n the time of the Empire, Sextus Julius Frontinus, curator of waters
in the year A.D. 94, gives descriptions of the nine ancient aqueducts,
some of which were constructed long before the Empire. For instance, the
_Aqua Appia_ was conducted into the city three hundred and twelve years
before the advent of Christ, and was about seven miles long. The _Aqua
Anio Vetus_, sixty-two miles in length, built in B.C. 144, was conveyed
across the Campagna from a source in the country beyond Tivoli. Near
this place there is a spring of milky-looking water containing
sulphurous acid, sulphurated lime, and bicarbonate of lime, used now,
and in ancient times for the relief of skin complaints. This water, at
the present day, has an almost constant temperature of 75 deg..

In course of time, when the Roman power was being extended abroad, the
pursuit of conquest left little scope for the cultivation of the
peaceful arts and the investigation of science, and life itself was
accounted so cheap that little thought was given to improving methods
for the treatment of the sick and wounded. On a campaign every soldier
carried on his person a field-dressing, and the wounded received
rough-and-ready first-aid attention from their comrades in arms.

Later, when conquest was ended, and attention was given to the
consolidation of the provinces, ease and happiness, as has been shown by
Gibbon, tended to the decay of courage and thus to lessen the prowess of
the Roman legions, but there was compensation for this state of affairs
at the heart of the Empire because strong streams of capable and robust
recruits flowed in from Spain, Gaul, Britain and Illyricum.

At its commencement, the Empire was in a peaceful, and, on the whole,
prosperous condition, and the provincials, as well as the Romans,
"acknowledged that the true principles of social life, laws,
agriculture, and science, which had been first invented by the wisdom of
Athens, were now firmly established by the power of Rome, under whose
auspicious influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal
government and common language. They affirm that with the improvement of
arts the human species was visibly multiplied. They celebrate the
increasing splendour of the cities, the beautiful face of the country,
cultivated and adorned like an immense garden; and the long festival of
peace, which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient
animosities, and delivered from the apprehe