public treasury. Some water also was conceded to the houses of the principal citizens, with the consent of the others.
To which authorities belonged the right to grant water or to sell it, is variously given even in the laws, for at times I find that the grant was made by the aediles, at other times by the censors; but it is apparent that as often as there were censors in the government[1] these grants were sought chiefly from them. If there were none, then the aediles had the power referred to. It is plain from this how much more our forefathers cared for the general good than for private luxury, inasmuch as even the water which private parties conducted was made to subserve the public interest.[2]
The care of the several aqueducts I find was regularly let out to contractors, and the obligation was imposed upon these of having a fixed number of slave workmen on the aqueducts outside the City, and another fixed number within the City; and of entering in the public records the names also of those whom they intended to employ in the service for each ward of the City. I find also that the duty of inspecting their work devolved at times on the aediles and censors, and at times on the quaestors, as may be seen from the resolution of the Senate which was passed in the consulate of Gaius Licinius and Quintus Fabius.[3]
- ↑ Since censors were chosen only every five years, and held office for but eighteen months, their duties in the intervening periods devolved upon other officials.
- ↑ Since these grants were made only for the sake of public utilities, such as baths and fulleries, and since moreover the State profited from the tax paid into the public treasury.
- ↑ The manuscript reading has been amended as unintelligible, but the amended statement is not quite in agreement with recorded facts. Livy xxxix. 32 says that in 185 B.C. it was certainly expected that Quintus Fabius Labeo and Lucius Porcius Licinus would be elected consuls for the next year. The elections, however, resulted otherwise: Quintus Fabius Labeo and Marcius Claudius Marcellus were consuls in 183, Lucius Porcius Licinus and Publius Claudius Pulcher in 184.
