CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 65 



in a deep valley on the other side of the hills. The opening is now 

 choaked up, and lies at the foot of the hill, much below the present 

 level of the water ; in a line from it up the slope are six perpendi- 

 cular wells, and two oblique grooves to the canal, which was driven 

 through the hill into the opposite valley, and there had a vent at 

 Capistrclli, two miles from the lake. The water is said to flow as 

 far as the centre of the hill, and to be there twenty feet deep, but 

 being obstructed by earth fallen in, or want of level, proceeds no 

 further, l-blique collateral galleries were also contrived for the 

 purpose of clearing the channel of rubbish, as the workmen 

 advanced. As the swelling of the lake was attended with incredible 

 damage, the Marsi had often petitioned ihe senate to drain it; 

 Julius Caesar would have attempted it, had he lived longer. His 

 successors were averse to the project, till Claudius, who delighted 

 in expensive, difficult enterprizes, undertook it. During the space 

 of eleven years he employed thirty thousand men in digging a 

 passage through the mountain, and when every thing was ready for 

 letting off the water, exhibited a superb naval spectacle on the 

 lake. 



A great number of condemned criminals were obliged to act the 

 parts of Rhodians and Sicilians in separate fleets, to engage in 

 earnest, and to destroy one another for the entertainment of the 

 court, and the multitude of spectators that covered the hills; a line 

 of well-armed vessels and rafts loaded with soldiers surrounded the. 

 scene of action, in order to prevent any of the wretches from 

 escaping; but it was with great difficulty and many threats that they 

 could be brought to an engagement. When this savage diversion 



wonderful story of this river's rising in the distant mountains of *he Peligni, 

 and traversing the Fucine lake, without mixing its waters with it. Those of 

 the lake are themselves limpid and wholesome, and if they were to be con- 

 Yeyed to Rome in pipes, would certainly be as pure and good as any spring- 

 water whatever. As the long term of eleven years, wilh an enormous multi- 

 tude of hands, was employed in this excavation, it may perhaps have been 

 carried as far as the beginning of the aqueducts in the vale of the Teverone, 

 where the ruins are still to be seen, though at least twelve miles in a straight 

 line from the lake. Frontinus mentions his having discovered the real source 

 of the Aqua Martia, between Carseoli and Subiaco, thirty-six miles from Rome ; 

 near Rio Freddo in the Roman state are several wells, or air-holes, thai were 

 contrived for the use of the subterraneous conduit, by which its waters were 

 there conveyed through a mountain. 



VOL. in. F Library of 



WM.R. SHIER 



No - 



