anything of a humid nature for supplying water except the Pomptine
marshes; the rest is either craggy rock or a parched soil; and had it
even been possible to break through these obstructions, the toil had
been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who
longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his
might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day
there remain traces of his abortive project.

But the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out,
not as after the Gallic fire without discrimination and regularity, but
with the lines of streets measured out, broad spaces left for transit,
the height of the buildings limited, open areas left, and porticoes
added to protect the front of the clustered dwellings: these porticoes
Nero engaged to rear at his own expense, and then to deliver to each
proprietor the areas about them cleared. He, moreover, proposed rewards
proportioned to every man's rank and private substance, and fixed a day
within which, if their houses, single and clustered, were finished, they
should receive them. He appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle
of the rubbish, and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the
Tiber should return laden with rubbish; that the buildings themselves
should be raised a certain portion of their height without beams, and
arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba, that stone being
proof against fire; that over the water springs, which had been
improperly intercepted by private individuals, overseers should be
placed, to provide for their flowing in greater abundance, and in a
greater number of places, for the supply of the public; that every
housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire,
neither should there be party walls, but every house should be enclosed
by its own walls.[28]

These regulations, which were favorably received, in consideration of
their utility, were also a source of beauty to the new city; yet some
there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to
health, as from the narrowness of the streets and the height of the
buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded; whereas now, the
spacious breadth of the streets, without any shade to protect it, was
more intensely heated in warm weather.

Such were the provisions made by human counsels. The gods were next
addressed with expiations, and recourse had to the sibyl's b