Aqua Marcia

The Aqua Marcia (Italian: Acqua Marcia) is a 91 km (57 mi) long Roman aqueduct, and the longest of eleven aqueducts that supplied the city of Rome. The aqueduct was built between 144–140 BC. The still-functioning Acqua Felice from 1586 runs on long stretches along the route of the Aqua Marcia.

Together with the Aqua Anio Vetus, Aqua Anio Novus and Aqua Claudia, it was an exceptional technical achievement and is regarded as one of the "four great aqueducts of Rome."

Although the source of the aqueduct was further downstream than the Anio Novus, technical progress allowed the later Anio Novus to use more bridges to shorten its path instead of following contour lines as the Marcia does.

It was the first to enter Rome on arches, which were used for the last 11 km (6.8 mi), and which were also used later combined with the Aqua Tepula and Aqua Julia.

History

At the beginning of the 2nd century BC, the first two aqueducts of Rome (Aqua Appia and Aqua Anio Vetus) had become dilapidated and many illegal diversions decreased the flow so much that in 184 BC the censor Cato the Elder passed laws to remove illegal pipes and supplies to private individuals.

Nevertheless flow rates were still too low to meet growing demand, so the Senate decided to build a new aqueduct, longer and more ambitious than the previous ones, bringing water to the Capitoline Hill, a technical feat for the time due to its height. The praetor Quintus Marcius Rex (an ancestor of Julius Caesar) was entrusted with supervision of the work, for whom it is named and whose judiciary role was extended for the completion of the work. It was largely paid for by spoils from the recent Roman conquests of Corinth in 146 BC and the destruction of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War, in the same year.

Its extension to the Capitoline Hill caused controversy because traditionalists were concerned about a passage in the Sibylline Books warning against bringing water there and in 140 BC the case was brought before the Senate who rejected it.

It was repaired for the first time in 33 BC by Agrippa then was largely rebuilt by Augustus between 11 and 4 BC following a report of the consuls Quintus Aelius Tubero and Paullus Fabius Maximus.