into Rome, terminating on the Janiculum Hill.⁴¹ Finally, between 220 and 235, Alexander Severus brought to Rome the last of the ancient aqueducts, the Aqua Alexandrina, taking its water from the marshy Pantano Borghese, east of Rome. It ran for 13.7 miles (22 kilometers) on the Via Praenestina.⁴²

With the fall of the Roman Empire, these giants, no longer monitored and kept in repair, stood for centuries only to bear witness to the ancient splendor. They were blocked during the Gothic War (535–553), in the siege of Rome (537–38), but Justinian, emperor of Byzantium, provided for their partial repair.

Throughout the High Middle Ages, partial restorations and recoveries made it possible for Rome to receive at least some water. In the seventh century, Pope Honorius I (625–638) restored a stretch of the Aqua Traiana. Trajan’s aqueduct must in some way have functioned during the next century as well, if it was able to operate the mills set up on the Janiculum.

Pope Hadrian I (772–95) provided for the partial restoration of Trajan’s aqueduct and of the Claudia. His engineers also worked on the Aqua Virgo (Acqua Vergine), but since this aqueduct ran in large part through underground conduits, it had been less damaged by neglect and time. The three aqueducts had to supply the city’s hospitals.

It was almost a thousand years before someone else took a look at the situation of the city’s water supply. That was Pope Sixtus V, Felice Peretti (1585–90), who had a hand in the construction of the Acqua Felice, named for him. The aqueduct took its waters from the sources of the Appia and the Marcia (Marzia) in the Castelli Romani, in Colonna territory. The new aqueduct ran underground for thirteen miles (twenty-nine kilometers) and for another fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) in aboveground constructions and then emerged on the plain for seven miles (eleven kilometers), reaching Rome at Porta Furba. From there, bending toward San Lorenzo, it reached the Quirinal Hill, where the pontiff built the magnificent fountain that still stands in the middle of the piazza. The flow of water of this immense work was calculated at 3.7 million gallons (14 million liters) per day. A part of all that water must have supplied the beautiful pontifical Villa Montaldo, no longer standing, in the area of the present-day Stazione Termini.

Hydraulic works continued for another century with the construction of the Acqua Paola, which took its supply from Lakes Bracciano and Martignano. Finally, at the end of the pontificate of Pius IX (1846–76), the ancient Aqua Marcia was restored and, in honor of the pontiff, renamed Acqua Pia. It is one of the aqueducts that still today quenches the thirst of Romans and tourists.