in the preceding year — and the Aqua Marcia, a yet more magnificent work, was commenced in the year of Rome, 608, the same year in which the great rival of Rome, Carthage, surrrendered, and in which the Consul Mummius destroyed Corinth, carrying off a prodigious plunder. From means thus acquired, was this aqueduct probably provided for. These were the two great works of republican Rome, but they were cemented by the blood of slavery, and defrayed by the spoils robbed from the conquered and the oppressed. Imperial Rome constructed the Claudian, and the Anio Novus, each a river of itself. But both these were commenced by that monster, Caligula, who expressed the wish that the Roman people had but one head that he might strike it off at a blow, and who installed his horse, Consul and High Priest. His extortions, oppression, avarice and cruelty, were feebly compensated to the people of Rome, and cannot be pardoned by posterity, although he did undertake those two magnificent structures. It was reserved for the Emperor Clau- dius to finish them — a successor scarcely less atrocious in character or conduct than Caligula — the dupe of favorites — the slave of lust — stupid, bloody and rapacious. We have said these aqueducts were cemented with the blood of slavery, and such undoubtedly was the fact, although we have no direct testimony to offer in its support. But we know that slavery was coeval with the foundation of Rome ; for although Romu- lus, as it is related by Livy, at the commencement, and in order to increase its popula- 55 218 MEMOIR OP THE tion, made his new city an asylum for runaway slaves, it is also recorded, that before his reign ceased, captives made in war, were reduced to slavery. " From that time," says a modern and learned writer, " the number and importance of the slaves of the Ro mans, are abundantly attested by authorities of all descriptions, and of every period down to the fall of the Western Empire."* Hume, Wallace, and others, who have scrutinized the accuracy of the numbers of slaves said to have existed at Rome, leave no room for doubt, that vast multitudes were kept in that degraded condition. They were the only servants, and according to Diony- sius of Halicarnassus, the only " operatives" or workmen in the city, and so great was the increase in numbers of this sort of population, that in the age of the Gracchi, the labor of agriculture, too, was performed by them, and the class of free husbandmen disappeared from Italy. It was from indignation at this state of things, consequent upon the posses- sion of immense landed estates and many slaves, by a few proprietors, that Tiberius Gracchus was stimulated to propose the Agrarian law.t It may be assumed with confidence, that the slave population of Rome, was from an early period, at least equal to that of the freemen ; and as wealth and luxury increased, and it became a mark of rank and condition to have a numerous retinue of slaves, this class much preponderated. Hence we state, without hesitation, that the Roman aqueducts were built by slaves. Concerning the manner of applying this labor, it may be conjectured that it was through contractors, for Frontinus, in a passage which refers to the vigilance he was obliged to exercise, in order that the works should be always in order, says he insisted with the contractors — as we translate redemtoribus — upon the necessity of always having a number of slave-artificers, (servorum opificum,) near the fountains, both within and with- out the city.J In a modern English Compend of the History of Rome, published anonymously, but purporting to be derived from Niebuhr, Wachsmuth, Heeren, and especially Professor Schlosser, of Heidelberg, we find the distinct statement, without reference, however, to any authorities, both that public works were built by contract, and that the laborers were slaves. " The Romans," says this writer, " undertook no buildings on account of the State, but had them performed by contract with private speculators, in the same way as they farmed out the collection, or rather the proceeds of the public revenues. These contracts * Inquiry into the State of Slavery among the Romans, by Wm. Blair, Esq., p. 2. t Plutarch's Life of the Gracchi. : Frontinus, chap. ii. CROTON AQUEDUCT. 219 were drawn up in writing, of which Cato has preserved to us a specimen in his book on agriculture." In reference to the Aqua Appia, the same writer makes this statement : " The pride of a princely patrician, Appius, who looked indeed upon his family as his country, but who looked upon his country as his family — a man who may be called