The Aqua Appia was the first Roman aqueduct, constructed in 312 BC by the co-censors Gaius Plautius Venox and Appius Claudius Caecus, the same Roman censor who also built the important Via Appia.
Gaius Plautius Venox chose the source of the aqueduct thus giving him the nickname Venox (Hunter). However, Appius Claudius had the aqueduct named after him as at the time that the aqueduct was being built the 18 month terms of Plautius and Appius as censors was coming to an end and Plautius resigned in a timely manner. However, Appius kept his position by "various subterfuges" in order to extend his term to finish the Via Appia and the Aqua Appia.
The Appia fed the city of Rome with an estimated 73000 m3 of water per day.
Route
Its source was "on the vast Lucullus estate, between the seventh and eighth milestones, on the Via Praenestina, on a crossroad, 780 paces (1150 m) to the left. It is probable that the source was a group of springs in a stretch of marshland with a single collecting basin or reservoir.
It flowed for to Rome from the east and emptied into the Forum Boarium near the Porta Trigemina. Nearly all of its length before entering the city was underground, which was necessary because of the relative heights of its source and destination, and which also afforded it protection from attackers during the Samnite Wars that were underway during its construction. After entering the hilly area of Rome, the aqueduct alternated between tunnels through the Caelian and Aventine Hills and an elevated section. A detailed modern model of ancient Rome shows the aqueduct running along the top of the Servian Wall above the Porta Capena. It dropped only over its entire length, making it a remarkable engineering achievement for its day.
The Appia ended at the Clivus Publicus at a place called Salinae below the Aventine Hill. The water was distributed to twenty reservoirs through piping. The aqueduct served the private Baths of Decius and Baths of Licinius Sura on the Aventine. The level of the channel was too low to be able to provide water to the hills.
In 2017, a section of the aqueduct was excavated beneath Piazza Celimontana and has been removed for reconstruction elsewhere.
Historical context
Rome's first aqueduct was in response to the growing city and population which may have suffered a prolonged drought and major sanitary issues which affected their existing water supplies.
The Aqua Appia was the first test of Roman engineering of its type and is unsophisticated in comparison to Rome's ten other aqueducts. Raffaelo Fabretti, one of the first to excavate the Appia, characterises it as "The first fruits of Rome's Foresight and greatness". Nevertheless, the Appia was kept in use into the era of Augustus Caesar through regular maintenance, renovations and even an expansion. Little of the original material remains today and much of information on the aqueduct comes from Frontinus who was appointed as water commissioner and recorded the technical, and some historical, details of the Appia about four hundred years after its completion.
Although there were no formal Roman predecessors for the Aqua Appia, there were plenty of examples in the Greek and Etruscan world. The difference between them is the fact that the Romans favoured masonry conduits rather than the terracotta pipes which were generally used by the Greeks throughout the history of their aqueducts. The Romans could indirectly have been influenced by the Iranian qanat, a tunnel driven into a hillside to tap an aquiferous stratum deep inside it. It is believed that the Etruscan water channel system, the cuniculi is a form of the qanat and the Romans' contacts with the Etruscans influenced them.