Altogether, according to the calculation of Fea, half the volume of Anio was abstracted by the four aqueducts which have been mentioned.
Four tributaries remain to be described--the Cremera, the Allia, the Aqua Crabra, and the Almo--streams insignificant in size, but famous in the annals of Rome, or possessing an interest for the classical scholar and the archæologist. The Cremera, a mere brook, over which an active person might leap, rises in the little lake Baccano, and flowing past the site of Veii, crosses the Flaminian way about six miles from Rome.
This brook must not be confounded with another a little higher up, and which is a rivulet unknown to fame. The Cremera is associated, as every student of Roman history is aware, with the patriotic devotion of the Fabii.
On the banks of the Allia, the “_flebilis Allia_” of Ovid, a still smaller stream, though dignified by the historians with the name of river, was fought a battle with the Gauls, in which the Romans sustained a signal defeat.
The Allia cannot be identified with certainty, but it is supposed to be a small stream flowing in a deep ravine, which joins the Tiber on the side opposite to Veii, and about three miles above Castel Guibileo, the site of the ancient Fidenæ. This stream agrees with the description of Livy.
The Aqua Crabra is generally known by the name of the Marrana, but is also called Aqua Mariana, and Marrana del Maria; Marrana being a name frequently given to brooks by the modern Romans. Thus we have Marrana della Caffarella, another name for the Almone, and Marrana di Grotta perfetta. The rivulet anciently known by the name of the Aqua Crabra rises in the heart of the Alban hills, and after passing beneath the heights on which Tusculum and Frascati are situated, turned northwards in obedience to the configuration of the ground and flowed into the Anio. But, at some unknown period after the fall of the Roman Empire, it was diverted by means of a tunnel into the channel in which it at present runs, for the purpose of turning mills and irrigating the land. The little stream, also, which flows in the valley between Marino and the ridge encircling the Alban lake, whose source is considered by some to be the Aqua Ferentina of Livy, is conveyed through a similar tunnel to swell the scanty waters of the Aqua Crabra. In ancient times this rivulet was considered of such importance to the people of Tusculum, who lived out of the way of the great aqueducts, that Agrippa, as Frontinus tells us, consented not to turn it into the “caput,” or well head, of the Aqua Julia, as he had originally proposed. It was looked upon as a treasure to be doled out in measures to the thirsty people of Tusculum, and was often contended for by legal proceedings. Cicero, in his _Oration de lege Agraria, III, 2_, informs us that he paid rates to the authorities of Tusculum for his share of the precious fluid. And in his _Oration pro Balbo, ch. 22_, he refers to a litigation with the municipality which furnished the water, probably on account of the deficient supply. In this action “he was in the habit,” he tells us, “of consulting the lawyer, Tugio, on account of his long experience in similar cases.” Tugio seems to have justified his choice, and to have frightened the municipality into granting a more abundant supply, for we find Cicero in his letter to Tiro, observing, “that now there was more water than enough.” “I should like to know,” he says, “how the business of the Aqua Crabra is going on, though now indeed there is more water than enough.”
The Almo is the stream which flows in the valley of Caffarella, close to the Nymphæum, which does duty for the grotto of Egeria. Its most remote source is about six miles from Rome, in the direction of Albano, and this is usually dry; so that the Almo is with great propriety called “_brevissimus_,” in comparison with the other rivers which Ovid is enumerating. The perennial source is at Aqua Santa, not more than three miles from the city. The stream that rises in the valley between Marino and the Alban lake is represented in most maps as flowing into the Almo. It is really diverted by a tunnel into the Aqua Crabra. At the junction of the Almo with the Tiber were washed every year, the statue of the Goddess Cybele, her chariot and the sacred instruments of her worship.
Among the remaining tributaries of the Tiber may be enumerated the Farfarus, which is a torrent joining the Tiber a little above Correse. Also the little stream, the Aqua Albana, which is discharged by the emissary of the Alban Lake, a work executed 393 years before Christ.
THE SHANNON
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN
The greatest body of running water in the British Isles has long claimed and received the love, admiration and praise of natives and foreigners. Its banks are fringed with ruins of castles, round towers, abbeys and churches, and its islands and hills reek with historical associations, pagan folklore and mediæval tradition. Steamers now run practically from its mouth to its source, and to the tourist all its beauties are now displayed. The enthusiasm of foreigners over the beautiful stream equals that of Erin’s own sons. Writing in 1844, Johann Georg Kohl said:
“Well may the Irish speak of the ‘_Royal_ Shannon,’ for he _is_ the king of all their rivers. A foreigner, when he thinks of some of our large continental streams, may at first consider the epithet somewhat of an exaggeration, but let him go down this glorious river and its lakes, and he will be at no loss to understand that royal majesty, in the matter of rivers, may be quite independent of length or extent.
“The British Islands certainly can boast of no second stream, the beauties of whose banks could for a moment be compared to those of the Shannon.
“At his very birth he is broad and mighty, for he starts on his course strong with the tribute of a lake (Lough Allen), and traverses the middle of Ireland, in a direction from north-east to south-west. Thrice again he widens out into a lake; first into the little Lough Boffin, then into the larger Lough Ree, and lastly, when he has got more than half way to the ocean, into the yet longer Lough Derg. Below Limerick he opens into a noble estuary, and when at length he falls into the sea between Loop Head and Kerry Head, the glorious river has completed a course of two hundred and fourteen English miles. The greater part of the Shannon runs through the central plain which separates the mountainous north from the mountainous south.
“It was on a beautiful day that I embarked to descend the Shannon. Flowing out of a lake, and forming several other lakes in its progress, the water is extremely clear and beautiful. The movement is in general equable, excepting a few rapids which are avoided by means of canals. The banks, too, are pleasing to the eye. Large green meadows stretch along the sides of the river, and villages alternate with handsome country seats, surrounded by their parks. Herons abound along the margin, and many of these beautiful birds were continually wheeling over us in the air, their plumage glittering again in the rays of the sun.
“We arrived at Banagher. Then gliding along by Redwood Castle and the beautiful meadows of Portumna, we left the town of Portumna to our right, and entered the waters of Lough Derg. The steamer in which we had hitherto travelled was of small dimensions, with a wheel under the stern, to allow of its passing through some canals of no great breadth; but on the broad lake a new and larger vessel prepared to receive us. The two steamers came close to one another, to exchange their respective passengers, and their manœuvre, as they swept round on the wide water, pleased me much.
[Illustration: THE SHANNON]
“Of the lakes that like so many rich pearls are strung upon the silver thread of the Shannon, Lough Ree and Lough Bodarrig, lying in a level country, and in a great measure surrounded by bogs, present little that is pleasing to the eye. Lough Allen is situated almost wholly within the mountainous districts of the north, and a large portion of Lough Derg is made picturesque by the mountains of the south. Like all Irish lakes, Lough Derg contains a number of small green islands, of which the most renowned is Inniscaltra, an ancient holy place, containing the ruins of seven venerable churches of great antiquity, and the remains of one of those remarkable columnal erections known in Ireland under the name of “round towers.” We passed the sacred isle at the distance of a mile and a half, but we could very distinctly make out all its monuments by the aid of a telescope.”
It is not every visitor to Shannon’s shores that has unqualified praise for the scenery. Thus speaking of the sites selected by the saints of old for their retreats, Cæsar Otway exclaims: “What a dreary place is Glendalough! what a lonely isle is Inniscaltra! what a hideous place is Patrick’s Purgatory! what a desolate spot is Clonmacnoise! From the hill of Bentullagh on which we now stood, the numerous churches, the two round towers, the curiously overhanging bastion of O’Melaghlin’s Castle, all before us to the south, and rising in relief from the dreary sameness of the surrounding red bogs, presented such a picture of tottering ruins and encompassing desolation as I am sure few places in Europe could parallel.”