Book II
Having detailed those facts which it was necessary to state with reference to the ajutages, I will now set down what discharge each aqueduct, according to the imperial records, was thought to have up to the time of my administration, and also how much it actually did deliver; then the true measure, which I reached by careful investigation, acting on the suggestion of that best and most industrious emperor, Nerva.[1] Now there were, in the aggregate, 12,755 quinariae set down in the records,[2] but 14,018 quinariae actually delivered; that is, 1,263 more quinariae were reported as delivered than were reckoned as received.[3] Since I considered it the most important function of my office to determine the facts concerning the water-supplv, my astonishment at this state of affairs stirred me profoundly and led me to investigate how it happened that more was being delivered than belonged to the property, so to speak. Accordingly, I first of all undertook measurements of the intakes of the conduits and discovered a total supply far greater—that is, by about 10,000 quinariae—than I found in the records, as I shall explain in connection with each aqueduct.
In the records Appia is credited with 841 quinariae.[4]
- ↑ Trajan, not Nerva, is meant. From the allusions in chapter 93 to Caesar Nerva Trajan Augustus, and in 102 to Divus Nerva, it is concluded that this work which was begun under Nerva was finished under Trajan.
- ↑ Cf. 31.
- ↑ Cf. footnote to 74.
- ↑ In this and several following paragraphs, Frontinus points out various discrepancies which existed in the accounting for the different water supplies. These are (1) the difference between the amount of water found by actual measurement to exist, and the amount attributed to each water supply in the imperial records; (2) the difference between the amount of water recorded as received and that delivered; (3) the difference between the amount proved by measurement and that delivered. In some cases, where the waters were received in catch- basins, or reservoirs (cf. 19), he computes separately the amounts lost before the water reached the basin, and that lost afterwards.
