AQUA APPIA
* the first Roman aqueduct, constructed in 312 B.C. by Appius Claudius Caecus
1 and C. Plautius, who acquired the cognomen Venox for
having found the springs (
Liv. ix. 29. 6;
Plin.NH xxxvi. 21 ; Frontinus,
de aquis i. 4-7, 9, 18, 22;
ii. 65, 79, 125; Not. app.; Pol. Silv. 545;
CIL xi. 1827 =i 2. p. 192, No. X).
The intake is described by Frontinus as being in agro Lucullano, 780
paces to the left of the via Praenestina,
2 between the seventh and eighth
miles but the springs have never been satisfactorily identified. The
supply was 1825 quinariae, or 75,737 cubic metres in 24 hours. The
channel was almost entirely subterranean, 11,190 paces in length, to the
SALINAE (q.v.) of which only 60 paces near the porta Capena were carried
on substructions and on arches. Near
SPES VETUS (q.v.) it was joined
ad Gemellos by a branch named Augusta because constructed by Augustus,
the springs of which were 980 paces to the left of the sixth mile of the
via Praenestina, near the via Collatina; the channel of this branch was
6380 paces long, and a piece of its channel (?) is described in
BC 1912,
232-233. From the porta Capena the aqueduct ran underground, and
remains of its channel were found in 1677 and in 1887 between the Aventinus minor and the Aventinus maior on the south-east of the Via di Porta S. Paolo (LF 35, 41).
Passing under the Aventine, it ended at the bottom of the clivus Publicius near the porta Trigemina (
Frontinus i. 5). In level it was the lowest of all the aqueducts. It was repaired by Q. Marcius Rex in 144-140 B.C., and by Augustus in 11-4 B.C. It may be the aqua subtus montem Aventinum currens of Eins. 13. 8; for aqua Tocia (a false reading) see
AQUA MARCIA. See
Jord. i. 1. 462; LA 246-255; LR 48,49;Mon.
L. i. 512;
PSB i. 143;
BC 1903, 243-248;
1904, 215-232.
