are carefully to ob- serve the manners of men and their conformation, that live around its source — and if they be of robust frame, bright complexion, without deformed limbs, or blear eyes, the stream may be surely approved. Or, if the water thrown into a vessel of Corinthian brass shall leave no spot, it may be pronounced excellent. Or, boiled in a like vessel, and left to cool, if, when poured off, there shall be neither sand nor earth left at the bot- tom, it may be deemed good. Again, if vegetables boiled in it be rapidly cooked, it is an indication that the water is pure and wholesome."* For 441 years after the building of their city, the Romans were content to use the wa- ter furnished by the Tiber, (the yellow Tiber,t as Horace calls it) by wells, or fountains. * Vitruvius, chap, v., lib. viii. t Ode 2r lib. E. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 13 To the latter especially, as in some measure sacred, they showed a marked preference, and believed that bodily infirmities were cured by the salubrity of the waters from such sources ; but when the convenience and abundance of supply from aqueducts was once experienced, the enterprise, wealth, and luxury of the great city, very soon multiplied them, so that in the reign of Nerva, they were nine in number, pouring, without a figure, rivers into every part of Rome. Of these magnificent and beneficial structures, we have quite a detailed account left us by Sextus Julius Frontinus — a man of consular dignity, who was appointed by Nervdj superintendent or chief commissioner of the Aqueducts — an office of great dignity as well as responsibility. The curatores vel prefecti aquarum were invested with con- siderable authority. They were attended outside of the city by two lictors, two slaves, a secretary, and other followers. Frontinus, on his appointment, very sensibly concluded, as he tells us at the outset of his treatise, that, " considering in this as in other affairs of life, that the first thing was to know and understand what he had undertaken," he set himself about collecting and noting down in order, all that related to the history, structure, size, and defects of the aqueducts committed to his charge, the abuses to which they were liable, and the laws for their protection. From the treatise which was the result of this commendable resolution, we now pro- ceed to borrow a description of the nine Roman aqueducts. The Aqua Appia was the first structure of this sort erected at Rome. It was begun about the 442d year of Rome, or 312 years before Christ, and in the 31st year after the Samnite war, under the direction of Appius Claudius Crassus, the Censor, to whom the surname of Coecus was given. With him was associated C. Plautius, to whom the name of Venocis had been awarded, for his zeal in searching out veins or supplies of water. Owing to some intrigue, however, of Appius, Plautius resigned his station before the expiration of two years, and Appius alone, therefore, enjoyed the honor of giving his name to the aqueduct, and to another noble work, which, by prolonging his censorship unlaw- fully, and through various artifices, he was enabled to complete, the Via Appia, from Rome to Capua. The Aqua Appia had its source in the Lucullan territory, at about 700 paces to the left of the Via Prcenestina, between the seventh arid eighth mile stone, and it ended, after making a circuit of eleven miles and 190 paces, at the Salinae, near the Porta Trigemina, whence it was distributed about the Aventine Hill. It was all subterranean except 60 paces, which was carried on arches over the Porta Capena* " the moist Capena," as Juvenal thence calls it. It was subsequently supplied by an additional stream, * Juvenal Sat. iii.. 11. 14 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. conveyed by Augustus, and called the Gemellce, because of the junction. This began at the sixth mile -stone along the Via Prsenestina, and the junction took place near the Horti Torqiiatieni* It is bel ieved no traces of this aqueduct now exist, though Piranesi thought he discovered some conduits under the Aventine Hill, which might have belonged to it Forty years after the Aqua Appia was established, in the 481st year of the city, the Censor, Manlius Curius Dentatus, began the aqueduct, which afterwards was known as the Anio Vetus. The expense of this great work was defrayed out of the spoils of the Pyrrhic war. The Senate created Decemvirs to complete the aqueduct, naming Curius who had commenced it, and as his colleague, Fabius Flaccus. Curius died soon after the appoint- ment, and the glory of terminating the work accrued to Fabius alone. The Anio Vetus began above Tivoli,