Three Canal Projects, Roman and Byzantine

Author(s): Frank Gardner Moore

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1950), pp. 97-111
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/500198
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THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE
FRANK GARDNER MOORE

had in of
IN HIS official correspondence as governor mind a slipway (diolkos, 'haul-over'),4
Pontus and Bithynia with the Emperor much used to overcome differences of level. If
(Epist. 10.41) Pliny suggests to Trajan a canal the canal was at that point parallel to the river,
to obviate vehicular transport between a lake it could be closed by a single floodgate regulating
in the territory of Nicomedia, lying to the east outflow into the river lower down. This plan
of that city, by connecting this Lacus Sunonen- may have been advanced as an entering wedge,
sis' with the Propontis (fig. 1). The Emperor's involving a minimum of time and outlay. In
reply (42) shows that he would not be deterred both respects it would be likely to commend
by the elevation of the lake even if the army itself to Trajan, along with other preparations
technicians (libratores2 or architecti) to be ob- for the war with Parthia then impending. It
tained from Moesia, or sent by himself from might well prove the preliminary step towards
Rome (cf. 41.3), should establish a higher figure a navigable canal from the lake down to sea-
than the 40 cubits (60 feet) tentatively claimed level in the harbor of Nicomedia.
by local talent. Trajan's one concern at the (2) Better still, to ignore the small river that
moment is the danger of draining the lake away3 emptied into the Bay but brought down no water
by opening such a canal down to salt water (42). from the lake, and to dig a canal for the whole
Turning to Pliny's second letter on this sub- distance (18 km.). That the Emperor's concern
ject (10.61), and comparing its 2nd section with lest the lake be drained away might be relieved,
the 3rd and 4th, we see that he was weighing Pliny makes it clear that he plans a narrow canal
alternative projects: (fossam ... artius pressam, 61.4); that he would
(1) He would construct a canal merely to completely close the natural outlet of the lake
reach the bank of a river flowing into the Sinus at its east end, 6 km. due west of the Sangarius,
Astacenus, that arm of the Propontis at the east thus supplying his canal with sufficient water
end of which lay Nicomedia. He is proposing to from the lake, thereafter flowing westward. The
leave a narrow dyke between canal and river, so need of an engineer being obvious, he will write
that the heavy freight of 41.2 (marble, farm to the governor of Moesia Inferior, the nearest
products, firewood, timber) could be lowered or commander of an army, requesting him to send
rolled down to boats on the river. He must have a librator.5 In case the volume of water in the

1 This is the better supported form of the name ac- proper noun: also Polyb. 5.101.4; 4.19.7-9. For Chi-
cording to the MSS of Ammianus Marcellinus 26.8.3, nese canals with haul-overs, often using oxen or water
in place of Sumonensis on most of our maps. The mod- buffalo, cf. L. S. Yang, HJAS 12 (1949) 240 f. For
ern name is Sabanja G6l; 16 km. in length with a concerning canals and locks in China I am in-
facts
breadth of 4? km. For a hasty and quite impossible debted to my colleague Prof. L. Carrington Goodrich
identification with the Ascania Lacus, on which Cf. n. 15.
Nicaea lies, see below, p. 110. 5 Correspondence with a governor in such a matter
2 I.e. 'engineers,' not 'levellers'; for while the word (42; 61, 5 and 62) is best illustrated from a long in-
is derived from libra, the levelling instrument, usagescription at Lambese in Numidia, including even
took account of his wider range. Often he served as an quotations from letters. Nonius Datus, librator of the
architect, being at times indistinguishable from ar- IIIrd legion, had been sent over into Mauretania to
chitectus, an engineer officer little above the low rankplan and construct an aqueduct for a seaport east of
of a librator. Both were usually veterans. Cf. Cagnat,Algiers. A tunnel to carry the water through a moun-
L'Armie romaine d' Afrique 189 f.; Domaszewski,tain was begun, two crews working from opposite
Bonn. Jahrb. 117 (1908) 25. sides. Datus was unable to be there when the borings
3 How sixth century engineers were planning to failed to meet. He was recalled by a letter to the lega-
avoid that risk will be shown below, p. 109. tus of Numidia, returned to Saldae, and completed
4 W. L. Westermann, Pol. Sci. Quart. 43 (1928) 383.the work. It was dedicated ca. 152 A.D., 40 years after
Cf. Strabo 8.2.1; 8.6.4 and 22 for its employment atPliny's request for an engineer. Cf. CIL viii, 2728;
the Isthmus of Corinth, so that the word became aCagnat op. cit. 190.

97

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 98 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

canal should prove excessive, he in

chiefly thought
summer. Atthe
that season there was
current could easily be checked bylittle
probably cataractae.
upstream traffic, reserved gen-
With that device to make a river or a canal erally, we may suppose, for seasons when dams
more serviceable he may have been familiar would be under water, and vertical gates' raised
from journeys in the upper valley of the Tiber to
high enough to clear passing boats.
and from his Tuscan villa. For in the Natural On a close examination of the passage just
History 3.53 we find his uncle describing efforts
cited one is struck by the inconceivable waste of

PO N TUS EUX NU I

sYZANTIUM S

USP NICOMEDIA
ASr, %/. Bsar

NICAEA

50 Kilom.
SCA L E
ij4.'.

FIG. 1

to make that stretch of the river navigable byinvolved in the process which at first
water
means of piscinae, in which water was accumu-
sight might appear to be described by a man of
lated and then released, obviously by somepractical
form bent and trained in the counsels of the
of sluice-gate. The use of piscinae in the thriftiest
plural of emperors. One cannot however
has been explained as intimating that at several
reasonably suppose the Elder Pliny to mean
low spots in the Tiber the same method was that water at such a time was slowly stored up
applied in dry seasons, to keep downstream for days by means of a single gate that held
traffic in motion.
back the flow of a certain stretch of the river;
To introduce such a system had of course re- and then that at the proper time, when the gate
quired permanent dams, one agger (or moles)was suddenly opened, hoarded water was waste-
for each piscina, though gates might be usedfully allowed to run away all at once. In that

6 For portcullis-like gates see below, pp. 99, 102, 105.

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 99

hieroglyphic
case he could not venture to speak of the Tiber inscription, set up in 265/4 B.c
as navigable, with such evident risk to craft,(Pithom) and discovered by the
at Her6opolis
cargoes and boatmen suddenly projected
eminent pell-
Genevan Egyptologist ]Edouard Navill
mell through a single gate, not to mention pos-
in 1883 (cf. his The Store-city of Pithom [3rd ed.
sible damage to the gate itself at 1888]
the critical
18 ff.).9
moment. It is evident that not only Diodorus but also
our other authorities on the canal paid no atten
There is in fact no escape from an inference
tion to Red Sea tides, although Herodotus
that sluices designed for such a purpose must
(2.11) had mentioned them in a single brief
have been provided with two cataractae, vertical
gates, one at each end of the piscina, to be nor to seasonal variations in the level
sentence,
ofman-
raised and lowered by a windlass, after the a canal which rose and fell with that of the
ner of a portcullis,' to which they evidently
Nile. If the tide amounted, as it does today, to
more than six feet, it seems obvious that the
owed their name, and not to the very temporary
waterfall produced when such a gate was mariner
raised. had only to wait for the tide to reach
The same method was applied seasonally to the
helpproper level, and could then sail out or in
without nervous haste.'0
boats, barges and rafts navigating two tributaries
of the Tiber in the same region, viz. (1) Strabo
the (17.1.25) states that the Ptolemies, on
Clanis (Glanis), now Chiana, south of Arretium
cutting their canal through, "made it so that it
and formerly reaching that river east of Volsinii
could be closed" (KXEL76V E Trol~crY 76V Ep Llrov;
see below, p. 101), and nothing is said about
(Bolsena); and (9) the Tinia, rising near Nuceria
in Umbria and emptying into the Tiber south haste, which would certainly have been con-
of Perusia.8 Our authority for these is the sidered
same not only a hindrance but even a hazard.
passage in the Elder Pliny. Yet he says they could sail out and in again
While in Bithynia Pliny the Younger is without
wait- hindrance. Of course that was possible
ing for the arrival of the army engineers, toonly
givein case the canal was closed by a lock, that
their opinion on his projected canal, it willis, bynottwo gates (cataractae) enclosing a basin
be out of place to pause and briefly consider (piscina)
his of suitable length (cf. pp. 98, 102,
most ancient precedent in what were in his 104).
time
its more modern phases. Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. 6.165) has Ptolemy
For the Ptolemaic restoration of the older II starting his canal at Daneon portus, a harbor
Nile-Red Sea canal of the Pharaohs we have
not certainly identified, on the Sinus Her~opo-
conflicting statements. Diodorus Siculus liticus, which was the extreme north end of the
(1.33.11)
says Ptolemy II completed it, with a SinusgateArabicus,
at whose waters, as has now be-
the most suitable place, to be opened andcomeclosedevident, at that time extended many
quickly, Taxios. Completion of the canalmiles
at thatfarther to the north than they do today.
He represents
time is confirmed by Ptolemy Philadelphus' own Philadelphus as carrying the

7 Cf. Dion. Hal. 8.67.7; Livy 17.28.10 f.; Vegetius course of the Chiana has been altered so that it drains
4.4. The same words served for 'sluice-gate,' as in into the Arno; Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, 1, 305;
Heliod. Aethiopica 9.8.5, or for the entire sluice, e.g. 2.314 f. For a defence of "temporary freshets" as a
in Ammianus 24.1.11. Such vertical lock-gates were possible explanation of the Nat. Hist. passage see the
used on the Early Renaissance canals; cf. p. 105 and article of Professor G. H. Allen of Lafayette College in
note 39; J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of L. da CW 97 (1933) 67 fin.-68.
Vinci, 2.181; 360 fin. 9 Also his "La Stele de Pithom," Zeitschrift f. Aegyp-
8 Strabo 5.3.7 sub fin. mentions these smaller rivers tische Sprache (190q) 1 ff.; Brugsch and Erman, ibid.
and their service to trade at Rome; cf. 5.2.10. Before (1894) 74 ff.; Koehler, Sitzber. d. Berl. Akad. (1895)
the middle ages the valley of the Clanis had become 965 ff.
through neglect a most unhealthy region with pestilen- 10 For the Suez Canal no locks are required. But it
tial marshes. In Leonardo da Vinci's time there was a does not connect a sea with a river subject to great
long lake there (larger with its marshes than was Tra-changes of level. Hence the problem is a different one,
simeno), as he represents it on his colored map;especially
cf. for ships with modern power.
Richter, op. cit. 2, pl. cxiii. In more recent times the

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 100 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

does not
canal toward the Nile, but only tomean a river"3
stop at the whose name Ptolemy
had changed.
Fontes amari, formerly supposed to have some
connection with the Bitter Lakes. But Naville's Arsinoet was to be the seaport at the mouth of
discovery of the canal inscription (cf. above, Philadelphus'
p. Great Eastern Canal, but in time
99) at Her~opolis has resulted in radical changessuffered the fate of many another city founded
in our maps of the region for ancient times. by the sea but later stranded as its waters
These now show the site of that city near receded.the In Strabo's time Arsinoe was still there,
eastern end of the Wady Tumilat, and not near far Hermopolis, "in the inmost corner of the
from the northernmost of those lakes (Timsah); Arabian Gulf" (17.1.26). Its successor for trade
and below it a fairly straight inlet some fifty and travel came to be Clysma; cf. Itin. Anton.
miles in length down to the present Suez, 170. for
the topography of the region has been altered Among modern authorities who have accepted
by changes of level. A canal of the 3rd century the hydraulic lock as placed by Ptolemy II at
B.c. to connect the Nile with the nearest arm of the lower end of his canal may be named:
the Red Sea did not have to be carried below the Dr. John Ball, an eminent engineer who gave
Bitter Lakes of today. over forty years of his life to geographical and
For the alleged, but quite inconceivable,geological exploration in Egypt, the Sudan, and
abandonment by Ptolemy of his purpose to adjacent regions. In his Egypt in the Classical
reach the Nile a reason is assigned by Pliny,"
Geographers (Cairo, 1942), p. 48 f. we find him
viz. the fear of inundation, for the Red Sea was
summarizing Diod. Sic. 1.33.11, on the comple-
tion'4 of the canal by Ptolemy, "who provided
found to be three cubits higher than Egypt. Some
it with a lock"; cf. 81 ff.
of his authorities, he says, gave a different rea-
son-the fear that Nile water would no longer E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between
be potable. The latter alarm, according to the Roman Empire and India, p. 8, after men-
Aristotle (Meteor. 1.14.352b) had caused Darius
tioning the Hertiopolite Gulf, says "where the
I to give up his canal; and Strabo (loc. cit.)second Ptolemy, who cleaned out the wide and
confirms the abandonment of operations at that
deep canal-channel and added locks to prevent
time. flooding from the Red Sea, had founded Arsinot*."
Although Pliny is quite mistaken in denying Cf. 331, n. 7.
that Philadelphus' canal ever reached the Nile,12
G. Hanotaux, Hist. de la Nation rIgyptienne
1.147 speaks of Philadelphus' "&cluse h deux
he is correct (?167) in stating that he gave his
own name to the amnis which flowed past portes."
Arsino6, and the word can here be understood A. Calderini, "I Precedenti del Canale di
Suez nell' Antichith," Aegyptus 20 (1940) 224,
only in the narrower sense in which rocra/ubs was
used, particularly in the papyri. He certainly
summarizing Strabo 17.1.25, says that the

11 How he imagined the canal could have been oper-

two unnamed cities quas amplexi facerent insulas,
ated without a continuous supply of water from the
"which were in islands made by the winding river"
Nile remains an unsolved puzzle. Similarly we have
(?). So Rolfe's translation. But in the Thes. article the
our doubts when a Pharaoh or a Darius is said to have canals are understood to be those connecting Eu-
left his canal incomplete, especially if the Bitter Lakes
phrates with Tigris. Strange is the omission from the
had been sweetened by influx from the river, as in same article of another example in the passage just
Strabo, who informs us (?26) where the canal (obvi- cited from the Nat. Hist. One might well add a cross-
ously in operation in his day) left the Nile; also that it
reference to Augustamnica (Ammian. 22.16.1 and 3;
was 100 cubits broad with a depth suitable for large Not. Dign. Seeck, Or. 1.197; 23.7; 28.37). For that prov-
vessels. ince derived its name from Trajan's restoration of
12 Cf. J. O. Thomson, Hist. of Ancient Geography the Ptolemaic canal, i.e. indirectly from Tpaiavo's
(1948) 137, n.; 273, n. 3. irorac6Bs, often mentioned in papyri and in Roman Law
13 As might be inferred from Rackham's translation texts; in official language Traianus amnis. Cf. Ball,
(LCL), perhaps influenced by the Thesaurus L. L., op. in cit. infra 82, n.; Ptol. 4.5.24.
which Ammianus alone (24.4.8) furnishes a solitary 14 More correctly it was "restored after disuse,"
instance of amnis ='canal.' Mention is there made of Thomson, op. cit. 136.

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 101

entrance was indispensable. It has sometimes

Ptolemies, having completed the excavation,
closed the canal "con una doppia porta."
been supposed that these ships were built on the
A. Bouch&-Leclercq, Hist. des Lagides Nile 1.241
and used
f. the canal both going and coming,
says, apropos of Arsinot*, just where butthe
thiscanal
question is quite immaterial. That
"pourvu d'une &cluse de maree, debouchait knowledge of locks could remain limited to
dans
le golfe d'H6roopolis." Egypt and never find its way to the rest of thei
C. H. Oldfather, Diodorus Siculus (LCL) Hellenistic world and the Roman West is simply
incredible.
loc. cit. translates bt<6pa'yua 'lock'; and one may
find support for this word in the definition 'lock
in a canal' in Liddell and Scott, citing Petrie To return at last to our governor of Pontus
Papyri, Mahaffy, 3. p. 343 (3rd cent. B.C.). and Bithynia, we must at once concede that his
J. Toutain, L'flconomie Antique, 187 f., in-preferred project for a canal to reach the port of
Nicomedia was an undertaking quite inconceiv-
cludes a passage translated from Strabo loc. cit.
containing the words "pour fermer par uneable without a series of locks.
double porte l'espece d'euripe ainsi forme," with When his second letter on that subject (61)
a note: "Cette double porte n'est autre chosereached Rome, what decision was the Emperor
qu'un systeme d'"cluses." Both in the original to make, as between two contrasted projects?
and in the English version 'a closed passage' (p. One of these (above, p. 97) may be described as
146) for 'espesce d'euripe,' there is an unnecessary an emergency measure, promising its aid for the
avoidance of what is really meant, viz. '&cluse'armies soon to be advancing in the East, whereas
and 'canal lock' respectively. In using the wordthe second, demanding much more time and
EipLTros Strabo evidently meant the canal itself expense, could hardly be completed without
(cf. above, p. 99), and was making no compari-serious delay. For an answer to that question we
son with the strait or any other. look in vain for the merest hint. Whatever fur-
Thus it would seem clear that the hydraulic ther letters touched upon this subject-and
lock was in use as an aid to navigation in Egyptone cannot believe that there were none - appear
to have been deliberately suppressed by the
at least by 260 B.C., while there remains no real
doubt that the invention had by that time had editor of this collection of official correspondence,
a long history under the Pharaohs. himself perhaps an official, who may have re-
For example, a voyage down the Red Sea to ceived explicit instructions in this instance. We
the Land of Punt, in the far South (Somali may guess that Trajan, under the weight of more
Coast), and a return voyage with rare and pressing cares, lost his interest in Pliny's two
precious cargoes, to be unloaded at the capital distinct projects on receiving further details.
on the Nile, not long after 1500 B.C. (XVIIIth His military libratores or architecti possibly de-
Dynasty), was commemorated by a series ofclined to approve, pointing to this dbjection or
monumental reliefs near Thebes. These adorned that, perhaps in particular the elevation of the
lake. It is clear, however, that when he was dic-
the walls of the temple of Der el-Bahri, dedicated
by the young queen Hatshepsut, under whosetating Ep. 62 he was not deterred by the tenta-
nominal direction the expedition had been car-
tive figure of 40 cubits furnished to the governor
ried out."5 by artifices regionis huius (41.3) for the dif-
In order that the large vessels portrayed ference of elevation between Lake Sunonensis
should use the Nile to reach Thebes, it is obvious
and the Bay at Nicomedia. We may surmise that
that a canal from the Red Sea must have been
(1) he was preparing to accept the first alterna-
in operation; also that a lock at the seaward
tive proposal with its important saving of time
15 Cf. H. Kees, Aegypten (1933) 121 f.; J. H. Breasted, LXxII-LXXV in part III, with pp. 11 ff.; G. Steindorff
A History of Egypt, 2nd ed. (1916), 276 f.; Ancient and K. C. Seele, When Egypt Ruled the East (1942)
Records of Egypt, 2, 102 if.; E. Meyer, Geschichte 101 ff., 167 ff. In China also invention of a 'double
des
Altertums (1928) 2, 2nd ed. part 1.116 ff.; Maspero, lock' (fu-cha) was certainly ancient. By the eleventh
Histoire ancienne (1897) 2.247 ff.; cf. 1.495 f.; E. century it was replacing the haul-over; cf. n. 4 fin;
Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari (Egypt Explora- HJAS 12.241.
tion Fund, 1894) 21 ff.; pls. vii-x; also the larger pls.

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 102 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

mentioned
and outlay, presuming possibly by Tacitus,
that boatmenor to make the ingens
lacus of of
would at first accept the hardships Melathe
3.24 diolkos
navigable, also to provide a
method of transhipment; orseaward exit,that
else (2) so that he
the fleet
hadcould pass out
actual knowledge of canals where an even into the North Sea.
greater dislivello had been overcome by sluicesDrusus' second and third campaigns against
having a gate at each end of the piscina, in the Germans required no use of his fleet, but in
other words by locks, even a series of locks, each 9 B.C., a few months before his death, orders to
closed at both ends by a cataracta, closely re- improve the canal were being carried out. This
sembling a portcullis, with which every Roman time a dyke (moles or agger) was being thrown
soldier was familiar, both in permanent camps up, to divert the main current of the Rhine
and in city gates. (i.e. the Vacalus, now the Waal) away from the
But when the army engineers from Lower south side of the delta. Thus he would supply
Moesia and Rome arrived, figures for the level much more water to his canal and at the same
of the lake must have taken an upward turn- time attach the Insula Batavorum more closely
not 60 feet but possibly 118 (36 metres by our to Roman territory. The dyke seems to have
modern maps)16-and objections to a work on been progressing"9 a dozen kilometres southeast
such a scale mounted if anything like a series of of Arnhem and the same distance from the
10 or 12 locks was to be required. Higher figures entrance of the canal. But it was left unfinished,
for the elevation of the lake, once established, not to be completed until 55 A.D. by Pompeius
cannot have failed to be reported by Pliny, and Paulinus, who then commanded the army of the
the same must be true of other serious objections, Lower Rhine. In 70 A.D. Civilis, the Batavian,
if raised by army engineers. Of all this, however, destroyed the dyke in order to make Germany
nothing has survived, nor of further correspond- less accessible in the north to Roman armies, by
ence if the matter was under consideration for restoring conditions which Drusus had planned
some time.17 to change.
Trajan had remained long enough on the RhineMeanwhile another canal 23 miles long had
to be well informed on canals constructed connected by the Meuse (Mosa) near its mouth
legionaries on its lower course, notably that with what is now the Old Rhine at Leyden. The
first of Dutch canals,"s finished by Drusus in latter
12 was in ancient times the principal mouth
B.c. and used by him in that summer for of
histhe river, now a minor stream which is pumped
first German campaign, when he sailed along
into the North Sea, while the great volume of
the coast as far as the mouth of the Weser. His the combined Meuse and Rhine reaches the sea
canal connected the Rhine with the Yssel, at the Hook of Holland, not far from the south
leaving the former above Arnhem. At Doesburgend of the Roman canal of Corbulo, constructed
(15 km. noftheast of Arnhem) it seems to have
in 47 A.D., after Claudius had obliged him to
met the Old Yssel, which flows northward into
give up further campaigning in Germany (An-
the Zuiderzee (Flevo Lacus), now called the nals 11.20.2; Cassius Dio [Xiph.] 61.30).
Ysselsee, near Kampen. Further digging mustPompeius Paulinus, not content with his com-
have been necessary to connect the lagoons pletion of Drusus' work in its final stage, the

Claudius 1.2 (in plur.); cf. Jullian, Hist. de la Gaule

16 There remains the possibility that levels may have
changed somewhat in this earthquake belt, in which 4.142. For operations against the Chauci see Livy
Epit. 140; Cass. Dio 54.32.2. Drusus' canal was used
these very cities suffered seriously several times over,
e.g. under Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, and Julian. by his son Germanicus in A.D. 17. He had sent four of
17 In that case suppression of pertinent letters his
of legions through it two years before; used by Cor-
later date may well have seemed advisable, to avoid bulo in 47; Annals 2.8.1; 1.60.3; 11.18.2.
the appearance of extensive preparations for an in-19 Just where the river forks into a right arm (Neder-
vasion of Armenia and Parthia. Cf. Cuntz in Hermes rijn, farther down known as the Lek) and a left arm
61 (1926) 201 f. This may perhaps suggest that book (the Waal, Vahalis in Tacitus), in other words at the
10 was published before the war actually began in 114 eastern (acute) angle of the Insula Batavorum; cf.
A.D.
Annals 2.6.5. For the destruction of the dyke see Hist.
18 The Fossa Drusiana of Annals 2.8.1. and Suet. 5.19.

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 103

diversion of the Vacalus to the north side of the

strain them. Months of preparation in a pre-
Rhine delta, was now ready to cooperate with liminary survey, to determine exactly the route
the general in command on the Upper Rhine to be followed, and in planning the entire opera-
tion, to be begun at the same time from both
in his project for a far more impressive water-
way, namely to connect the Arar (Sa6ne) with sides, would have given the two generals-in-
the Mosella, in other words the Rhone with the command ample time to veto the project if they
Rhine, if Nero's approval could be secured. Son found it something absolutely unheard-of. Cer-
of a senator from Arelate (Arles), as it appearstainly if they knew of no means to surmount
from Nat. Hist. 33.143, he was doubtless well the watershed we are entirely at a loss to explain
acquainted with canals in the lower Rhone how the generals could present their project to
country, e.g. the Fossae Marianae, which con- Nero without the most positive assurances that
nected Marius' camp at Arles directly with thethe thing could be done with the resources at
Mediterranean while he was preparing in 103their command. Furthermore it is equally diffi-
B.C. for the coming of the Germanic invaders,cult to believe that Tacitus could deplore the
and required a more navigable channel than abandonment of a noble undertaking if he knew
that of the Rhone.20 In that region we seem to that it was from the start impossible, doomed
know of no ancient canal that had to be carried to defeat, as all would have admitted if such a
over a watershed, differences of level being
thing as a lock did not exist.
insignificant in the Bouches-du-Rh6ne. In that year, 55-56 A.D., the four legions of
Very different was the planning of a canal the Upper Rhine were commanded by Lucius
Antistius Vetus, one of Trajan's predecessors21
intended to surmount the ridges which separate
the sources of the Mosella from those of the in that region, and it was Vetus22 who originated
Arar, a problem for whose solution it would
a plan to unite the two principal tributaries of
the Rhone and the Rhine. But obviously the
have been necessary, according to our hydraulic
engineers, to wait until the fourteenth or full fif-cooperation of Paulinus was indispensable.
teenth century. An obvious truth, provided In it Annals 13.53 we read that these two
can be proved that in antiquity no one had ever generals, disgusted by lavish distinctions b
seen a lock in operation-the only known means stowed on other commanders (i.e. by Claudiu
of overcoming such differences of level. Yet we
"were anticipating greater glory from the ma
have here Roman army engineers serving ontenance the of peace. . .But not to keep their
Rhine seriously proposing to carry a canal over troops unemployed, Paulinus finished the dyke
a range west of the Vosges, presumably at to control the Rhine, a work which Drusus had
the
begun 63 years before [cf. above, p. 102]; and
lowest practicable elevation. And if libratores and
architecti were rash enough to propose what Vetus was planning to link the Arar with the
could never be carried out, there were their Mosella by constructing a canal, so that com-
superior officers, the praefecti castrorum, to modities23
re- received by sea, carried then up the

20 This canal was just east of the delta, and gave its(Annals 14.59). Nevertheless in 64-65 Vetus was pro-
name to the port at its entrance, now represented by aconsul of Asia (ibid. 16.10). Long provincial service
village still called Fos. had given him opportunities to accumulate a store of
21 Trajan may well have heard of the Rhone-Rhinegeographical knowledge of wide range, brought to
project at Moguntiacum (Mainz). The archives of his book in commentarii which he left at his death by sui-
headquarters there must have contained not a few cide in 65, after returning from Asia (16.11). Upon
letters in which the proposal was mentioned. these the Elder Pliny drew to such an extent that he
22 He was still in command on the Upper Rhine innames Lucius Vetus as one of his sources for all four
56 A.D., when his soldiers were building a bridge overof his geographical Books (3-6). To these works of
the river at Mainz, as is shown by an inscriptionVetus we may surmise that Tacitus was in part in-
from one of its piers, bearing his name with that of a debted for his brief account of the canal project and its
consul; CIL xiii, 6820. Vetus' son-in-law Rubellius fate. Nero's rejection may have been due primarily
Plautus, great-grandson of Tiberius (descended alsoto the general's relations with Rubellius.
from Octavia Minor, sister of Augustus) and feared as 23 No doubt including military supplies, but not
a possible pretender, was executed in the year 62
troops (as some have taken copiae), certainly not in

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104 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Rhone and Sa6ne, might makedevice

their way
capable by that
of overcoming important dif-
canal, then down the Moselle river into
ferences the Rhine
of elevation, in other words a series of
and so to the Ocean; and also piscinae
so that, with
(cf. pp. 99, the
102), each presumably pro-
hardships of transport by roads removed,
vided with a vertical gatethe
(cataracta), to be
coast of the Western Sea and that of
raised and theat North
lowered each end of the enclosed
Sea might be connected by shipping.
basin. Certainly This proj-
Tacitus gives no intimation of
the least
ect roused the jealousy of Aelius doubt thatgover-
Gracilis, such a canal could have
nor of Belgic Gaul, who dissuaded
been carriedVetus up tofrom
the required elevation and
down again.27
bringing his legions into the province To him it would
of another,24 have been a
and seeking to win the favor noble
of the Gallic by
undertaking, prov-
no means an impractical
inces; and he kept repeating that it would
dream.
alarm the Emperor, a method Modern
by which noble
engineers incline to believe that the
undertakings are very often brought to
hydraulic lock was first invented in the Italian
nought. "25 Renaissance; that antiquity had no adequate
So far Tacitus, who unmistakably considered it means of overcoming any considerable difference
a project of the first order, even though nothing of levels in rivers or canals. Thus, for example,
was really accomplished. It is clear that what General William Barclay Parsons, chief engineer
they proposed was to his mind an actual water- of the Cape Cod Canal and of other notable
way from the Western Mediterranean to the public works, devoted years of scholarly research
North Sea, without any resort to portage. Wit- to the achievements of his profession in the in-
ness the emphasis with which he adds that the ventive period just named. The results of these
coasts of two widely separated seas were to labors appeared seven years after his death.28
become navigabilia inter se,26 a phrase uniquely On the first page of his fully illustrated chapter
applied to litora, as shores imagined to reach one on Locks (pp. 372-398) he sums up his opinion
another through an artificial channel in a remote in these words: "The lock is unquestionably of
inland. And this after noting that there would Italian origin and is the greatest single contri-
be none of the wear and tear of road-transport. bution to hydraulic construction ever made."
Can we suppose the historian to have given no After mentioning the medieval use of "single
consideration to the problem and to the means barriers, or weirs" in canals for irrigation,29
which the generals and their engineers were together with more recent examples, he adds:
proposing for its solution? Obviously no con- "The first device intended primarily and solely
tinuous waterway could possibly be carried over to permit boats to overcome, on their own bot-
such a watershed without repeated use of a toms, a difference in elevation was constructed

large numbers, for they were recruited in the region. 26 This has been rendered 'internavigable' by Pro-
Advantage to the army is evidently subordinated tofessors G. G. Ramsay (1909) and Allen (loc. cit. 66) -
commercial expansion, a sop to the Gauls, as also to
a coinage aptly expressing the novelty of the original
Roman merchants.
but unlikely to find its way into circulation.
24 This "bringing his legions into the province of 27 What information was available as to the eleva-
another" (within which limits the whole Rhine army tion of the watershed above that of the head of navi-
had long been stationed) was a diplomatic pretencegation on the rivers is unknown. If the province gov-
quite transparent at the time; cf. p. 106. erned for four years (89-93 A.D.) by Tacitus was Gallia
25 A thorough discussion of this passage, of the entire
Belgica, as is commonly supposed, his knowledge of
project, and what it implied, appeared in CW 27
the region including its rivers may well have been ex-
(1933) 65-69. Its author, Professor George H. Allen,
tensive.
gives much information concerning the Canal de l'Est28 Engineers and Engineering in the Renaissance,
of today and its numerous locks. An interesting para- Baltimore, 1939.
graph describes inland navigation in Pennsylvania of29 For irrigation such weirs were, of course, widely
the 1830's, with a series of inclined planes on each side
used in antiquity, notably in Egypt, Mesopotamia,
of the watershed, to reach the summit level of the and the plains of the Po. On navigable canals in Egypt
Alleghenies (p. 69), each series a modern diolkos oper- and elsewhere no ancient evidence appears to have
ated by steam-power. been presented to show that locks were never in use.

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 105

"inwas
in the Naviglio Grande in 1395."30 It fossis
usedvero manufactis per cataractas non
in bringing marble and granite fromdifficiles ascensus et descensus," implying that
the shores
to his mind locks
of Lago Maggiore for the Milan cathedral. A were an ancient invention.
later date (1438-39) is given by Guido Ferro,
The Laurentian Library in Florence possesses
professor in the engineering school aatvaluable Padua andMS (Ashburnham 361) of unknown
author of the article Conca (1931) inauthorship, the Enciclo-but dating from the last third of the
pedia Italiana. For the first detailed fifteenth descriptioncentury. This book has been hastily
now available of a canal lock we are referred to attributed by some to Alberti, by others on no
Alberti's famous De re aedificatoria.31 Accordingbetter grounds to Leonardo, who at one time
to Mancini, La vita di Leon Battista Alberti, had2ndit in his hands and added remarks of his
ed. 281, the book was virtually completed before own in that unmistakable right-to-left script.
1450 and already winning favor from his patron None of these, however, touches upon canal
Nicholas V. It was not printed, however, until locks. The book contains numerous drawings,
1485, in Florence, thirteen years after the deathone of which shows locks with a vertical gate
of its author. (cataratta) at each end, to be operated by a
In the description just mentioned one finds windlass above an arched gateway.32
nothing in its language to suggest that Alberti From antiquity no similar representations in
thought the step from one gate to two was reliefs,
a frescoes, or otherwise seem to have sur-
momentous novelty. As to the form of the gates, vived, although ancient civilizations undoubt-
he describes two kinds: (1) vertical, raised andedly had many centuries of experience in the
lowered by a windlass; (2) "most convenient ofconstruction of navigable waterways. Nor can
all," horizontal, turning on a spindle in thewe cite detailed descriptions comparable to that
middle, "a broad square valve, like the square of Alberti from a remote past. Yet it is unsafe
sail of a barge." So Leoni's quaint English, to conclude that no evidence of the kind will
combined with Bartoli's Italian version in a ever be brought to light by the archaeologist's
London folio of 1739 (book 10, ch. 12). spade or a magnifying glass in the hand of a
What is true of Alberti's ample writings papyrologist.
is Equally unsound is it to discard
even more conspicuously true of the voluminous such evidence as we have in inscriptions and
works of Leonardo da Vinci. No one appears ancient
to texts, simply because details are spar-
have discovered in all his numerous references ingly given, and in some cases not without pal-
to canals and his directions for their construction pable error.
and maintenance any claim for his age in even a Another kind of evidence for the traditional
reinvention of the hydraulic lock. use of hydraulic locks in antiquity is furnished
Catanaeus, a younger contemporary of Leo- by each of the three projects treated in this
nardo, and an early editor of Pliny's Letters paper. When under Nero two of his generals on
(2nd ed. Venice, 1519), has a note on Ep. the Rhine were proposing to connect the Arar
10.61.4 which shows his understanding of cata- with the Mosella not far from their sources (in
ractae. Of their use as aids to navigation hethe Monts Faucilles and the southern Vosges
gives a Renaissance example, viz. the canal from
respectively), it is no mere probability that they
the river Adda to Milan. There follows a com- knew of the one and only means to overcome
ment on Diod. Sic. 1.33.11 f. in these words: intervening high levels."3 They cannot possibly

30 This navigable canal connected the river Ticino 181 ff. Cf. A. E. Popham, The Drawings of L. da V.
with the moat of Milan; op. cit. 367 f. 299; E. MacCurdy, The Notebooks of L. da V. 2.141
31 Op. cit. 374 f., a somewhat condensed translationff. and elsewhere. That interest continued even in the
of Alberti's Latin directions for making a lock withlast
twotwo years of his life, when at Amboise he pro-
gates, one at each end. posed a canal to connect the Sa6ne with the Loire, as
32 Parsons, 373 ff. with fig. 132 and others, including
is known from a British Museum MS; cf. MacCurdy,
some of Leonardo's sketches; also on the Laurentian The Mind of L. da V. 149 f. This canal was designed
MS, pp. 373, 376; Mancini op. cit. 287 (editor also ofto furnish both irrigation and transportation; 0. Siren,
this MS with its numerous drawings). For Leonardo'sidonard de V. 1.169.
interest in canals and locks see J. P. Richter op. cit. 2. 33 See just below for approximate figures.

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106 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

have been ignorant of their problem links in the chain of what was
or ready toto have been an
leave to their engineers its imposing solution. Nofrom
waterway such the Western Mediter-
ignorance or indifference can ranean
be toattributed
the North Sea.36 to
Trajan in his replies to Pliny in The Bithynia;
claim of Aelius still
Gracilis, governor of
less to Justinian,34 whose proposed Gallia Belgica,
revivalthatofif legionaries
the were brought
same project on a more imposing scale must into his province to dig a canal, it would be an
necessarily have presupposed a series of locks. encroachment upon his territory, had no validity
One observes that Tacitus, in abridging his in the very special circumstances of that prov-
sources for the passage in the Annals cited on ince in relation to the Rhineland. He had no
pp. 103 f., does not mention the important authority to countermand, or to prevent the
share which would certainly have been assigned project from reaching the Emperor for his de-
to Paulinus in the execution of any project for a cision. For after the defeat of Varus in 9 A.D.
canal between the Sa6ne and the Moselle, if Augustus had given up the idea of a frontier at
work was actually to be begun during his com-the Elbe and a military occupation of the entire
mand of the Lower Rhine army. For necessarilyterritory between that river and the Rhine.
a second base of operations would have to beAccordingly the eight legions had been stationed
established somewhere along the Moselle, pref-on the left bank in the province of Belgic Gaul
erably in its lower course, conveniently reachedfor 45 years already, but not under the command
from the Rhine below the confluence. Construc- of the governor of that province, who in fact as
tion would inevitably be begun from that side a legatus pro praetore praetorius was lower in
as well, so that work could proceed upward fromrank than the two generals-in-command. For
north and from south until the summit-level of they were legati consulares, whose permanent
the water-shed should be reached, some 360 headquarters were respectively at Vetera (near
metres above the sea (1180 feet).35 Vetus could Xanten, not far from the borders of Holland)
not possibly assume responsibility for construc- and at Mogontiacum (Mainz). Meanwhile any
tion on both sides of the divide. The mere prob- organization of an Upper and a Lower German
lem of supplies would of itself dictate that prog-province was being indefinitely postponed. Until
ress be begun in the upper valleys of the two such long-deferred readjustment was to take
rivers, and should be continued to a meeting- place, in fact not before the reign of Domitian,37
point in still higher regions of virgin forest inac- the two generals responsible for the maintenance
cessible by roads. of order in Gaul and its defence from a possible
It consequently becomes necessary to assume German invader were stationed, each with his
that Paulinus, or his successor as legatus in four legions within the bounds of Gallia Belgica,
command of the legions of- the Lower Rhine, nominally ruled by a governor who had no army.
would take charge of the whole section of the Yet the generals had all necessary authority to
canal which was to drain into the Mosella. intervene wherever and whenever an emergency
Hence the presumption that he cooperated also for military action. This unique situation,
called
with Vetus in devising the plan, and then in a large province was under the direction
in which
developing a schedule of operations. All
of the
three men, one of them to our minds a civilian
major details may well have been settled even
governor, and of lower rank than the other two,
before the completion of the Fossae Drusianae
was liable at times to produce friction,38 all the
more that precise geographical bounds to their
(p. 102), a minor work in comparison with middle

34 For the evidence, in Justinian's case literally almost fourteen centuries the course of technical prog-
tangible, in fact monumental, cf. p. 109. ress"; p. 69.
35 I.e. if the highest point was to be anywhere near 37 One of the early legati consulares of the then
that of the modern Canal de l'Est. Cf. Allen loc. cit, newly created province of Germania Superior was the
67. eminent jurist Javolenus Priscus in 90 A.D.; CIL iii,
2864 (=9960), from Dalmatia, probably near his
36 Professor Allen, after weighing other partial solu-
tions of the problem, concludes "that the designer,birthplace;
or cf. A. Riese, Das rheinische Germanien in
some contemporary with whose idea he was familiar, den antiken Inschriften, No. 326.
had devised the hydraulic lock, anticipating in this by 38 None seems to have been caused in a somewhat

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 107

S' . . .. I30 Kilom.

SCALE

Eit ..:320 meters alt. C

361m. E. 3 P/ INA L

:MON?S
C/

'o0 Remiremont

o Corre
223 rnelers alt.

Jusseyo

TOUL NANCY

j EPINAL

S' *eVesoul l
0oy

DIJON0 0BESANCON

a~ray
FIG. 2

spheres of activity were lacking. It is natural for
us to speak of Upper and Lower Germany, at
that time merely regions of Belgica, and in no
sense provinces as yet. Nevertheless in a period
of transition some administrative and judicial
functions fell to the commanding generals as well
as to the governor (Mommsen ibid. 153 f.).
In such circumstances we have to think of
the generals as burdened with a wide range of
responsibilities for peace and order among tribes
prevailingly Celtic, but with some Germanic
elements also in the narrow strip between the
Vosges mountains and the left bank of the Rhine.
As for Paulinus and Vetus, their provisional
border was drawn, it would seem, where their
regions actually adjoined-a surprisingly short

similar situation in North Africa, when a road wasconstruct the road in both provinces. Hadrian's mile-
needed to connect Carthage, in the unarmed province
stones of 123 A.D. (e.g. CIL viii, 10048) bear the name
of Africa, with Tebessa(ancient Theveste),in Numidia,
also of the legatus. The road was 191 m.p. long, and
an imperial province governed by the legatus of theshows extensive remains. Cf. Mommsen, Ges.
still
IIIrd legion. His soldiers were, of course, ordered to8.136.
Schr.

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108 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Thenthe
line from the Vosges across to begins the descent,
Rhine at 14 locks42 in 3 km. to
the
diminutive Abrinca, 11 km. 320 above Remagen
m. at its junction with the Moselle, 3 km.
(Rigomagus).39 below ~Epinal.
The watershed which the proposed canal
would have to surmount, if it was to follow the Reverting to Pliny's second and more studied
most available route, i.e. perhaps nearly identical plan for his projected Bithynian canal, it will be
with that of the Canal de l'Est,40 interposed its remembered that in this he introduced one
barrier between two Gallic tribes, the Lingonesnovel feature, nothing less than a reversal of the
on the south and Leuci in the north (fig. 2). current in Lacus Sunonensis (cf. p. 97). This was
Langres (ancient Andematunnum) preserves the to be accomplished by stopping up the normal
name of the tribe whose chief town it was. outlet of the lake at its eastern end, namely a
Tullum (now Toul, on the Moselle) was the chief
small river, later called Melas43 and now Tschark-
town of the Leuci, and connected with Ande- Su. This is a tributary of the Sangarius, into
matunnum by a north and south road which (Itin. the lesser stream, after ca. 50 km. in its
Ant. 385), of great importance as the main own line
valley, separated by a ridge from that of
of travel from Lugdunum (Lyons) to Augusta the great river, finally empties at about 35 km
Treverorum (Treves, Trier) and the lowerfrom Rhine.the Black Sea. The plan was to provide a
It lay well to the west of the modern canal. new outlet at the western end of the lake, namely
At that time unbroken forests covered a vast a canal directly to the harbor of Nicomedia.
area in and near the Vosges, where canals areWhatever may have been the experts' opinion
now operated under very different conditions, on that new feature of the project, it is interesting
owing to extensive deforestation. Both Moselle to note that the same proposal to reverse the
and Sa6ne in their winding courses have current ac- by converting an outlet into an intake
cordingly been canalized in recent times onwas an revived after almost 450 years, near the
extensive scale, with numerous locks even far end of Justinian's reign. Much more impressive,
below the watershed, to expedite the movement
however, is the scale of that undertaking. Its
of larger craft and heavier cargoes than antiquityapparent purpose was to add immensely to the
required. Thus the Sa6ne has fifteen locks be-
commerce of the same seaport by diverting the
tween Gray, northeast of Dijon, and Lyons, Sangarius itself to the west, and then (probably
eleven of them below Auxonne.41 Higher up thenear the present town of Ada-Basar) again to
head of navigation on the river is at Corre, the southwest, to deliver at least the larger part
where the canal leaves the river at the con- of its waters into the east end of the lake. From
fluence of the Coney, 223 metres above the
its sea,
west end down to the sea the canal was evi-
to make its way up the valley of that small
dently to be no narrow channel, such as Pliny
stream. After rising for 50 km. and through 46
proposed (p. 97; Ep. 10.61), but one adapted to
locks it reaches the maximum level of 361 m., vessels which should sail down the diverted
larger
to continue for 13 km. more at that elevation. river into the lake, and so to Nicomedia, bound

39 Cf. Ptolemy, who places the boundary still at the

debted to Allen, loc. cit. 67, who has added a rare
same brook (Vinxtbach), 2.9.9 Miller; or 2.8, p. familiarity
61 with European inland waterways. He had
Stevenson.
used French official maps, superior for such details to
40 Not to be confused with the Rh6ne-au-Rhin War Department maps of the same region, which have
canal, which at St. Symphorien (C6tes d'Or) leaves been
the widely distributed to our libraries. For practical
Sa6ne for the Doubs at D61e, and continues up the
convenience a Carte Taride (Est de la France, section
valley of that river, to reach the Rhine near Mulhouse
Nord, No. 6) can be recommended, as clearly showing
and again at Strasbourg. the route of the canal maintained for traffic of today.
41 Cf. P. G. Hamerton, The Sa6ne, A Summer VoyageUseful also are maps issued jointly by the British War
163. Below Auxonne the river was navigable, he says,
Office and our War Department, e.g. GSGS 2738, Nos.
in the thirteenth century, and had a towpath used17 byand 23; on a larger scale (1 :100,000) GSGS 4249=
crusaders' chargers all the way to Lyons. Based onAMS
de 661, Nos. 242, 302.
Joinville, Hist. de Saint Louis, sec. 123. 43 For this name the earliest authority cited is
42 This makes a total of 60 locks with an average lift
Pachymeres, early in the xivth century; cf. p. 109.
of 3 m. (9 ft. 10 in.). For the figures above I am in-

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 109

to shift there
for the capital or the Aegean. Incidentally its bed to the west as far as the bridge
could be no danger of draining the for
lakea away-a
time. It is clear, however, that they have
risk which may have contributed never been able to produce a reversal of the
to Trajan's
abandonment of a less ambitious project.
current,Thus
to flow into the lake, which since geologi-
cal ageswould
shipments from the interior of Asia Minor has never had an outlet to the west.
Procopius,
be able to reach the Propontis directly, instead writing at the time the bridge was
of through the gorges of the lowerunder construction, in 559-560 A.D., relates that
Sangarius,
with their cascades and rapids, and Justinian
then byhad a lately undertaken the first sub-
stantial bridge
coastwise voyage requiring transshipment to over the Sagaris (Sangarius).46
larger craft, in order to reach the
HeBosporus.
does not say that Justinian diverted the river
The one remaining proof that what
beforeTrajan
building the bridge.47 It is Theophanes
had rejected commended itself to Justinian who makesand that statement,48 adding that the
his advisers is an imposing bridge across Emperor made "five stupendous arches," which
the
diminutive Melas, 3 km. northeast ofshows the that
lowerthe name had been corrupted to
end of the lake. This well-preservedPentagephyra,49
bridge is for they are eight in number.
435 m. long (1427 feet)44 and has eight Evidently
archesno ofone had enlightened Procopius
23 m. (75 ft.) span. Its most conspicuous feature
as to what was intended in addition to the bridge.
is the disproportion between this monumentalHe had no idea of a proposed reversal of the
structure and the small stream which ambles current, to be preceded by construction of a
idly beneath its towering arches for most great
of the bridge, with all its piers in reverse, nor
any
year. Not less striking to careful observers has conception of the grandiose project as a
whole.
been the plan of all the piers; for they have He must have thought of the river as
sharp angles to the north (downstream) and
still flowing northward.
rounded surfaces to the south (upstream, towardObviously the proposed change of direction
from northeast to southwest was not to be made
the lake). Here then we have tangible proof
(even in the literal sense) that Justinian's en- every feature of a complicated project had
until
gineers were well acquainted with locks. For been
thecarried to completion. Surely it was never
elevation of the lake, at present 118 feet, didJustinian's
not intention to leave a minor tributary
in possession of the portentous bridge over
deter them from finishing a monumental bridge45
under which the water of a great river was which
somethe traveller from Nicomedia, following
day to flow into its eastern end, but onlythe north shore of the Sunonensis, could reach
after
the whole elaborate project had been completed. Paphlagonia and Pontus. Hence probably came
Not until then was the original small outlet the name
to Pontogephyra, of which we first hear
be reversed and united with the broad current in Pachymeres,50 in a narrative of events occur-
of a huge intake-nothing less than the diverted ring in 1q96 A.D., 736 years later. To his mind
Sangarius. apparently the Sangarius had been flowing under
That river still continued to flow towards the the bridge long enough to have that called its
Black Sea, but at the nearest point it ran old ca. bed, in contrast to the channel in which
5 km. to the east of the bridge, as it does today,
(some 5 kin. farther to the east) it had flowed in
in a level country always subject to serious
ancient times, as it does today. Or was there
confusion in his sources?
floods. These may have caused it more than once

44 In comparison one notes that the Pont du Gard is 46 De aed. 5.3.8 ff. Cf. Downey in TAPhA 78.181, n.
269 m. in length (883 ft.). 11. Permanent it remains but not permanently over
the Sangarius; cf. p. 110.
45 For Justinian's bridge see von Diest in Petermanns
Mitteilungen, Erg.-Heft 27.195 (1898) 70, citing von47 As von Diest incorrectly has it, p. 70, cited above.
der Goltz on the plan of the piers and what that inevi-48 A.M. 6052 (de Boor 1.234; Migne, P.G. 108.513;
tably implies; also ibid. 20.94 (1889) 94 f. Von Diest's
Corp. Scr. Hist. Byz. 41. 362). It is repeated by Landol-
map is valuable (Bl. II). Cf. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. offus Sagax in his additions to Paulus Diaconus, Hist.
Asia Minor 214 f., 460. South of this bridge lies an Rom.,
is- Migne, P.L. 95. 992 B.
land crossed by a Roman road with two small bridges49 Landolfus shows the same corruption of the name
of which there are remains. in the arcus mirabiles quinque (loc. cit.).
50 Migne, P.G. 144.364; Corp. Scr. Hist. Byz. 2.330 f.

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 110 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

water.
The entire project shared the fate of And that at a time when internal peace
Pliny's
andthe
proposal to Trajan, as of that of quietRhine
in Bithynia were mandatory for Tra-
generals to Nero, whether complete jan in his preparations for a foreign war in Ar-
abandon-
ment of his great plan came in themenialast and Parthia,
years of inasmuch as Pliny's province
Justinian, or immediately after his would soon lie
death. across main lines of communica-
Cer-
tion with
tainly the two rivers were left where the front.
they had
been, the little Melas as sole outlet For
of another
the lake, reason also it is absurd to drag
Ascania Limne,
and flowing under the immense bridge. On the the lake of Nicaea, into the
other hand the Sangarius was free study
to roamof these
in particular
a letters. In 41.4 Pliny,
level plain, when its flood-waters,onretarded
a visit to the
byregion of the Nicomedensian
the narrow gorges nearer the Black lake,Sea,
had found
couldevidence of an unfinished canal,
for a time shift to the Melas valley, begun
afterprobably
passing by some former king, to connect
under the bridge which was to have thebeen
lake, it would seem, with a river nearer to
theirs
alone. But they have never made their Nicomedia and salt water. As for Ascania, which
unaided
way westward into the lake, to cut a poured its waters into the Propontis down its
new channel
down to the nearest arm of the Seaown of natural
Marmara. channel, which Vergil pointedly
As for a canal to connect lake and sea, the describes as sonantem Ascanium,51 no king would
have undertaken a different outlet. At most it
lack of any remains of such operations west of
demanded canalization-no easy task, to be
the lake forces us to conclude that not even a
beginning had been made. Nor are there any sure-on account of its sharp descent into the
indications that dykes or dams, necessary to Bay.
a It was obviously in a quite different lo-
reversal plan, were ever in progress in the regioncality that Pliny made his archaeological find,
northeast of the lake, that is, near Ada-Basar.not less than 30 miles away (as the crow flies)
Hence we can be quite certain that the bridgefrom Ascania Lacus at Nicaea.
was the one and only part of that great project A fourth reason for avoiding Sdlch's pre-
to be carried out. It was merely by anticipation
posterous identification is furnished by certain
of what was contemplated but never achievedfacts concerning the eastern end of the two lakes.
In that direction Pliny's lake had its single out-
that Procopius could speak of it as a bridge over
the Sangarius, still some distance away. let in an unnamed stream (later Melas, pp. 108
f.), emptying eventually into the Sangarius. He
Reverting to Pliny and his modest canal proj-proposed to stop that outflow, no doubt by a
dyke near the lake. Ascania, however, at its
ect, we may not overlook certain misguided
efforts to shift the scene of operations to a dif- east end has no outlet at all, nothing in fact but
ferent lake, i.e. the Ascania, in spite of a positivesmall streams flowing into the lake! Yet such
statement in Ep. 41.2 that his amplissimus lacus contradictions had no deterrent effect upon
was in Nicomedensium finibus, which cannotSiilch's theory,52 unaccountably espoused as a
possibly be diluted into "in the neighborhood" probability by Lehmann-Hartleben53 without
of that city. It was, of course, the provincial attempting to defend it. No more did the
capital, Nicomedia, that was to profit by thisimagined necessity of surmounting a considerable
public work, while the lake with which Trajan watershed between Nicaea at 87 m. (hemmed in
and Pliny were alone concerned at the moment on that north side by mountains) and Nicomedia
belonged to that seaport exclusively. at sea-level by means of a canal to reach that
Nothing could have been more certain to rouse harbor. Meanwhile Ascania, the larger lake,
the bitterest feeling in Nicaea than any proposal must be closed at its seaward end, and the roar
to connect the harbor of their rival with the of the river Ascanius was to be permanently
hushed!54
very lake on which their own city lay, in undis-
puted possession of its much ampler expanse ofIf Pliny's project was rejected or indefinitely

51 Georg. 3.269 f.; and well might it roar in reducing 53 Plinio il Giovane, Lettere Scelte (with archaeo-
87 m. to zero in less than 18 km. logical notes), 1926, pp. 20 ff.
52 Klio 19.169 ff. 54 E. G. Hardy in his much used edition of the Epis-

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 THREE CANAL PROJECTS, ROMAN AND BYZANTINE 111

postponed, possibly without muchwork would the

delay, have been carried on. The other still
has no
other two give evidence of careful and its enduring
doubt monument in a maximum of
long-continued study, but only to end bridge pathetically spanning a minimal stream.
in frustra-
tion. That of Paulinus and Vetus, generals-in-
For us there remains the assurance virtually
command on the Rhine, promised great given results
by these three proposals that the lock
by linking that river with the Rhone,was known
if only and used in Roman and Byzantine
Nero had not refused to approve. times.
Justinian's
To believe that these projects were the
merest
purpose to revive the proposal of Pliny onpaper-work
a far from the hands of men who
larger scale might have brought prosperity to aor heard of a lock is a strain upon
had never seen
whole region of Asia Minor nearest to the of any one of us, be he a practical en-
the credulity
capital. Unhappily both of these came to of
gineer noth-
wide experience, or only a scholar delv-
ing eloquent
ing. One of them found its epitaph in an in books "with the secular dust on."
passage in a historian of whom it is almost cer-
Cleveland, Ohio
tain that some 35 years later he was governor
November 1949
(above, n. 27) of the very province in which the

tulae ad Traianum (London, 1889) was probably west."

mis- His "present river connecting the lake with
Nicomedeia," later described as possibly "Pliny's
led by an inaccurate map of the smaller Lake Sabanja.
For he says (p. 143): "At present" that lake "is canal
con- carried out," is absent from every map known to
nected... and also with the Gulf of Ismid on the the writer.

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