Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/333

Rh of less importance than the favour of the capitalist. It is proposed to turn the waters of the Tiber into the channel of the Teverone as far as Ponte Mammolo, a short distance above their present conflence. Thence a new channel must carry their united waters to the sea. At first, the idea of meeting the "headlong Anio" face to face is somewhat startling, but Horace's epithet is applied to the falls at Tivoli, below which the stream loses the violence which characterizes its upper course. Hence Silius Italicus describes it as "gently creeping," —

As to the cost of such an undertaking, it could be at present premature to hazard a conjecture. One prediction, however, may safely be uttered. Whatever sum may be named in the first estimates will be largely exceeded. The benefits to be secured are threefold; the drainage of the Campagna, the permanent protection of the city from inundation, and the development of the port of Rome.

That the Agro-Romano was in ancient times the home of a thriving population is well I known; that it is now a wilderness is equally undeniable. Whether the drainage of the stagnant pools now formed in the hollows will suffice to remove the curse of malaria remains to be seen. The attainment of so important a result will, without doubt, be greatly facilitated by the improved agriculture which will be developed if the new waterway is brought through the lifeless wastes of the Campagna. Equal in importance with the reclamation of the Roman territory is the prevention of the inundations which have periodically caused so much misery to the inhabitants of the low-lying districts of the city itself. The original level of the Roman Forum was only just above the level of the river in its ordinary state; and though the surface of the soil is now considerably raised by the débris of the city, the river-bed also must have risen to some extent, if we consider the vast quantity of alluvial matter which must be constantly deposited by "the Yellow Tiber."

In the time of the republic, we hear of the Campus Martins being inundated twelve times in a single year; and the waters seem sometimes to have reached far down the Appian Way. The losses of life and property became, of course, more serious as the city spread further along the river's banks, but till Cæsar became master of Rome no effectual remedy seems to have been even proposed. One of Cicero's letters tells of a caller dropping in at his Tusculan villa — one Capito, an industrious news-gatherer — with the intelligence that Cæsar had determined to turn the Tiber from its course at the Mulvian Bridge, and to bring it along the foot of the Vatican, while the space between this new channel and the abandoned one was to form a new Campus Martins. Cicero pricked up his ears at this, for it would materially affect the value of Scapula's gardens, which he had long been wishing to purchase. In a few months, however, Cæsar was murdered, and with him fell both this scheme and others for a new port at Ostia and a canal through the Pontine Marshes to Terracina.

Of these schemes, the last alone has been taken in hand with some profitable result. Augustus constructed along the line of the Appian Way the canal which has been immortalized in Horace's "Journey to Brundusium." Theodoric the Ostrogoth and Pope Boniface VIII. are said to have done something to improve the drainage of the Pontine Marshes; and Leo X. repaired and enlarged their chief outlet, the canal of Badino, which passes through the ridge stretching along the coast from Monte Circeo to Terracina. But no systematic and sustained effort to grapple with the diflficulty was made till within a hundred years of the present time. In 1777, when sixty thousand acres were under water, Pius VI. availed himself of the services of Rapini, who, by clearing out old excavations and forming new, contrived to keep the waters within due bounds, and connected the canal of Badino with the port of Terracina by a navigable canal. The work occupied fifteen years and cost £360,000. Under Napoleon a commission was appointed to superintend these hydraulic works, but from that day to this nothing, we believe, has been done in the matter beyond maintaining the system of drainage as it was left by Pius VI. Part of the reclaimed land forms rich pasture for cattle, on other parts are raised large crops of rice and corn; but the pestilent exhalations from a basin, of which some portion lies even below the level of the sea, forbid the permanent residence of any considerable population.

In the reign of Tiberius a plan to turn aside the chief tributaries of the Tiber was discussed, only to be abandoned, though 