There is yet another old road which was lately discovered. It is about three hundred yards below the city and near the road that cuts through from Porta del Sole to the church of Madonna dell'Aquila.[[77]] This road is made of polygonal stones of the limestone of the mountain, and hence is older than any of the lava roads. It runs nearly parallel with the Via degli Arconi, and takes a direction which would strike the Via Prænestina where it crosses the Via Prænestina Nuova which runs past Zagarolo. That is, the most ancient piece of road we have leads up to the southeast corner of the town, but the oldest tombs point to a road the direction of which was toward the southwest corner. However, all the roads lead toward the southeast corner, where the old grade began that went up above the arches, mentioned above, to a middle gate of the city.
The gate S. Francesco also is proved to be ancient because of the old road that led from it. This road is identified by a deposit of ex voto terracottas which were found at the edge of the road in a hole hollowed out in the rocks.[[78]]
The two roads which were traveled the most were the ones that led toward Rome. This is shown by the tombs on both sides of them,[[79]] and by the discovery of a deposit of a great quantity of ex voto terracottas in the angle between the two.[[80]]
In very early times there was a spring near the top of Monte Glicestro. This is shown by a glance back at plate III, which indicates the depression or cut in the hill, which from its shape and depth is clearly not altogether natural and attributable to the effects of rain, but is certainly the effect of a spring, the further and positive proof of the existence of which is shown by the unnecessarily low dip made by the wall of the citadel purposely to inclose the head of this depression. There are besides no water reservoirs inside the wall of the arx. This supply of water, however, failed, and it must have failed rather early in the city's history, perhaps at about the time the lower part of the city was walled in, for the great reservoir on the Corso terrace seems to be contemporary with this second wall.
But at all times Præneste was dependent upon reservoirs for a sure and lasting supply of water. The mountain and the town were famous because of the number of water reservoirs there.[[81]]A great many of these reservoirs were dependent upon catchings from the rain,[[82]] but before a war, or when the rainfall was scant, they were filled undoubtedly from springs outside the city. In later times they were connected with the aqueducts which came to the city from beyond Capranica.
It is easy to account now for the number of gates on the east side of the city. True, this side of the wall lay away from the Campagna, and egress from gates on this side could not be seen by an enemy unless he moved clear across the front of the city.[[83]] But the real reason for the presence of so many gates is that the best and most copious springs were on this side of the city, as well as the course of the little headstream of the Trerus. The best concealed egress was from the Porta Cesareo, from which a road led round back of the mountain to a fine spring, which was high enough above the valley to be quite safe.
There are no references in literature to aqueducts which brought water to Præneste. Were we left to this evidence alone, we should conclude that Præneste had depended upon reservoirs for water. But in inscriptions we have mention of baths,[[84]] the existence of which implies aqueducts, and there is the specus of an aqueduct to be seen outside the Porta S. Francesco.[[85]] This ran across to the Colle S. Martino to supply a large brick reservoir of imperial date.[[86]] There were aqueducts still in 1437, for Cardinal Vitelleschi captured Palestrina by cutting off its water supply.[[87]] This shows that the water came from outside the city, and through aqueducts which probably dated back to Roman times,[[88]] and also that the reservoirs were at this time no longer used. In 1581 the city undertook to restore the old aqueduct which brought water from back of Capranica, but no description was left of its exact course or ancient construction.[[89]] While these repairs were in progress, Francesco Cecconi leased to the city his property called Terreni, where there were thirty fine springs of clear water not far from the city walls. Again in 1776 the springs called delle cannuccete sent in dirty water to the city, so citizens were appointed to remedy matters. They added a new spring to those already in use and this water came to the city through an aqueduct.[[90]]
The remains of four great reservoirs, all of brick construction, are plainly enough to be seen at Palestrina, and as far as situation and size are concerned, are well enough described in other places.[[91]] But in the case of these reservoirs, as in that of all the other remains of ancient construction at Præneste, the writers on the history of the town have made great mistakes, because all of them have been predisposed to the pleasant task of making all the ruins fit some restoration or other of the temple of Fortuna, although, as a matter of fact, none of the reservoirs have any connection whatever with the temple.[[92]] The fine brick reservoir of the time of Tiberius,[[93]] which is at the junction of the Via degli Arconi and the road from the Porta S. Martino, was not built to supply fountains or baths in the forum below, but was simply a great supply reservoir for the citizens who lived in particular about the lower forum, and the water from this reservoir was carried away by hand, as is shown by the two openings like well heads in the top of each compartment of the reservoir, and by the steps which gave entrance to it on the east. The reservoir above this in the Barberini gardens is of a date a half century later.[[94]] It is of the same brick work as the great fountain which stands, now debased to a grist mill, across the Via degli Arconi about half way between S. Lucia and Porta del Sole. The upper reservoir undoubtedly supplied this fountain, and other public buildings in the forum below. There is another large brick reservoir below the present ground level in the angle between the Via degli Arconi and the Cave road below the Porta del Sole, but it is too low ever to have served for public use. It was in connection with some private bath. The fourth huge reservoir, the one on Colle S. Martino, has already been mentioned.
But the most ancient of all the reservoirs is one which is not mentioned anywhere. It dates from the time when the Corso terrace was made, and is of opus quadratum like the best of the wall below the city, and the wall on the lower side of the terrace.[[95]] This reservoir, like the one in the Barberini garden, served the double purpose of a storage for water, and of a foundation for the terrace, which, being thus widened, offered more space for street and buildings above. It lies west of the basilica, but has no connection with the temple. From its position it seems rather to have been one of the secret public water supplies.[[96]]