Roman aqueduct
Rome's first aqueduct was built in 312 BC, and supplied a water fountain at the city's cattle market. By the 3rd century AD, the city had eleven aqueducts, sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city's many public baths. Cities and towns throughout the Roman Empire emulated this model, and funded aqueducts as objects of public interest and civic pride, "an expensive yet necessary luxury to which all could, and did, aspire".
Aqua Alexandrina
The aqueduct was constructed in AD 226 as the last of the eleven ancient aqueducts of Rome. It was built under the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus to supply his enlargement of the Thermae of Nero which were renamed "Thermae Alexandrinae". The aqueduct was repaired for the first time in the era of Diocletian between the 3rd and 4th century, later between the 5th and 6th century and finally in the 8th century during the reign of Pope Adrian I. The aqueduct was described in the 17th century by Raffaello Fabretti (1680).