Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/240

210 degree of preservation which evinces both the skill of the architect, and the solidity of the materials employed in its construction. Public utility was not the sole object of these magnificent undertakings, in many instances of which vanity and diversion had a predominant share. The water destined for those edifices of superb architecture, the baths and nymphæa, was conveyed to them by well-formed pipes, at the same time that different fountains were made to play, so as to combine a refreshing coolness with an agreeable perspective. Julius Capitolinus makes mention of the nymphæa fabricated at Rome by Gordian, and dwells with particular pleasure on the one constructed by Clearcus, prefect of Constantinople, in the forum of Theodosius, the water for the supply of which was brought from the magnificent aqueduct built by the emperor Valens. Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History, extols the Aquileian baths in the above city, which were destroyed by fire in the year of Christ 430, and in which art displayed all its graces and beauties.

Even individuals displayed a rare magnificence in the fountains and reservoirs of water they had in their houses, as Avell in the city as in their country retirements. Pliny, in his celebrated epistle to Apollinaris, gives a most pompous description of his Tuscan villa, which was embellished by a profusion of fountains, cascades, &c.; and Cicero speaks of the conduits, stiled Euripi and Nili, provided with lofty arches, that conveyed, from great distances to the houses of the grandees, the immense masses of water distributed in the piscince, fountains, and lakes, which a boundless vanity had multiplied.

Other nations, nobly vying in opulence with ancient Rome, have likewise excelled in the erection of these monuments, in which