Alban, or rather Tusculan hills, and conveyed to Rome by channels under, and aqueducts above, ground, some of which are ancient, and some modern. It discharges itself through a rock, under an Ionic arcade built of white stone, and faced with marbfe. It is adorned
by several gigantic statues, the principal of which represents Moses striking the rock whence the water issues. On the one side, Aaron conducts the Israelites on the other, Gideon leads his chosen soldiers to the brink of the torrent below, four lions, two of ;
marble and two of basalt, ornamented with hieroglyphics, hang over the vast basin, as if in haste to slake their thirst. The restoration of this noble fountain, and the ornaments which grace it, are owing to the spirit of Sixtus Quintus, and it bears the name of Aqua Felice, and is supposed to be now, as anciently, peculiarly wholesome. Nearly opposite, but beyond the Tiber and on the brow of the Janiculum, rises an arcade supported by six pillars of granite. Three torrents rushing from the summit of the hill, tumble through
PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 49
the three principal arches of this arcade, and fill an immense marble basin with the purest water. They then roll down the side of the mountain, turn several mills as they descend, and supply numberless reservoirs in the plain along the sides of the river, and even beyond it, in the Campus Martius. The lofty situation of this fountain, renders it a conspicuous object to all the opposite hills. The trees that line its sides, and wave to the eye through its arches, shed an unusual beauty around it and the immense basin which it replenishes, ;