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, at a distance of 20 miles from Rome, and before it reached the city, it had run by many turnings, in order to preserve the level, a course of 43 miles. Of this distance 42 miles, 779 paces were subterraneous, and 220 paces above ground. Burgess conjectures that the remains of a specus or water channel near the Porta Maggiore, of modern Rome, just visible among the foundation of the walls, is all that now remains of this great work.t At the end of 127 years, or in the year of Rome 607, Sulpicius Galba, and Lucius Aurelius, being consuls, it was found, owing both to the decay of the existing aqueducts, and the frauds by which individuals intercepted their water, that the supply was in- sufficient ; the Senate therefore gave a charge to Marcius, to repair the old aqueducts, and to ascertain if some new supply could not be obtained. This led to the construction of the Aqua Marcia, of which Pliny thus speaks : " Of all the waters in the world, that which we call the Marcia, in Rome, carrieth the greatest name by the general voice of its citizens, in regard both to its coldness and salu- brity, and we may esteem this water for one of the greatest gifts the gods have bestowed on our city." To accomplish this work a sum of mille et octlgenties sestertium, or, in our money, $3,210,000 was decreed to Marcius, and as the time of his prefecture was too short to bring so stupendous an undertaking to its termination, it was renewed to him from year to year. While the aqueduct was in progress, the Decemvirs, having occasion in relation to other matters, to consult the Sybilline books, ascertained that it was not the Marcian water, but the Anio, that should be conducted to the Capitol — but Marcius persisted, notwith- standing, and after three years delay, the Marcian water was earned thither. The sum ap- propriated could not have sufficed for finishing this vast undertaking— but we are left in darkness as to the farther means applied to it. * Burgess, Antiquities of Rome, vol ii., p. 327. t Burgess, vol. ii,, p. 328. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 15 This water, the most wholesome of any conveyed to Rome, was drawn from springs, in the neighborhood of Subiaco, on the Anio, 20 miles above Tivoli, in the mountains. These sources were 36 miles from Rome, on the Yia Valeria. The whole length of its course was 60 miles and 710 paces, of which 54 miles 247 paces were subterraneous, the rest being carried over arches as it approached the city. It is the remains* of these arches which produce such a striking effect in the Campagna. " They may be fol- lowed, says Burgess,! for nearly two miles without interruption, by proceeding on the road to Albano. and turning a little to the left after passing Tavoluto at about four miles from Rome. They are built of peperine stone, and sometimes rise to a prodigious height to maintain the level of the channel. The ' Specus' of the Aqua Marcia is in many places still perfect, though now useless." Even in the time of Pliny, in the 60th or 70th year of the Christian Era, this delicious water was lost to Rome. " Long ago," com- plains this writer, " we of Rome have lost the pleasure and commodity of those rills, through the ambition and avarice of some great men, who have turned away the waters from the city where they yielded a pu bl ic benefit to the commonwealth, and diverted them for their own profit and delight, into their manors and houses, to irrigate their gardens, and to other uses." Nineteen years after the Marcian, or in the year of Rome 627, the Aqua Tepula was introduced by the Censors, Cn. Servilius Caepio, and L. Crassus Longinus, surnamed Ravilla. It took its rise in the Lucullan, or, as some called it, the Tusculan territory. To arrive at its source, it was necessary to go ten miles in the Via Latina, and then turn off to the right two miles. The name, Tepula, is conjectured, by some,