Of the Anio Vetus, Frontinus merely relates, that it was built from the spoils taken from Pyrrhus and of the Marcia, he says, the Senate appropriated by decree. " Sestertium mille octingenties," equal in our money to $3,240,000. But whether this sum sufficed to complete the undertaking, or whether slaves or the soldiers were employed on such works }

does not appear. Concerning all the other aqueducts, we are left without any indication of their cost, or of the time employed on them.*

The regulations under which these works were, and the laws for their protection, are more known to us.

Respect for private property, in tracing the course of an aqueduct, seems to have been so scrupulous, that it isrelated t>y Livy, when, in the year B. C., 179, the Censors, M. Emilius Lepidus, arid M. Flaccus Nobilior, proposed the building of another aqueduct, that the scheme was defeated, because Licinius Crassus refused to let it be carried through

his lands.t

It is also remarked by Frontinus, that so " admirable was the equity of our ancestors, that when on the line of an aqueduct, any owner of lands was unwilling to sell the portion required for the public work, the whole farm was bought by the State, and after taking what was requisite, the rest was resold."]: At subsequent periods, it would seem, from a Senate decree, to be presently noticed, that the practice of our own country, on such occasions, was adopted that of taking private " property for public purposes, upon an estimate to be made by good men." We have already seen, that the general charge and control of all the aqueducts, was confided to a national superintendent, who was generally of high rank, and who, by a decree of the Senate, was to be accompanied, when going out of the city on official duty,