Cloaca Maxima

Cloaca Maxima, the most important of the sewers of ancient Rome, according to tradition, constructed by Tarquinius Priscus, or by Tarquinius Superbus, to drain off the stagnant waters of the Velabra, a swampy land between the Capitoline and Palatine hills on which the Forum and Circus Maximus also stood. Running from the valley of the Subura, under the Forum along the Velabrum, it opened into the Tiber in an archway still 11 feet wide by 12 feet high, consisting of three concentric arches, built of large blocks of peperino stone, fixed together without cement, of the uniform size of rather more than 5 feet 5 inches long and 3 feet high. The sewer was flushed by a continual stream of superfluous water from the aqueducts. Large portions of this and of the other cloacae remain entire after two thousand years, but the greater part is buried, by the accumulation of soil, at a considerable depth below the present level of the streets. During the Republic, the surveillance of the Roman cloacae was one of the duties performed by the censors. The cloaca maxima was repaired by Cato and his colleague in the censorship. Agrippa, when ædile, obtained praise for his exertions in cleansing and repairing the cloacae, and is recorded to have passed through them in a boat. Under the empire, officers called curatores cloa- carum urbis were appointed for their supervision. So thoroughly was the city undermined by these large sewers that Pliny calls it urbs pensilis, a city suspended in the air.—Cloacina ('The Purifier') was a surname of the goddess Venus at Rome.