Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/521

 statute has broken into or pierced the channel or conduit of an aqueduct. Nothing of this law shall revoke the privilege of pasturing cattle, cutting grass or hay, or gathering brambles in this place. The water-commissioners, present or future, in any place which is now enclosed about any springs, arches, walls, channels, or conduits, are authorized to have removed, pulled out, dug up, or uprooted, any trees, vines, briars, brambles, banks, fences, willow-thickets, or beds of reeds, so far as they are ready to proceed with justice; and to that end they shall possess the right to bind over, to impose fines, or to restrain the offender; and it shall be their privilege, right, and power to do the same without prejudice. As for the vines and trees inside the enclosures of country-houses, structures or fences; as to the fences, which the commissioners after due process have exempted their owners from tearing down, and on which have been inscribed or carved the names of the commissioners who gave the permission—as to all these, nothing in this enactment prevents their remaining. Nor shall anything in this law revoke the permits that have been given by the water-commissioners to any one to take or draw water from springs, channels, conduits, or arches, and besides that to use wheel, calix, or machine, provided that no well be dug, and that no new tap be made."

 I should call the transgressor of so beneficent a law worthy of the threatened punishment. But those who had been lulled into confidence by longstanding neglect had to be brought back by gentle means to right conduct. I therefore endeavoured with diligence to have the erring ones remain unknown as far as possible. Those who sought