History of Sanitation

20 HISTORY OF SANITATION called respectively by names of different maritime nations, as Persians and Athenians. The sea fights were conducted on the same magnificent scale and with the same disregard of life as characterized the gladiatorial combats and other public games of the Romans held in the Colosseum. In Nero’s naumachia, sea monsters were swimming around in the artificial lake to make short work of any poor unfor- tunate that was unlucky enough to go overboard. In some of the sea fights exhibited by different emper- ors, the ships were almost equal in number to real fleets. In one battle there were 19,000 combatants and 50 ships on each side. It was for the purpose then of supplying one of these artificial lakes with water that the Augusta aqueduct was constructed. Perhaps the best known aqueducts of Rome are the Claudia and the Anio Novus. The completion of these waterways, which was accomplished respectively in 50 and 52 a. d., doubled the supply of water to Rome. The Claudia aqueduct was 46 miles in length and the Anio Novus 58 miles in length. The Claudia was commenced Aqueduct in Ruins, Ephesus