The archæology of Rome, Part 8

by John Henry Parker

At this second milestone also is another castellum aquæ[39], mentioned by Frontinus as two miles from Rome. This is near the Porta Furba; it is entirely buried, but the vault of it is not many feet underground. In the spring of 1871, some excavations were made under my direction in a large vineyard hard by, and another subterranean reservoir was found near the road to Tusculum and Frascati, with a specus cut in the rock going in the direction of that road, and apparently passing under it, on the line of a cross-way to the Via Appia Nova, a short distance only. On the other side of that is the “Albergo dei Spiriti,” near the junction with the Via Latina; and, in the garden at the back of that house, a specus was found in a stone quarry, the vault of which had fallen in and brought the specus to view. It seems to have passed underground along the southern side of that ancient Via for a short distance, and then crossed it to a piscina, of which there are remains at the foot of the bank on which the road runs in that part. It then goes along the edge of some higher ground, and for a short distance underground again towards a by-lane (diverticulum), parallel to the Via Latina; remains of a brick arcade can be seen on the bank of that lane, which is a deep foss-way, and goes on to Rome about a mile distant. It is cut by the railway before it arrives at the wall of Rome. It then passes through that wall and underground again as far as the arch of Drusus, over which it passes; and thence on an arcade, part of which only remains, to the great piscinæ at the back of the thermæ of Caracalla[40].

The Via Appia Nova was probably made in the time of Frontinus, and is the road which he calls Via Nova. The part nearest to Rome was previously called the Via Asinaria, and extended from the Porta Asinaria to the junction with the Via Latina, at three miles from Rome, which name was then dropped. The new road continues parallel to the Via Appia Antiqua as far as the eleventh milestone, and there forms a junction with it. Both of these roads are now open. The railway to Capua and Naples passes near to this point of junction. The short Via Lateranensis, going out of the Porta Lateranensis (excavated in 1868), ran into the Via Asinaria, and so joined the Via Appia Nova, which has tombs of the first century along the line, and none of any other period. Those which were of stone have been used as a quarry by the farmers to build the low walls that line the road on both sides, the foundations only being left in the banks; but those which were built of concrete faced with brick, would not pay for the trouble of destroying them, and have therefore been left standing in their places. One of these, a very fine one, faced with brick of the time of Trajan, with moulded pilasters, remains nearly perfect near the seventh mile, just where a path turns off to the left across the fields to the piscinæ, which are near the line of the old Via Latina in this part, about half-a-mile from the Via Appia Nova, and forming the carriage-road to Albano through Marino. It left Rome by the Porta Asinaria as it now does by the modern Porta S. Giovanni, which is close to the old gate, but at a much higher level. The Via Latina crosses it in a diagonal line, and runs nearly parallel to it as far as the Torre Fiscale, that is, for about a mile gradually diverging from it.

Wherever the exterior of the specus of the Anio Vetus is visible, it is faced with Opus Reticulatum. The reservoirs of this Aqueduct are of the same construction, and this may serve to distinguish those on the slope of the hill at Tivoli from the other aqueducts there.

“The water of this straight branch,” says Frontinus, “coming within the Porta Esquilina along the Spes [specus] Vetus, was carried down into the city in the high streams[41].”

This specus is on the high bank of the Tarquins, the outer and lofty line of defence on the eastern side of Rome. On this the wall of Aurelian was afterwards built. After its entry into Rome, the Anio Vetus was divided into several branches, in the same manner as the later aqueducts were.

The right-hand branch, in crossing the Campagna, appears to have run nearly under the Marcian arcade, which was afterwards built on the same line and nearly over it. As we approach near to Rome, there are remains of a reservoir built of large stones a little way down the road, about a hundred yards from the Porta Maggiore. It enters Rome under the wall, almost on the level of the ground; the upper part of the specus was visible in 1868, but in 1869 was studiously concealed by a modern brick wall. It is visible again inside the wall, on the other side of the road, going into the vineyard in which the Minerva Medica stands, while one branch went to the great reservoir near to it, westward of the gate.

Another branch passes along the bank under the wall of Aurelian, and is not visible again until it reaches the Prætorian Camp, where a portion of it was excavated in May, 1868, built of large stones of tufa, under the Porta Chiusa. It may then be traced all round the three sides of the Prætorian Camp, and near the north-east corner there was, in 1868, an opening into it, now closed by a modern wall. It is distinctly visible in several places, especially on the north side of the Camp, where the wall of Tiberius remains perfect, faced with the fine brickwork of his period, whereas the specus under it is faced with Opus Reticulatum, probably of the time of the Republic. The wall of Tiberius distinctly stands on the old specus. There was an opening into it here also in 1868; but this was also carefully walled up in 1869 under the influence of the Garibaldian panic, which had a bad effect upon the Roman authorities at that period. Remains of a reservoir or castellum aquæ were also found on the surface of the ground on the bank near the Porta Chiusa, with the present wall of Rome built right across it, but this part of the wall has been rebuilt of old materials, and is not exactly in the same line. There are remains of several other reservoirs on the bank at intervals outside the wall in the modern road, and in many places all along the eastern and southern sides of Rome.

Beyond this, near the Porta Nomentana, are the ruins of another reservoir or piscina on the surface of the ground, against the wall. From near the Porta Chiusa another branch went along the old road, which passed through that gate across the inner foss to the Thermæ of Diocletian, where a part of the specus and two cippi, with two inscriptions upon them, naming this aqueduct the Anio Vetus, were found in the year 1861, when the railway was made[42]. These cippi are now in the Vatican Museum.

Another branch went from the reservoir near the Porta Maggiore before mentioned, across the road into the bank on which the arches of Nero stand, near the Lateran, and passed under them apparently into the old specus of the Appia, which runs parallel to and nearly under the arches on the other side. Two small specus or stone pipes can be still seen (in 1872) passing obliquely into that bank; and, as they came from this large reservoir and piscina, (or from this direction,) they seem to have belonged to two aqueducts at different levels. A branch of the Marcian may have been brought to the same filtering-place for distribution, and the surplus water carried into the old specus at the lowest level, which was evidently used for receiving and carrying off the surplus water of all the other aqueducts in the same line.

The fifty yards outside the wall added to the three hundred yards between the Cœlian and the Aventine, make up the three-hundred-and-fifty yards above ground, mentioned by Frontinus. In this valley we found it again, in 1869, parallel to the Appia, sometimes on the agger or bank of Servius Tullius, which was used as a substructure for it, in other places on an arcade built up against the tufa wall of Servius Tullius, and faced with reticulated-work.