The Aqua Virgo, Euripus and Pons Agrippae

Abstract

The dispersal of the waters of the Aqua Virgo beyond the Thermae Agrippae is examined. It is argued that its water was brought from the area of the baths to the Pons Agrippae over which it was carried to the region of Trastevere which the aqueduct is known to have served. It is further argued that the Euripus of Agrippa, supplied with fresh water by the same aqueduct and quite distinct from the Stagnum Agrippae, followed roughly the same course as the aqueduct extension and emptied into the Tiber in the vicinity of the bridge. It is thus not the drainage ditch often identified with the Euripus which reached the Tiber in the area of the bridge of Nero and which probably belongs to the same era as that bridge. Epigraphical evidence connecting the Euripus with the area of the Pons Agrippae is examined as is the problematical location of the bridge itself. It is argued that the Pons Agrippae is not identical with the Pons Aurelius but a separate structure to be identified with the piers discovered in 1887 a short distance upstream from it. Finally, a relationship between the Pons Agrippae and a brick-making plant of the Figlinae Caepionianae designated as ab Euripo is established through the presence in the adjacent tomb of Platorinus of a cinerary urn which contained the remains of A. Crispinus Caepio, a man of the age of Tiberius and probable founder of the firm. The relationship of the bridge and the Euripus to this industry is considered.