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The Length of the Four Great Aqueducts of Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Deane R. Blackman
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La lunghezza dei quattro grandi acquedotti di roma

Il testo di Frontinus riguardante la lunghezza dei ‘grandi’ acquedotti a Roma e le prove archeologiche sembrano essere in conflitto per due dei quattro canali. Considerazioni dell'ingegneria suggeriscono che solo la lunghezza riportata per l'Anio Vetus è notevolmente sbagliata, e che i cippi numerati probabilmente indicano la distanza da Roma.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 47 , November 1979 , pp. 12 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1979

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References

1 Sextus Julius Frontinus, De aquaeductibus urbis Romae. There have been many editions. I have used principally Herschel, , Two books on the Water Supply of Rome of Frontinus, Boston 1899Google Scholar; and Poleni, 1772. There is a new Teubner edition by Kunderewicz, 1973.

2 Frontinus, §§6, 7, 14, 15.

3 Not necessarily mediaeval. There are 2 lacunae in §14 of Frontinus dealing with the length of the Claudia; these are filled by modern editors to make the arithmetic right.

4 Ashby, T.The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, O.U.P. 1935, 129, 225Google Scholar.

5 And the cippi are placed at an interval of 240 feet.

6 Reina, V., Corbellini, G. and Ducci, G. ‘Livellazione degli antichi acquedotti romani’, Memorie della società italiana della scienza detta dei XL, Serie 3, vol. xx (1917)Google Scholar.

7 Frontinus, §§6, 7, 14, 15; there is a typographical error in Ashby at p. 253, where he writes 46·46 miles. Frontinus gives 46·406, which Ashby correctly quotes elsewhere.

8 Reina, op. cit. in note 6; the data here are taken from the charts at the end of the report.

9 Ashby, , Aqueducts 58, 94, 253Google Scholar; I quote Ashby's preferred value for Marcia. Another estimate based on Reina, which should read 68,300 metres and not km. as printed, he does not accept.

10 Ashby, , Aqueducts 193Google Scholar; II 41 at Ostaria della spiaggia is ‘about two miles further on’.

11 Gasparis, Raffaele Fabretti, De aquis et aquaeductibus veteris Romae dissertationes tres, Ioannis Baptistae Bussotti, 1670Google Scholar. The spacing of the cippi is discussed in Book II at p. 111 et sqq; Fabretti calls it egregia coniectura.

12 See e.g. Dilke, , The Roman Agrimensores, David and Charles 1971Google Scholar.

13 Frontinus, §6, exigente libramento, he says. See also Ashby at 253 note 6.

14 Frontinus, §18.

15 Pliny, , Naturalis Historia xxiii, 27Google Scholar.

16 Reina, op. cit. in note 6, IV 16, III 30, II 32, I 57.

17 Just upstream of IV 4.

18 The symbols are from Reina. Their location can be found on the map sheet ‘Colonna’, without which this paragraph is more than cryptic.

19 Ashby, , Aqueducts 67Google Scholar.

20 Ashby, , Aqueducts 95Google Scholar.

21 Ashby, , Aqueducts 56Google Scholar.

22 Lanciani, R.I commentarii di Frontino intorno gli áquedotti, 1880Google Scholar.

23 Frontinus, §6.

24 Poleni, , Frontini de aqueductibus urbis Romae, Padua 1722Google Scholar.

25 Ashby, T., PBSR iii (1905) 85–105Google Scholar.

26 Making 54,700 paces, which is approximately the value suggested by Ashby's ‘bold emendation to 53,000’; the reasoning behind my suggestion is different, however. The length of the Anio Vetus has been discussed more recently by Panimolle, , Gli acquedotti di Roma Antica, Rome 1963Google Scholar; who, while he accepts the distance to Tivoli of 48 km. (33 milia passuum) from Livellazione (p. 50) and would move the position of the source by 0·9 km. (which scarcely affects the present argument), in effect argues, as I do, that the text of Frontinus makes grammatical but no other sense (pp. 53–6).