Perhaps the most imposing, and certainly among the most
useful, of Roman structures were aqueducts. There were sixty-eight in
Italy and the provinces. No less than fourteen supplied the capital city with
water. The aqueducts usually ran under the surface of the ground, as do our
water pipes. They were carried on arches only across depressions and valleys.
The Claudian aqueduct ran for thirty-six miles underground and for nine and a
half miles on arches. Though these monuments were intended simply as
engineering works, their heavy masses of rough masonry produce an inspiring
sense of power.
THERMAE
The abundant water supply furnished by the aqueducts was
connected with a system of great public baths, or thermae. Scarcely
a town or village throughout the empire lacked one or more such buildings.
Those at Rome were constructed on a scale of magnificence of which we can form
but a slight conception from the ruins now in existence. In addition to many
elaborate arrangements for the bathers, the thermae included lounging
and reading rooms, libraries, gymnasia, and even museums and galleries of art.
The baths, indeed, were splendid clubhouses, open at little or no expense to
every citizen of the metropolis.
