The archæology of Rome, Part 8

by John Henry Parker

CHAPTER IV., PART II.
THE LATER AQUEDUCTS.

X. Sabatina, A.D. 110; Trajana and Paola, A.D. 1540.

The Aqua Sabatina came from the springs which supply the lake Sabatinus, now called di Bracciano (in the Middle Ages it was, and is still often called, Anguillara), on the side opposite to Rome, about twenty-four miles from the city, in a tunnel at a considerable depth. It arrives at the line of the tunnel of the Aqua Alsietina in about three miles. (See Aqueduct VII.)

The line of this aqueduct, which is chiefly subterranean, can be traced backwards by the respirators of Paul V., who repaired it, from his fountain on the Janiculum in Rome across Monte Mario to La Storta, and a little beyond it to the junction of the roads from Viterbo and Bracciano. Here the present road follows a winding course for the sake of better gradients, but the old one (Clodia) followed a more direct line in a cutting through the hill, to the left of the present road, as may be seen by the old paving-stones at intervals; and here, instead of the clumsy respirators of Paul V., are wells only, one of which is near the present road at the junction. The respirators are built over old wells, and serve to shew that Paul V. restored the specus from La Storta to Rome only in this part. There are no respirators beyond that point for some distance, but the specus may still be traced by the wells descending into it. About two miles further on, this specus is carried on an arcade across a valley, and it may be traced from thence to the point where Nibby explored it in 1826, near the lake of Bracciano. From the Osteria Nuova (fifteen miles from Rome) to La Storta (ten miles from Rome), the rough pyramids continue along the line of the aqueduct, and at the Osteria itself there are two of different dimensions close together at the end of the house or castellum aquæ; one is nearly double the size of the other, and both are of very rough construction. Probably one of these is of the time of Trajan, the other of the time of Pope Paul; these wells, with the smaller pyramids over them, are continued to near La Storta; here a change takes place, and the respirators are modern, as has been said.

Procopius expresses his amazement at the quantity of water thus brought to the top of the Janiculum, and poured in torrents over the whole of the region of the Trastevere. This is still the case, and the fountains in front of St. Peter’s and in the gardens of the Vatican, are also supplied from this aqueduct. The water is so abundant that it is even brought over the bridge and supplies a fountain on the other side.

Paul V. also mentions (in his inscription at the fountain above S. Pietro in Montorio) that it had been previously restored by one of his predecessors, Hadrian I., A.D. 774. This was after it had been damaged by the Lombards under Astulfus, as recorded in the Pontifical Registers of Stephen III., Hadrian I., and Gregory IV., in whose time (A.D. 830) the work was completed. The Saracens again destroyed it in 846, and it was again restored by Nicholas I. (A.D. 860). It continued in use in the fifteenth century; but in the sixteenth it was much out of repair, and the branch to the Janiculum almost entirely failed. That to the Vatican continued to flow in 1561, and was repaired by Pius IV., as recorded on an inscription in the garden of the Vatican. In 1618, it had become almost entirely ruined, and was restored in a more thorough manner at great expense by Paul V., a member of the wealthy Borghese family, from whom it is now commonly called the Aqua Paola. The Orsini family, to whom the lake Bracciano belonged, contributed 2,000 ounces of water daily from that lake. Hadrian I., who had made the first great restoration of this water-course, was a Colonna, so that three of the greatest medieval families of Rome have contributed towards it.

The cascade which now falls down the face of the Janiculum, in a specus, turns the water-wheels of three mills in its course; this is mentioned by Procopius, they having been destroyed by the Goths, and their place supplied by other mills made in the Tiber by Belisarius, which continued in use for a long period. The ruins still visible in the river, opposite the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima, are supposed by some to have belonged to these mills. They were of wood only[168], and may have been built on the stone foundations; but these ruins in the river more probably belonged to the fortifications at the head of the Port of Rome, where there was a chain across the river to prevent boats from being carried down by the rapid stream into the Port[169].

Immediately outside of the Porta S. Pancrazio the specus forms the boundary of the beautiful garden of the Villa Pamphili-Doria, on the northern side, for about a mile. It is faced with fine reticulated work of the time of Trajan, excepting where it has been clumsily repaired with brick in the time of Paul V., and it has a wall built upon it. Shortly after passing the limits of the garden, it arrives at the old junction or fork where the stream was divided into two branches, one going to the fountains in front of S. Peter’s and the Vatican, the other to the great fountain rebuilt by Paul V. above S. Pietro in Montorio, as before mentioned. In this part the specus, being above ground, had been much mutilated, and the engineers of Paul V. found it more convenient to change its course and make a new specus for a short distance, than to repair the old one. The ancient reservoir and the fork in the specus were abandoned, and new ones made about a hundred yards off, on rather a higher level. The old reservoir or castellum aquæ was turned into a farm-house, by piercing the walls with windows and doors, and putting on a new roof. The original arrangement for the separation of the great stream into two smaller ones may still be seen in the farm-yard. The old specus is here just below the level of the ground, with its reservoir, but there is an opening into it. A portion of it can also be seen under the Villa Spada, just within the Porta di S. Pancrazio. From the point of junction, or rather of division, to La Storta, and nearly all the way to the lakes, the specus is underground; but the line of the branch added by Trajan can be traced by the respirators as far as the junction, ten miles from Rome, where, in the year 1830, an inscription[170] was found on the Via Claudia, near the tavern of La Storta, stating that Trajan had carried this water into the city at his own expense in A.D. 109. In the inscriptions put up by Paul V. after his repairs, A.D. 1611[171], the Alsietina, Sabatina, and Trajana are all considered as the same.