The Edict of Venarfrum

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

During Augustus' reign he established somewhere in the region of 28 colonies in Italy, one of them was Venarfrum, it was an ancient town of Campania, close to the borders of Latium adiectum and Samnium. He built the town many public works, one of which was an aqueduct and from what I've read he actually charged the people of Venarfum for the water that was taken from this particular aqueduct.

 

This is taken from an inscription that was found in Venafro in Campania before 1834........

 

 

In regard to the water which tomes, flows, or is conducted into the toron of Venafrum : it is ordered that authority and power to allot and to distribute the said water by sale, or to impose and to determine the fee therefor, shall be entrusted to the duumvir or the duumvirs of this colony placed in charge of this task by a decree of a majority of the decurions of the toron, provided that not less than two thirds of the decurions are present when the said decree is passed ; and by the decree of the decurions, which has been passed in the manner as has been described above, he shall have the right and the authority to establish a regulation therefor.

 

Now I know that all the water that came into the city of Rome via the aqueducts was free for every one, but was it a regular practise to charge all the other towns and cities of the Roman empire for the use of the Roman built aqueducts that supplied their inhabitants with water or was this case just a one off?

 

To read the full Edict click HERE

[Faustus]

This makes for interesting reading, and it would make a good model for future regulations of this type. I'm speaking theoretically here. Not really knowing the way these cases were handled across the board, it would make sense that they be done in this way for some if not all of the twenty eight new colonies in Italy; and other similar units in outlying provinces as well, if the costs couldn't be ascribed in some way to the province overall.

 

The capital expenditures are being appropriately amortized, charged off, or allocated, in some proportional way to those citizens who are enjoying the benefits of the services provided from the expenditure, pro-rata.

 

Rome (the city) would be another case entirely because it is the hub of government. There, the doles for food or corn need be provided to the citizens of the capital and to the place of the voting citizen. That would be for the benefit of good public order (and to secure votes if those votes be important)

 

Two other side issue observations if I may:

 

There was a similar "model" document posted (perhaps by you also GPM) that pertained to boundaries of Colonies and/or other population centers or units which made for equally interesting reading and looked a great deal like the ones that cover similar boundary protection laws here in the USA. I'd like to find that again.

 

Another thing interesting to me is the difference in the amount of text there is between the English translation and the original text in Latin. That can only likely be attributed to the efficiency of Latin with its word endings for conjugating verbs and declining nouns (and perhaps idioms) versus the English method of accomplishing the same things with additional words and forms etc. I note though, that instruction sheets in English are almost always much shorter than those in Spanish and French. This switch seems curious to me.

[joyfulpuck]

[/i]Now I know that all the water that came into the city of Rome via the aqueducts was free for every one, but was it a regular practise to charge all the other towns and cities of the Roman empire for the use of the Roman built aqueducts that supplied their inhabitants with water or was this case just a one off?

 

To read the full Edict click HERE

In republican times, were the aediles that payed for water supply during their year of magitrate.

In Augustus time and at Rome, water was appalted to Agrippa until he died, in 13 a.C. Agrippa was a private and paying for all the aqueduct (he had personally built at his expence) and for all the water that it carried was an honour reserved to him.

Then, it was appalted to aerarium. There was even a lex Quinctia de aquaeductibus (9 a.C.) that fixed some triumviri aquarii which took care of idric services and had at their dependence a staff of apparitores and servi publici . But not all the expenses were on charge of aerarium. When in Rome, water poured in some pools, named as lacus. This lacus were at payment.

 

Out of Rome, many services, like roads and cursus publicus (postal service) were appalted to private well-to-do inhabitants whose property had something to do with the service (for example, if their property was long the road they had to take care of that stretch of road). But they were not alone. They was supervised by some curatores and praefecti appointed from senatus. So the cura aquaria cura viaria and cura vehicularia was payed in a mix form: part from local magistrates, part from aerarium, part from privates. This is probably the context in which we can include the Venafrum inscription.

 

Finally, we must say that all these men that payed for aqueducts, roads and post, were well-to-do men and often considered an honour to sustain imperial services, because it was very useful to enhance their position, not only at Rome.

At Rome, private roman citizens (not all Roman inhabitants, we must remember) payed for mantaining lacus, but the pools were probably normally open and so every one could take water, also poor one. Even if these pools were not so much in number as sometimes is believed, and often rich ones stealed water from the acqueduct directly in their private homes.

 

Something more you can read surely in C. Bruun, The water supply of ancient Rome. A Study of imperial administration. Helsinki 1991

Edited December 13, 2007 by joyfulpuck

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Thanks for the excellent replies, I found them very interesting.

 

Just to back up what Joyfulpuck mentions concerning the aerarium, I came across this on LacusCurtius........

 

 

Upon the establishment of the imperial power under Augustus, there was an important change made in the public income and expenditure. He divided the provinces and the administration of the government between the senate, as the representative of the old Roman people, and the Caesar: all the property of the former continued to be called aerarium, and that of the latter received the name of fiscus. [Fiscus.] The aerarium consequently received all the taxes from the provinces belonging to the senate, and likewise most of the taxes which had formerly been levied in Italy itself, such as the revenues of all public lands still remaining in Italy, the tax on manumissions, the custom-duties, the water-rates for the use of the water brought into the city by the aquaeducts, the sewer-rates, &c.

.