ANCIENT HYDEAULIC WORKS. 415 



was pierced at a level mucli below the height to which it had 

 risen. This gallery, cut entirely with the chisel through the rock 

 for a distance of six thousand feet, or nearly a mile and one- 

 seventh, is still in so good condition as to serve its original pur- 

 pose. The fact that this work was contemporaneous with the 

 siege of Veil, has given to ancient annalists occasion to connect 

 the two events, but modem critics are inclined to reject Livy's 

 account of the matter, as one of the many improbable fables 

 which disfigure the pages of that historian. It is, however, re- 

 peated by Cicero and by Dionysius of Hahcarnassus, and it is 

 by no means impossible, in an age when priests and soothsayers 

 monopolized both the arts of natural magic and the little which 

 yet existed of physical science, that the Government of Rome, 

 by their aid, availed itseK at once of the superstition and of the 

 military ardor of its citizens to obtain their sanction to an enter- 

 prise which sounder arguments might not have induced them to 

 approve. 



Still more remarkable is the tunnel cut by the Emperor 

 Claudius to drain the Lake Fucinus, now Lago di Celano, in 

 the former Neapohtan territory, about fifty miles eastward of 

 Kome. This lake, as far as its history is known, has varied very 

 considerably in its dimensions at different periods, according to 

 the character of the seasons. It hes 2,200 feet above the sea, 

 and has no visible outlet, but was originally either drained by 

 natural subterranean conduits, or kept within certain extreme 

 limits by evaporation. In years of uncommon moisture it spread 

 over the adjacent soil and destroyed the crops ; in dry seasons it 

 retreated, and produced epidemic disease by poisonous exhalations 

 from the decay of vegetable and animal matter upon its exposed 

 bed. Julius Csesar had proposed the construction of a tunnel to 

 lower the bed of the lake and provide a regular discharge for its 

 waters, but the enterprise was not actually undertaken until the 

 reign of Claudius, when — after a temporary failure from errors 

 in levelling by the engineers, as was pretended at the time, or, as 

 now appears certain, in consequence of frauds by the contractors 

 in the execution of the work — ^it was at least partially completed. 

 From this imperfect construction, it soon got out of repair, but 

 was restored by Hadrian, and is said to have answered its design 



