Chap. IV.

ROMAN.

147

catching fish, and the aqueduct that still supplies the town passes over it; it was builtabout 1543. The water is brought from the mountains of Martina, a distance of 14 miles,where, after being collected into reservoirs, it was led under ground to deep cisterns at Tre-miti. At La Follia it pursues an open course for 7 miles, then passes an aqueduct con-structed over 203 arches, then through channelled stones fitted one into the other.

Tarentum has preserved but little of its Grecian foundation, and none of the ancientwalls that enclosed it; fragments of Etruscan vases have been discovered in all directions.Of the temples, gymnasia, theatres, and other splendid monuments, nothing now remains,not so much as a single column, to tell us where the city stood.

The moles which protected and shut in these ports were constructed w.th massivemasonry, and with piers and open arches. That portion which was solid was carriedout progressively, until the arms were completed; these arms were called left and right, andare described by Suetonius as well as Pliny, in their accounts of the ports of Ostia andCentocelli. That part between the ends of the two moles was called the mouth, and thatbetween the island and the moles the jaws or fauces.

Brundusium _Though there is now but little remaining of this once extensive city, the

port, which is double, was reckoned one of the finest in the Adriatic Sea . 'Die outer wasformed by two promontories, which as they advance leave a narrow channel between them.At the mouth lies an island now called St. Andrew’s, which secures the whole from theviolence of the sea. At the bottom of the bay the hills recede in a circle, ar.d form the

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Fig. 160

BRUNDUSIUM.

inner harbour, which is 2^ miles in length, and 1200 feet in breadth, encompassing agreat part of the city, which has somewhat the form of a stag’s head and horns; in the oldMessapian language, the head of a deer being called brundusium.

There is a fine soil, depth of water, aiul safe anchorage ; and the destruction of this placeas a port may be partly owing to the silting up of the channel between the two havens,which was probably caused when Ca'sar attempted to block up Pompey ’s fleet, by drivingpiles into the neck of land between the two ridges of hills, and throwing in earth, trees, andruins of houses. When Don Vito Caravelli was employed, at the latter end of the lastcentury, to improve this port, in deepening the channel, he found several medals and hadmany of the piles which were driven in by Casar drawn up: they were small oaks strippedof their bark, and at that time quite sound.

Caesar’s description of what he did at Brundusium on this occasion is interesting : hestates, as the work could not be 'carried quite across the port, in consequence of the sea’sdepth, he prepared double floats of timber, 30 feet square, which were secured by an anchorat each corner ; these extended to two moles, which he threw up, one on each side thehaven, where the entrance was the narrowest and the water shallow. After the rafts weresecurely moored, he covered them with earth and fascines, and made them sufficiently strongfor his legions to pass over with ease, and also have firm footing to defend them. The frontsand sides of these rafts were protected by parapets or hurdles, and every fourth float had atower of four stories constructed on it, the better to guard the work from fire, and protect itfrom the boats which might be sent against it.

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