Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome. The so-called ‘Villa Claudia’ at Anguillara
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Transcript of Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome. The so-called ‘Villa Claudia’ at Anguillara
7/28/2019 Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome. The so-called ‘Villa Claudia’ at Anguillara
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Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome:
the so-called ‘Villa Claudia’ at Anguillara Sabazia
Edmund Thomas
Received: 5 November 2011 / Accepted: 20 January 2012 / Published online: 28 March 2012Ó Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract This article re-considers the architecture of the Roman villa site at Anguillara
Sabazia (Lazio (RM), Italy). It is argued that the villa should be dated to the Augustan
period, rather than the late Republic, and that its elaborate ornamental water features,
including fountains arranged in an elliptical curve, were supplied by the Augustan aque-
duct, the Aqua Alsietina, also known as the Aqua Augusta, either directly, or through a
subsidiary branch off the main conduit. Its particular elliptical form, unique in Roman villa
architecture at that time, may be explained as a small-scale version of the imperial pool(Stagnum) created in 2 BC for the Emperor Augustus’s recreation of sea-battles (Naumachia
Augusti) in the modern district of Trastevere, which was the eventual destination of the
aqueduct. There is no firm evidence for the owner of the villa, but a fragment of an
honorific inscription from the site suggests a high-ranking ex-consul from the family of the
Cornelii, possibly connected with the water administration (Cura Aquarum) in Rome.
Keywords Villas Á Aqueducts Á Fountains Á Aqua Alsietina Á Elliptical shape Á
Sea-battles Á Naumachia Á Opus reticulatum Á Opus mixtum Á Roman architecture
Introduction
‘A name so special, it just had to have an extraordinary history’: this is how today they sell
the popular brand of mineral water called Acqua Claudia, ‘the Fountain of Pleasure’
(http://www.gruppobse.it/claudia.html ). ‘What is so precious about it is that it is utterly
clear, light and fresh. It has no smell, but to the taste gives a slight impression of graceful
mineral acid. It pleases every palate, is the friend of every stomach, and suits any age, sex,
temperament or season of the year.’ That was how it was recommended by a monk of the
Jacometti family—the same family as the famous sculptor Giacometti—at Anguillara
Sabazia in 1770. One hundred years ago, 1909, saw its first marketing, leading to the two-
tier plastic bottle from which hundreds of archaeologists have slaked their thirst with its
E. Thomas (&)
Ancient Visual and Material Culture, Durham University, 38 North Bailey, Durham DH1 3EU, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
123
Water Hist (2012) 4:57–78
DOI 10.1007/s12685-012-0055-x
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naturally fizzy contents; the year 2009 saw its acquisition by the BSE Group (Business
Service Express, 65% owners of the Tione group) who call themselves ‘emotions’ healthy
bearers’. Some derive the water’s modern name from the nearby Via Clodia (or Claudia),
others (whom the bottle-makers prefer to follow) from ‘the hot springs of the emperor
Claudius’. The water comes from a spring at the site, producing naturally gaseous water at22–23°C, a medium mineral water with a balanced content of salts. The right input, its new
owners advertise, ‘is essential for our physiological well-being and for the performance of
natural functions’. In short, it is ‘ideal water for people who love each other’.
‘Going to the establishment of Claudia,’ we are told, ‘is like diving in the past: a Roman
villa, age-old trees… you breathe the history…’ Each of the staff ‘feels part of living and
helps with the experience and consistency, to preserve a unique heritage’. Concealed
within the grounds of the plant, some 20 miles north of Rome (Fig. 1), a few miles from
Lake Bracciano, and near the small village of Anguillara Sabazia, lie the remains of a
Roman building. The structures, excavated in 1934, have nothing to do with the Emperor
Claudius. Instead, they have been identified with the remnants of a late Republican villa,
which helped to give the mineral water its healthy, classical, but of course totally bogus
name (Vighi 1940, 1941). In the early 1980s, the site was the object of passing interest
from the British School at Rome’s South Etruria Survey, and it has since been briefly
studied by the architect Mantha Zarmakoupi, who highlighted its architectural interest,
comparing it to modernist buildings (Zarmakoupi 2005). However, while business flour-
ishes at its capitalist neighbour, the grass continues to grow over the Roman site (Fig. 2),
which still awaits a proper reconsideration. This article presents a preliminary assessment
of the site in terms of its water usage and display. In this microcosmic study, I hope to draw
out some wider issues of water management and irrigation, and their associations withstructures of power and purposes of display.
Fig. 1 Plan of northern Latium showing (from left to right ) the Lacus Sabatinus (Lake Bracciano), Lacus
Alsietinus (Lake Martignano) and the Stracciacappe basin (now dry). The hatched line running south-west of
the Lacus Alsietinus shows the probable course of the Aqua Alsietina. The numbers refer to the following
features: 78 outlet of the aqueduct; 63 and 68 access shafts; 62 and 94 villa sites; 117 tombs. The ‘Villa
Claudia’ is situated just off the map, below and to the left of number 68 (Accardo et al. 2007, pl. 8a)
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The Sabatine district north-west of Rome (Fig. 1) is dominated by the lakes formed
from former volcanic craters: the largest, Lake Bracciano (the Roman Lacus Sabatinus), at
164 m.a.s.l. with a circumference of some 20 miles and a depth of up to 160 m; the smaller
Lake Martignano (ancient Lacus Alsietinus), at 207 m.a.s.l. and a maximum depth of
153 m; but also, in antiquity, other water bodies which have subsequently dried up as a
result of substantial geomorphological changes, including the ancient Lacus Papirianus(Stracciacappe), which dried up around 1830, and another basin formerly at Lagusiello
(Cordiano 2007, pp. 21, 87, no. 16). The soil surface of the region is predominantly tufa.
The naturally sparkling water bottled by the modern Acqua Claudia comes from one of the
volcanic springs of the Vulcani Sabatini. The main water course through the region is the
Arrone stream, which runs south-eastwards from Lake Bracciano for 37 km to its outlet in
the Tyrrhenian Sea north of the Tiber estuary. The main road artery through this area in the
Roman period was the Via Clodia, the principal route northward from Rome to Etruria,
pausing at Forum Clodii (modern Bracciano) at the southern end of the Lacus Sabatinus
(Hemphill 1975). The landscape around this route was heavily occupied from the fourth
century and especially in the second and first centuries BC, when villa properties clusteredaround the lakes.
The ‘Villa Claudia’ at Anguillara Sabazia
The so-called ‘Villa Claudia’ is situated 4 km south-east of Anguillara Sabazia on the
south-eastern shore of Lake Bracciano and a little over 4 km south-south-west of Lake
Martignano. Like many other sites in the region, it was apparently approached by an access
road from the Via Clodia to the south, remains of which were found to the east of the site.As can be clearly made out from a satellite view in Google Earth, the principal remains of
the villa consist of a curved structure with a corridor behind and a rectangular end (Fig. 3).
Until a new survey of the site can be carried out, we are still dependent for details on
Roberto Vighi’s publications of the 1934 excavations (Vighi 1940, 1941).
The buildings, orientated from north-west to south-east, are set on a sloping terrain and
built on three separate levels. In the lowest part is an impressive curvilinear facade in the
Fig. 2 The ‘Villa Claudia’, present state (2005) (Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome 59
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arc of a circle (Fig. 4). The left half and a few adjacent rooms were completely exposed by
the excavations, but the right half is restored on the assumption of a symmetrical
arrangement, corresponding to the ideal of axial symmetry which is evident in Roman
planning. This great curve, originally extending to a chord of about 87 m long at the base,
would thus have been punctuated by 42 semi-circular niches faced with reticulate masonry
(of which 21 have been exposed) (Fig. 5), each 1.80 m in diameter and linked by engaged
half-columns in reticulate and brick facing (Fig. 6). At the centre, the niches are inter-
rupted by a doorway 1.90 m wide, framed on the outer side by the two half-columns of the
adjacent niches: the half-columns are each 45 cm in diameter, and the piers 60 cm wide.
Column drums found in the excavation, each 36 cm in diameter and similar in construction
technique and proportions to the half-columns, show that above the half-columns originally
stood an upper order of columns of four-fifths the size. At the centre of each niche, a small
window opened in the wall, 0.60 m wide to 1.20 m above the ground; below this was
inserted, in a hole in the pavement, a large terracotta vase (Fig. 7). The bases of some vases
Fig. 3 The ‘Villa Claudia’, site plan (Vighi 1940, pl. IV)
Fig. 4 The ‘Villa Claudia’, site view from above, from north-east (Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
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were found in situ. Very small traces of cocciopesto plaster used as revetment of the niche
walls suggested that such vases were designed to receive water from a fountain spout
above, contributing together to a sumptuous water display.
Behind this outer wall of niches and parallel to it runs an ambulatory (Figs. 8, 3a),
3.77 m wide, which was lit by a series of windows and is believed to have been roofed by
wooden beams, because of the thinness of the walls (0.50 m for the outer wall with niches,
and 0.60 m for the inner wall). It was approached from the outer curve through a central
door and two smaller doors in place of windows in the outermost niches, and from the
interior rooms above by both stairs and a ramp. The inner wall of the ambulatory, pre-
served up to a height of 4.70 m, buttressed the cutting of the terrain, and so constituted the
foundation of the structures above. The small windows in the outer wall offered a view
from behind of the water displays outside.
Fig. 5 The ‘Villa Claudia’, niches of the curvilinear facade, view from south-east (Photo: Mantha
Zarmakoupi)
Fig. 6 The ‘Villa Claudia’, detail of niches of the curvilinear facade (Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
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The end of the hemicycle is closed, again it is assumed on each side, by a rectangular
space, entered from the bottom of the ambulatory (Fig. 3b), with large windows in the side
walls (Fig. 9). It is identified by Vighi (1940, p. 400) as a nymphaeum, because in thecentre of the back wall is a slight projection, 1.72 m wide and projecting by about 15 cm,
which could be considered the back of an aedicule or other decorative element. At the
centre of this space seems to have been a pergola, open to the sky, to which apparently
belonged a travertine column, 3 m high and tapering towards the top. The floor of the
pergola is slightly lower than the adjacent ambulatory and separated from it by a low wall.
Fig. 7 The ‘Villa Claudia’,
detail of niche in curvilinear
facade, showing hole for pot
(Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
Fig. 8 The ‘Villa Claudia’,
ambulatory from above, view
from north (Photo: Mantha
Zarmakoupi)
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On this wall rough rectangular blocks of tufa were laid at a later date, on top of which four
L-shaped bases at the corners supported columns or piers. The resulting pergola
arrangement is familiar from garden design at Pompeii, for example in the House of
Octavius Quartio (II.2.2) or the Villa of Diomedes (Jashemski 1979–1993).
Below the pergola was a fountain with a system of water effects, which Vighi did not
describe in detail because of the poor state of preservation. On the floor opened an
elongated rectangular pool (5.70 m long), which ended at the bottom in a broad, curved
end (diam. 1.20 m) and opened below the pergola with four steps leading down from the
latter; these seem to be the remains of a cascade falling more than 1.70 m to the pool below
(Fig. 10). Below the steps at the centre are the outlets of a U-shaped channel which goes
under the floor of the pergola; above, the pergola is framed by two rectilinear walls, each
framed by half-columns. Under the pool again is a channel parallel to and between the two
arms of the U-shaped channel; two holes open into this channel, a large arched one opens
Fig. 9 The ‘Villa Claudia’, pergola, view from north-east (Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
Fig. 10 The ‘Villa Claudia’, detail of pergola, showing cascade (Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
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at the back of the pool and a small hole in the third step of the cascade, while water also
flowed into the curved part of the channel through three small holes in the curved extension
of the pool. From foundation walls observed in the zone in front of the facade of the
‘nymphaeum’, Vighi argued (1940, p. 401) that there was a second pool in front of it, at a
level below the hemicycle, into which the waters of the fountain and the channel fell.Beside the ‘nymphaeum’ a short rectilinear corridor (Fig. 3c) forms a continuation of
the semi-circular ambulatory. Four doors open off this corridor: on the left, into the
nymphaeum; at the rear, leading outside the villa; and two on the right, of which one
opened onto a staircase leading to the upper floor, 1.22 m wide supported by an arcade, and
the other into a service area (Fig. 3d) containing a well and a millstone.
Just before the centre of the semi-circular ambulatory Vighi found a large door with
preserved lintel, which led on the right to a staircase and on the left to a ramp, both giving
access to the upper floors. The ramp, 1.18 m wide, is a bold and remarkably modern design
comparable to that at the Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier (Zarmakoupi 2005, p. 5). It was lit
by two windows opening in the inner wall of the walkway and ended at the top in a short
staircase on the left and a door on the right. The staircase, with three treads 1.18 m wide,
originally led to the second floor of the hemicycle. To the right of the door of the staircase
is a room (Fig. 3f) with mosaic pavement, only partly visible, with a large window looking
over the ambulatory; access to this room must have been at the central entrance of the large
exedra which was not exposed in Vighi’s excavations. The floor is covered by a late
Roman mosaic with large tesserae, decorated in panels 74 cm square containing various
designs including ivy leaves, olive branches and a chalice (Vighi 1940, p. 408 Fig. 11).
The site showed other signs of later occupation. Two tombs were cut into the floor at a
later date, of which the skeletons survived but no grave-goods. At the time of the exca-vations the room itself was interrupted on the right by the walls of a modern farm building
rising at the centre of the exedra; this has since been demolished. The farm building was
built over ancient structures: within it two sections of thick walls were still visible in
Vighi’s explorations, linked by a segmental vault 3.70 m wide, at a corner of which the
trace of a cross-vault can be observed. These are the remains of a central nucleus at the
middle of the curvilinear facade, which was approached from the large door on the main
axis of the hemicycle. At the front of the second floor were the living quarters, now lost,
which looked over the exedra and then extended along the slope of the hill.
The upper floor extended to the top of the slope, but only the foundations of some rooms
survive, apart from the walls of a large room with water tank which was the limit of Vighi’s excavations. The floor of this room (Fig. 3h), 5.30 m by 12.50 m, is paved with a
black-and-white mosaic with a border formed by two white strips. The water tank, exca-
vated at a later date at the bottom of the vault, is 3.70 m long by 1.20 m wide and 1.60 m
deep; it is lined with poor-quality brick and tile, covered with plaster and cocciopesto.
Another door, symmetrical to the one still used in the left wall, was walled up, presumably
when the tank was opened (Vighi 1940, pp. 403–405).
On the same level as this room and to the west extended a vast, walled area (Fig. 3p)
paved with polygonal stones, estimated by Vighi as about 7 m by 8.70 m. Its function
could not be identified because of the incomplete nature of the excavation, but Vighisuggested that it was an open square giving access to the villa from the side or an inner
courtyard for agricultural use. On an intermediate level, half-hidden above the curved
exedra and rooms C and D, but below room H and the paved area P, were various service
areas, approached from the south-west by a corridor with descending staircase (I). The
corridor opened through a door with a monolithic tufa lintel, into a room L, which pre-
sented in the right wall a wide segmental arch with an opening of 4 m that originally
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perhaps supported a stairway to the upper floor. Off the same room opened a rectangular
water reservoir (M), 1.60 m high, with plastered waterproofed walls and a door with
monolithic tufa jambs and lintel originally closed by a shutter. Above, behind the back
door of this cistern, runs a masonry conduit, cut into the pavement of the floor above. Vighi
was certain that this conduit, which contained a lead pipe, was connected to the reservoir(Vighi 1940, p. 406). Two vaulted rooms (N and O), on the other side of the corridor I,
were left partly interred.
In the highest part of the site, above the unexcavated right-hand side of the hemicycle,
are the remains of an imposing round cistern 23 m in diameter (Fig. 11). It is formed of
two thick concentric walls (the outer one 60 cm thick, the inner one 50 cm thick) and a
central pier 1.50 m in diameter. Assuming a depth of 2 m, this would have had a capacity
of over 600 m3, which would put it at one of the largest in South Etruria, enormous even by
the grand standards of villas in the hinterland of Rome (Wilson 2009, pp. 735–736 Fig. 3).
The walls are of unfaced opus caementicium with small flakes of selce; traces remain of the
revetment in cocciopesto. In both the annular corridors the springing of the vaults that
covered them are clearly visible. Between the cistern and the rest of the site were found
fragments of coarse lead pipes. All around, the level of pozzolana on which the reservoir
was built is intersected by tunnels (cuniculi). Their direction could not be identified by
Vighi because of the profound modifications to the terrain caused by the modern buildings
and by the trench dug for the nearby railway, but it was clear to him that they channelled
water into the cistern, which then supplied, through the lead pipes, the water basins,
fountains and other water features below (Vighi 1940, p. 406).
In short, the site provides a rare surviving example of the ambitious garden architecture
attested in ancient Roman literature. On probably either side of an extensive curvilinearwall adorned not with statues but with large terracotta pots, filled by fountain jets gushing
out from the niches, rectangular projections presented fountain displays from a pergola,
with water flowing through a central channel and cascading into a pool, with possibly a
further pool below that (Vighi 1940, pp. 398–400). All this could be viewed, in a theatre-
like manner, from the upper storeys where the living and reception rooms must have been
Fig. 11 The ‘Villa Claudia’,
plan of circular cistern (Vighi
1940, p. 416 Fig. 18)
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situated and through the windows of the ambulatory. But even these sophisticated archi-
tectural elements can have been just one aspect of a remarkable villa landscape: by contrast
with the rather austere appearance of the surrounding region, the palm trees, mimosas and
other exotic plants still growing here give a very luxuriant impression.
The water supply of the villa, and the aqueducts of northern Latium
There is no certain evidence for how the fountains and gardens of this Roman site were
supplied. Vighi attributed the unusually lush and sub-tropical vegetation to the springs
exploited by the mineral water company today. These are located about 100 m to the south
of the site and lower down the slope, so could hardly have supplied the site. Moreover, as
the modern water companies admit, its health-giving waters were only recognized from the
second half of the eighteenth century. (Hence, presumably, Brother Jacometti’s effusivedelight.) But the remains of lead piping between the massive round cistern at the top of the
site and the water features below provide strongly circumstantial evidence. It would have
taken a substantial and regular flow of running water to feed ornamental fountains and
water displays of this nature (Thomas and Wilson 1994, p. 160), and the cistern’s vast
capacity of over 600 m3 was well-placed to deliver it. The remains of cuniculi around the
round cistern show that a considerable and well-organized supply had been channelled to
the site. But from where was the water channelled into this cistern? It seems almost
unavoidable that the water displays and garden irrigation of the luxuriant ‘Villa Claudia’
site, not to mention its two smaller domestic cisterns, were supplied by an aqueduct. Which
one?Two aqueducts brought water through this region of northern Latium in antiquity from
the lakes to Rome: the Aqua Traiana (later used by the Renaissance Acqua Paola), inau-
gurated by the emperor Trajan (AD 98–117), which brought water from Lake Bracciano to
the west (Ashby 1935, pp. 299–307); and the Aqua Augusta of Augustus (27 BC–AD 14),
which was also known as the Aqua Alsietina after the Lacus Alsietinus (Lago di Mar-
tignano) from where it was fed (Ashby 1935, pp. 182–189). The latter’s original name
suggests that it might have been intended as the coup de grace of Augustus’s restoration of
Rome’s water supplies: it could have been proudly conceived, and promoted in contem-
porary ideology, as exploiting a new source, not the Alban hills to the south-east, fromwhere all of Rome’s previous aqueducts had been channelled, but the lakes to the north-
west of Rome. Its name, like that of the new branch of the Aqua Marcia (Frontinus, Aq.
12), echoes other aqueducts newly installed under Augustus in Italian and provincial
towns. But, at a little over 200 m above sea level at its highest point, neither lake was an
obvious source for bringing water to Rome, particularly in comparison with the Alban
hills. We know from Frontinus that the supply was a failure as a provider of healthy
drinking water:
I cannot for the life of me see what reason led Augustus, an emperor of extreme
forethought, to channel the water of Alsietinus that is called the Aqua Augusta,which has nothing attractive about it and is even unhealthy and for that reason does
not run anywhere for popular consumption; unless perhaps when he took on the
construction of the Naumachia he channelled this supply separately so that it would
not spoil the healthier water supplies and granted the surplus from the Naumachia to
the adjacent gardens and the use of private individuals for irrigation. But there is a
habit of using its water in an emergency to supply the public fountains in the district
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across the Tiber, whenever the bridges are being repaired and the water supplies from
this side of the river are cut off. (Frontinus, Aq. 11).
Frontinus also records that the aqueduct had a total length of 22,172 paces (just under
33 km), travelling underground for all but 358 paces (about 532 m) where it was supported
by arches ( Aq. 11). The arcades most likely stood in its final section, within Rome, as partly
demonstrated on the Severan marble plan (Petzalis-Diomidis 2007). However, the aque-
duct’s extra-urban course is notoriously difficult to trace (Liberati Silverio 1986, p. 74).
The route given by Antonio Nibby (1837) cannot be accepted because of the terrain (Ashby
1935, pp. 185–188). The presence in the same area of the Trajanic and Paulian channels
makes it hard to be sure that the remains of channels here belonged to the Augustan supply.
The situation is further complicated by the considerable environmental changes since
antiquity: first, the waters of Lake Martignano dropped in the later imperial period and in
the early middle ages rose back to the Augustan level, as can be seen from the submerging
of oak trees c. AD 500 (Moccheggiani Carpano 1986, p. 59; Ferri Ricchi 1972, 1974;Cosentino Marconi 1995, p. 105); and, subsequently, the drying up of the neighbouring
basin of Stracciacappe c. 1830 and partial drying up of Lake Martignano, which lowered its
level by 12 m (Liberati Silverio 1986, p. 73).
Frontinus indicates that the source of the Alsietina/Augusta was Lake Alsietinus (Lake
Martignano), ‘six and a half miles along a road branching right at the fourteenth mile of the
Via Clodia’ ( Aq. 11). An opening into the channel on the southern shore of Lake Mar-
tignano corresponding to this topographical location (Accardo et al. 2007, pp. 184–186, pl.
8a: no. 78) was seen in the nineteenth century, rediscovered in the 1970s, and still visible in
the 1980s; it appears to have an artificial outlet (emissarium) constructed for the Aqua
Augusta (Burri 2006). Pits found just to the south-east of Monte Maiale seem to be accessshafts for maintenance to the same aqueduct (Accardo et al. 2007, pl. 8a: nos. 63 and 68).
This suggests that the aqueduct followed a route heading roughly south-south-westwards
from Lake Martignano towards the Arrone stream along the Fosso Formelluzzo, which was
later used as a conduit for the Aqua Traiana. The greater part of the aqueduct’s fall from its
source must have occurred in this initial section of its course. Villa sites along this route—
at Colonnetta (IGM 276649) and Casale Terraline (IGM 276865) (Accardo et al. 2007,
pp. 165 no. 51 and 168 no. 55)—might also have tapped this source for the purposes of
irrigation. At any rate, Frontinus indicates that the delivery of the aqueduct—392 quina-
riae, equivalent to 16,228 m
3
in 2 h—was used entirely outside the city ( De Aq. II.85;Ashby 1935, p. 183). The recently published survey of archaeology around the lake shores
ends just north of the ‘Villa Claudia’, but the map of its course suggests that the aqueduct’s
underground channel would have passed very close to the site (Accardo et al. 2007, fold-
out map).
From Frontinus we know that the Naumachia Augusti in Trans Tiberim was inaugurated
by Augustus in 2 BC and supplied by the Aqua Augusta (Taylor 2000; Rodgers 2004,
pp. 235–236). Yet he gives no precise measurements of the volume of water that it
provided at its intake or at its reservoir, as he does for the other aqueducts of Rome, noting
that such a measurement was neither given in the records nor able to be discovered for
certain in the present situation since it gets from Lake Alsietinus (Martignano) and thenfrom Lake Sabatinus (Bracciano) around Careiae ‘as much as the watermen (aquarii) have
arranged’ ( Aq. II.71). Thus it appears that already by the end of the first century AD,
although the water was still being used as an emergency supply for the public fountains in
the Trans Tiberim district and for irrigation of private gardens, the measure of volume flow
from the aqueduct was no longer recorded, perhaps because it could no longer be
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determined. What had happened in the meantime? One distinct possibility is that the waters
of Lake Martignano had dropped significantly, as the opening of the Aqua Alsietina was
found in the 1970s 12 m above the present level (Cordiano 2007). In addition, the access
passage (1.80 9 0.40 cm), which was excavated in the tufa, its walls and base quite well-
worn by hydraulic erosion, and partially obstructed by subsequent collapses, presented atabout 50 m from the opening a lower linking passage off-axis, but characterised only by
slight beginnings of erosion. This attempt to lower the level at which the water was drawn,
made by excavating this new passage probably at some point in the first half of the first
century AD, had not had any great effect, since the new variant to the main conduit also
remained dry (Cordiano 2007). In the 1970s, it was possible to enter some 200 m into the
main passageway (Accardo et al. 2007, p. 185). The supply had also been supplemented by
a branch from Lake Bracciano. It is no surprise that only a few years after Frontinus wrote,
and still within the reign of Trajan, a new, more effective supply to the western suburbs of
Rome was introduced, entirely from the larger Lake Bracciano, the Aqua Traiana. Also
following the Arrone valley, it may well have re-used old channels of the now defunct
Aqua Alsietina for much of its course towards Rome. It was perhaps the unsanitary use of
the older aqueduct for public drinking fountains mentioned by Frontinus which brought
about its replacement.
The date of the ‘Villa Claudia’
Topography then points to an association of the ‘Villa Claudia’ with the Aqua Augusta/
Alsietina, especially as we know from Frontinus that one of its principal uses was for theirrigation of gardens in the suburbs of Rome. There is now abundant evidence for the use of
the principal aqueducts bringing water to Rome to supply also villas and towns in the rural
districts through which they passed (Evans 1993; Thomas and Wilson 1994; Wilson 2009).
The elaborate fountain structure of the ‘Villa Claudia’ could have been supplied by the
Aqua Augusta/Alsietina for both irrigation of the gardens in front of it and ornamental
display in itself. A potential stumbling-block to this interpretation has always been the
date. Vighi dated the remains to the late Republican era, ‘just after the middle of the 1st
century BC’ (Vighi 1940, pp. 410, 418), but at any rate well before the water was chan-
nelled from Lacus Alsietinus. Subsequent scholars have accepted that the building dates
from the time of Sulla, the second decade of the first century BC (Van Aken 1951).Vighi’s date is founded on the construction technique used. In particular, the walls of
mortared rubble concrete are faced with small blocks of selce of pyramidal form in the
‘net-like’ arrangement known in ancient sources as opus reticulatum (Vitruvius, De arch.
2.8.1). Vighi described the version of this technique used in the ‘Villa Claudia’ as ‘opus
quasi reticulatum’ (Vighi 1941, p. 146), a label that suggests that it lacked the regularity of
classic examples like the Theatre of Pompey (c. 60–55 BC) and dated from an earlier time.
But the justification for placing the walls of the ‘Villa Claudia’ in this purely modern
category is thin, since, unlike other examples from outside Rome where the presence of a
regular grid of stones laid in a diamond pattern is less clear (e.g. the city walls at Ostia andthe Forum Baths in Pompeii), here the facing shows a precise interlocking of small tufa
blocks of standard size laid with a regularity (Fig. 12) which is even comparable to
examples from Rome of the Augustan period (e.g. the Mausoleum of Augustus and Theatre
of Marcellus). However, the technique is now recognized over a much broader area, in both
time and space, than it was in Vighi’s time. Reflecting a greater rationalization in the
building industry which gained ground in the first half of the first century BC, opus
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reticulatum was adopted as a facing for walls of mortared rubble or concrete almost
universally in towns and villas in central Italy between the middle of the first century BC
and the middle of the following century, especially along major road and river systems
(Torelli 1995, p. 219). This gives much less grounds for confidence that the walls of the
‘Villa Claudia’ belonged to the late Republican period. But there is reason to place themeven as late as the later Augustan period. The integrated combination of reticulate facing
with brick courses, found in the half-columns of the hemicycle, does not generally occur
before the Augustan period (Lugli 1957, pp. 505–507). Indeed, although the late Repub-
lican date has passed into the most recent literature, the facing sometimes described even
as opus incertum (Gros 1996–2001, II, p. 301), there are signs that Vighi himself some-
times inclined to a later date. At one point he pushes the ‘Republican’ date to its lowest
chronological limits, observing that the use of brick courses suggested a date ‘around the
middle of the first century BC or the years immediately following’ (Vighi 1941, p. 146); at
another various finds from the villa, including Arretine ware and terracotta plaques of
Campana type, persuade him of the villa’s origin ‘between the end of the Republic and thebeginnings of the Empire’; and at a third, he suggests that the fragment of an inscription of
which the spacing of the lettering appeared ‘no earlier than the Augustan period’ (see
below) had belonged to an honorific monument ‘contemporary with the construction of the
villa’ (Vighi 1940, p. 418). At all events, once one assesses the reticulate work of the ‘Villa
Claudia’ more carefully within both its specific structural environment and its broader
chronological context, the foundations of the argument for its Republican date quickly
crumble, and little obstacle remains to lowering this date well into the Augustan period.
A further argument can be developed from architectural design. For Vighi, the allegedly
early date of the complex made it a ‘caposaldo’ (landmark) in the history of Roman
curvilinear architecture (Vighi 1941, p. 146). Assuming the work to be late Republican in
date, he argued that the curved ‘exedra’ in the ‘Villa Claudia’ represented an intermediate
stage between the theatre-like exedra at the top of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at
Praeneste (Palestrina) and the Forum of Augustus. Both of these are semi-circular struc-
tures that derived from compass-based design, and they almost certainly influenced the
reconstruction published in Vighi’s second article, drawn in the late 1930s by Alberto
Fig. 12 The ‘Villa Claudia’, detail of back wall of ambulatory, showing opus reticulatum masonry facing
(Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
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Carpiceci (Vighi 1941). Italian architects of this age were well trained in buildings like the
Forum Augustum and the sanctuary at Palestrina. But a comparison of the reconstruction
drawing by the architect Carpiceci (Fig. 6) with Vighi’s excavation plan (Fig. 3) reveals
that the former’s reconstruction has been rounded to present an exactly semi-circular
outline; the slender half-columns of the garden structure have been enlarged into a mon-
umental portico; and a formal propylon structure has been placed at the centre of the
facade. The actual curve at Anguillara, however, is not semi-circular, but traces a much
flatter curve, close to an ellipse. It is recognizable to us as a chord from one side of an
amphitheatre. Not for nothing does Zarmakoupi observe its ‘almost amphitheatric rela-
tionship’ with the landscape (2005, p. 6) (Fig. 13).
Roman villas and the architecture of water display
The use of hemicycles in the context of water displays is, in fact, a feature of private villaarchitecture of the early imperial period. A striking example is the Villa della Sosandra at
Baiae, a terrace villa the third level of which is occupied by a large semi-circular exedra
facing a basin supplied from five large cisterns behind (Di Luca 2009, pp. 153–154).
Rather later, the Hadrianic nymphaeum at Zaghouan at the source of the aqueduct which
supplied Carthage took the form of a hemicycle with niches around a central basin (Rakob
1974). Yet the elliptical form visible at Anguillara is rather rare in villa architecture. A
close parallel is a substructure with niches in opus reticulatum from the Augustan or
Tiberian phase of the so-called ‘Villa of Nero’ or ‘Imperial Villa’ on the southern Latium
coast at Anzio (Antium), which served as the ideal chord of a grand curvilinear belvedere(Santamaria Scrinari and Morricone Matini 1975, pp. 10–14; Mielsch 1987, pp. 52–53;
Brandizzi Vitucci 2000, no. 10; Blokzijl 2006; Jaia 2008, p. 73). A recent attempt to
classify Roman villas places these two villas in a separate category of ‘exceptional types’,
consisting of ‘a semicircular frontage or curvilinear prospect’ (Romizzi 2001,
pp. 111–115). The Antium example is now classed not as a sea frontage (Mielsch 1987,
pp. 52–53), but as ‘the grand portico of a system with distinct nuclei’, whose shape
Fig. 13 The ‘Villa Claudia’, elliptical nymphaeum seen from the unexcavated section, view from north-
east (Photo: Mantha Zarmakoupi)
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probably resulted from a desire to follow the line of the coast (Jaia 2008, p. 79, no. 4).
Nonetheless, the contemporaneity of the two villas is striking.
There are also parallels from the aristocratic gardens ( Horti) on the edges of Rome. The
early Augustan villa under the Villa Farnesina on the right bank of the Tiber is charac-
terised by a huge hemicycle facing the river (Moneti 1991). On the Esquiline hill the so-called ‘Auditorium of Maecenas’ was a fountain building at the semicircular end of which
water cascaded down steps between arrangements of flowers (Greggio 1984). More sig-
nificantly, drawings by Leonardo Bufalini and Pirro Ligorio in their maps of the city
executed in 1551 and 1561, respectively, show a curvilinear structure on the Pincio hill in
the northern suburbs of ancient Rome, which no longer survives, but apparently once
overlooked the Campus Martius and, beyond that, the centre of Rome (Frutaz 1962, II, pls.
27 and 214; Bufalini 1551). Ligorio attributed it to the Gardens of Lucullus, infamous from
classical texts, and his extravagant reconstruction as a semicircular exedra, developed in a
plan preserved in Turin (Turin, Archivio di Stato, MS a.II.1.J.14, fols. 128v-129r) was later
followed by Rodolfo Lanciani in his large-scale map of the remains of ancient Rome
(Lanciani 1893–1901, pl. 9). From his traditional training Carpiceci was familiar with
Renaissance reconstructions of ancient buildings and, because Ligorio’s plan became
widely known after its adoption by Lanciani, it is possible that his knowledge of the
drawing influenced his own restoration of the Anguillara villa, as several details of the
reconstruction are taken from Ligorio’s imaginative view. On Bufalini’s contemporary
map the form is shown with a considerably more open curve. In the 1980s a close survey
and excavation of the site, now occupied by the French School at the Villa Medici,
confirmed the accuracy of Bufalini’s plan with the discovery of a corridor in opus retic-
ulatum, partly rebuilt in opus mixtum, at the top of the north garden of the Convent of Trinita dei Monti, on which the later Casina Bufalini was constructed (Broise and Jolivet
1995a, b, 2009, pp. 21–22) (Fig. 14). This is interpreted as the rear walls of the semicir-
cular complex drawn by Ligorio (Broise and Jolivet 2009, pp. 22–25).
Situated below a round temple, possibly of Fortune, this portico some 180 m long offers
a parallel for a curvilinear structure in a garden environment; below it, a semicircular
embankment of earth like a theatre cavea supported at the base by a low retaining wall of
reticulate facing. But the stratigraphic dating indicates that this imposing garden complex
was not created at the time of Lucullus, in the late Republican era, but in the first century
AD, probably in the Claudian period, the work of the Gallic magnate Valerius Asiaticus
(Broise and Jolivet 1995a, b, pp. 20–22). Most interestingly for our present purpose, thisearly imperial garden structure on the Pincio, with an eagle and thunderbolts, the symbols
of Jupiter, incorporated in its capitals, may have been the ‘Nymphaeum of Jupiter’ indi-
cated in Region VII by the Regionary Catalogues of Rome (Valentini and Zucchetti 1940:
I, p. 110). Its fountains were probably supplied by the new aqueduct inaugurated by Gaius
and completed by Claudius, the Anio Novus, which for the first time brought a piped water
supply to the hill. But the water display of the ‘Villa Claudia’ anticipated Asiaticus’s
garden fountains on the Pincio by a generation. There is every chance that it too was
supplied by an aqueduct, the new Aqua Augusta or Aqua Alsietina of Augustus.
Elsewhere in Rome’s hinterland branches off the principal aqueducts supplying the citywere used to serve not only the basic needs, but also the ornamental display of private and
imperial villas. Statius describes how the Aqua Marcia was carried across the river Anio to
be distributed to the Villa of Manilius Vopiscus at Tivoli (Silvae 1.3.66–69); the ambitious
Villa of the Quintilii on the Via Appia had its own branch off one of the city’s aqueducts,
although which one is unclear (Garbrecht and Manderscheid 1994: A, 15; B, cat. no. A19;
C, Fig. 13); and, on the grandest scale, Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli also exploited the urban
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supply (Manderscheid 2000). The clustering of villas around Tivoli was explained not only
by the allure of the landscape. It was also the area through which most of Rome’s aque-
ducts passed, a ready-made supply, or so it seemed, to be tapped by villa owners for awealth and variety of aquatic displays (Evans 1993, p. 454). The group of 26 large cisterns
with capacities over 200 m3 identified on the opposite side of Lake Bracciano, in the Tiber
valley, which must have been fed by some form of aqueduct or small-scale conduit, must
have principally served either baths or irrigation (Wilson 2009, pp. 735, 739); but the
possibility that cisterns of such size also served water displays in luxury residential villas
of high status is also considered (Wilson 2009, p. 747).
The possibility that a branch off the Aqua Alsietina was used to supply the fountains of
the villa at Anguillara gains further credence from the survival of a fragment of a large
travertine slab near Casale di S. Maria di Galeria on the Via Clodia, four miles south of the
‘Villa Claudia’. It recorded Augustus’s addition of ‘the channel of Mens ( forma Mentis) to
the conduit of the Aqua Augusta which arrives at the Grove of the Caesars, [so that] (the
water might flow) from it to the neighbouring properties (rivalibus) which used to receive
(water) at the trumpet signal [i.e. only at fixed times]’ (CIL 6.31566 = 11.3772a = ILS
5796). The slab, found in 1887, had itself been re-used in recent times as the cover over a
conduit of the Acqua Paola coming from Bracciano, which at this point coincided with the
Fig. 14 Partial plan of ancient
structures on the Pincio hill in
Rome, exposed in the convent of
SS. Trinita dei Monti and the
Villa Medici by the excavations
of the French School in Rome.Drawing by Henri Broise. (From
Broise and Jolivet 2009, p. 17
Fig. 8. Ó Ecole Francaise de
Rome)
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route of the former Alsietina (Ashby 1935, p. 183; Wilson 2009, pp. 751–752). It would be
quite understandable if a similar branch of the Augusta had around the same time supplied
the ‘Villa Claudia’ with the means for its water displays, as the high-status small finds from
the site, including Arretine ware and Campana plaques, appear to point to a prestigious
phase of occupation in the Augustan period. While the law of Occam’s razor may not applyto archaeological evidence, there is good reason in this case to believe the simplest
hypothesis with the fewest new variables, namely that the construction of the fountain
structure of the ‘Villa Claudia’ occurred around the same time as the channelling of the
aqueduct.
There remains the question of its elliptical form, so unusual within the architecture of
Roman villas. The general associations between curvilinear architecture and water, espe-
cially in villas or sanctuaries, are well documented (Janon 1985, pp. 84–102), and the
cosmic aspect of theatres (Deschamps 1979; Poulle 1999) might even have lent micro-
cosmic meaning to the scenic water effects viewed from the theatre-like upper rooms. But
the ellipse in particular, rather than the D-shaped curve more typical of villa architecture—
the classic case is Pliny, Letters 2.17.4—needs explanation. Around the end of the first
century BC, the ellipse would have been associated to a contemporary viewer above all with
the novel form of the amphitheatre. Yet here, on the edges of Augustan Rome, it was not
the amphitheatre as such that came to mind, but its formal derivative, also a locus of water
displays at the opposite end of the Aqua Augusta and Alsietina: the Stagnum Augusti in the
Gardens of Caesar in Trans Tiberim, used to stage the newly inaugurated Naumachia
Augusti.
Modern reconstructions of the Stagnum Augusti vary. Some have argued for a rect-
angular outline, on the basis of fragments of the Severan marble plan of Rome (Coarelli1992; Taylor 1997, p. 477). But considerations of stability of the structure and the visibility
for spectators suggest an elliptical form (Coleman 1993, p. 53). Moreover, the dimensions
proudly announced by Augustus in his Res Gestae (23)—a length of 1800 feet and a width
of 1200 feet—make sense not so much in terms of a rectangular space, but in terms of
the planning of elliptical amphitheatral structures according to a ratio of 3:2 between the
vertical and horizontal diameters (Wilson Jones 1993). At Anguillara the length of the
curve is given by Vighi as 87 m, which corresponds to the axial distance between the last
half-column at each end of the reconstructed structure (Fig. 3). But if instead the central
axis is measured, the distance is *88.5 m, which is equivalent to 300 Roman feet, or one-
sixth the length of the Stagnum Augusti in Rome; the portico on the Pincio, completed twogenerations later in the Claudian period, has been estimated as having had a length of
around 180 m, which corresponds to an approximation of 600 Roman feet, twice the size
of the Anguillara version and a third of the Naumachia in Trans Tiberim.
We return to the fountains. Where did the water go? Vighi has it collected in small
round basins below the fountains of the side wings. But what lay beyond these basins? Do
we dare to believe that this elliptical basin was filled like the great Naumachia of
Augustus? Well, of course, we only have half an ellipse here. There are no remains of
structures on the other side, though, if there were, they would lie mostly under the present
mineral water plant. But what we do have is a structure, only a few miles from theaqueduct’s source, and with limited buildings around it, that is suggestive of the new form
down in the city below at the aqueduct’s termination. Might the garden display at An-
guillara, also of elliptical form, have culminated in a great pool, a scaled-down version the
Naumachia at the other end of the aqueduct, viewed by ‘spectators’ from the upper storeys
and the ambulatory (Fig. 15)? Roman villa owners were inclined to such virtual fantasies.
In the same way Nero’s villa at Antium, his favourite villa according to Tacitus ( Annals
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15.23), embraced a harbour of ships in its curvature; the portico of Asiaticus’s gardens on
the Pincio, also apparently supplied by an aqueduct, looked directly down on the amphi-
theatre of Gaius (Broise and Jolivet 1995a, b, p. 23, 1996, p. 69). The structure at An-
guillara can thus be seen as a precursor of later curvilinear garden structures.
A later example provides a formal parallel. The Oval Fountain, or Fountain of Tivoli(1565–70), in the Villa d’Este at Tivoli was considered by a contemporary to be ‘the
principal one of all the fountains of this garden and perhaps of all Italy’ (Anon., c. 1571, in
Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS Ital., fol. 256v). Potted plants stood in the niches around the semi-
oval arcade; below was a huge oval basin filled with water, the rim faced with majolica
tiles, and trees enclosed the area; in the niches between the arches ten statues of water
nymphs held vases from which water streamed into the basin; at the centre rear of the
facade was a large crater at the level of the top of the arcade, in the centre of which a ball
released jets of water to form the outlines of a fleur-de-lis, the emblem of Cardinal Ippolito
d’Este; and the water from above overflowed this crater and cascaded into the basin.
Visitors promenading under the arcade would be enthraled by the noise of the cascade and
the trick of jets of water spurting out with their every step. Stairs at either end led to three
grottoes at the upper level, set in the artificial porous stone hill with statues of Albunea, the
Sibyl of Tivoli, and of river gods of the local rivers, the Erculaneo and the Anio. Above
this artificial mountain the culmination of this scheme, a statue of Pegasus appeared about
to leap from Helicon (Coffin 1962, p. 31, Fig. 30). Designed by Ligorio, this baroque
creation owed much to the antique.
Fig. 15 View from the ramp
(Fig. 3e) through the ambulatory
towards the exterior of the
complex, from west (Photo:
Mantha Zarmakoupi)
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Ownership, status and display
The close formal and mathematical connections between the form of the elliptical garden
structure at Anguillara Sabazia and high-status structures at Rome from the same period or
a little later, and the high likelihood of its provision from the Aqua Augusta/Alsietina,make it tempting to see a high-ranking member of the Augustan aristocracy in the owner of
this property. The ‘Villa Claudia’ is not the only elite villa in the area with possible
senatorial connections (Accardo et al. 2007, pp. 192, 225). The nearby medieval town of
Anguillara may itself have developed from a Roman villa; in the Julio-Claudian period the
property of Angularium is counted among the possessions of one Rutilia Polla involved in
a dispute over fishing rights for the Lacus Sabatinus ( Digest 18.1.69; Accardo et al. 2007,
pp. 69–70, 77–81, 160). Our site, however, provides little direct evidence. A re-used
fragment of a large marble entablature (60 cm high, 14 cm thick) found some years before
the excavation was dated by its widely spaced letters to ‘no later than the Augustan period’
and believed by Vighi to have belonged to an honorific monument possibly contemporary
with the construction at the site (Vighi 1940, p. 418). The letters CORNELIO might
suggest a member of the Cornelii. If so, the possibilities are manifold (Syme 1986,
pp. 480–482). One of the Cornelii Lentuli? The consul Cornelius Dolabella? One could
imagine that the construction of this visual microcosm of the Naumachia Augusti, situated
on the route of its dedicated supply, the Aqua Augusta, and near the latter’s source, was the
scheme of a magistrate within the Cura Aquarum, the commission created by Augustus in
11 BC after the death of Agrippa, which must have had practical responsibility for the
aqueduct and the Naumachia; its design could be understood as the work of an architect
closely associated with the imperial works. The three-man senatorial commissionresponsible started with M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (cos. 31 BC) as curator , with two
assistants (adiutores), Postumius Sulpicius ( praetorius) and Lucius Cominius ( pedarius)
(Frontinus, Aq. 99.4). Of the curatores aquarum who followed, few of the assistants are
known, but for the leading curator Frontinus provides a continuous record for the next
century, embracing some of the biggest names in Julio-Claudian and Flavian politics ( Aq.
99–100). None of these, however, belonged to the Cornelii. If this is a full record, as is
usually believed, this line of inquiry falls there, and we must surrender to ignorance about
the owner of the villa. The text of Frontinus appears clear enough: ‘Messalla was suc-
ceeded in the consulship of Plancus and Silius [AD 13] by [C.] Ateius Capito [suff. AD 5].’
However, as Messalla’s funeral took place in the presence of the poet Ovid before the hisexile from Rome in early winter AD 8, Messalla must have died in AD 8, not 13, so unless
Rome went 5 years without a curator , names must have dropped out from the transmitted
version of Frontinus’s list (Syme 1978, pp. 123–125; Rodgers 1982, p. 172).
There is still a chance then that the missing curator between AD 8 and AD 13 belonged to
the gens Cornelia and was the patron of our site in a position to exploit the recently
completed aqueduct and learn from the design for the recent Naumachia. The example of
Messalla and the pattern of subsequent appointments suggest that this unknown man
should be of consular rank and retired enough from the most active and important levels of
politics to hold an office that was ‘far from arduous for senators’ and ‘less importantand…lower in prestige than might have been fancied’ (Syme 1986, p. 221). A handful of
examples fit these requirements: the augur Cn. Cornelius Lentulus (cos. 14 BC), L. Cor-
nelius Sulla (cos. 5 BC), L. Cornelius Lentulus (cos. 3 BC), Cossus Cornelius Lentulus (cos.
1 BC), P. Cornelius Lentulus Scipio (cos. AD 2), and C. Cornelius Cinna Magnus (cos. AD 5).
Was this lavish water display the work of the fabulously wealthy Lentulus the Augur? Or
could it be due to Cossus, recently returned from Africa with ornamenta triumphalia and
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money to burn, and a partisan of Tiberius, who at the end of his life would become Prefect
of the City? But, as is written of another of the Cornelii Lentuli, ‘little profit will accrue
from further speculation’ (Syme 1986, p. 297).
Conclusion
This article has suggested, first, that the water display on the villa site at Anguillara
Sabazia was supplied from the Aqua Augusta/Alsietina, either directly, or by a subsidiary
branch, and, second, that its elliptical form, dated to the later Augustan period, may once
have presented a small-scale version of the Naumachia Augusti produced in 2 BC and
inspired a later structure, twice as long, in the gardens of Valerius Asiaticus on the Pincio
hill at Rome, and perhaps also a villa on the south Latium coast at Antium. The corre-
spondence between the garden fountains in the hinterland of Rome and the imperial
monument in the capital reinforces the way in which such aquatic displays reflected anddemonstrated structures of political power. Thus, through its water supply and its visual
model the ‘Villa Claudia’ may indeed have an imperial connection, if not the same one as
its popular name suggests, nonetheless the property of an influential senatorial family of
late Augustan Rome. The incompleteness of the original excavation has left many im-
precisions and many questions unanswered. One day a further survey might revive our
understanding of this ancient ‘Fountain of Pleasure’.
Acknowledgements I am particularly grateful to Dr Mantha Zarmakoupi for permission to reproduce her
photographs which accompany this article and to the editor of this issue and to the two anonymous readers
for their helpful comments and suggestions which have improved the text. Any remaining shortcomings aremy own.
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Author Biography
Edmund Thomas is Lecturer in Ancient Visual and Material Culture, Durham University, UK. His main
research interest is Roman architecture and its relation to Roman society and culture. His book
Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford University Press)
appeared in 2007. He has written articles on the Pantheon in Rome and on aspects of Roman epigraphy, and
has jointly authored a work on the historical topography of Winchester from the late Iron Age to 1800 for the
Historic Towns Atlas series, also to be published by OUP. He has spent lengthy periods of research in Rome
and has been involved in archaeological excavations at Butrint in Albania. He is also a qualified archivist
and has a special interest in the description and management of architectural drawings.
78 E. Thomas