Publication: Ambiente, politica ed economia nella Roma del II secolo a.C.: Il caso dell’Aqua Marcia, M. Balbo

This paper reassesses the background of the Sibylline prescription that in 143-140 BC opposed the building of the Aqua Marcia in Rome. Particular attention is paid to the reasons that allegedly motivated the opposition to the building of an aqueduct. These reasons do not seem to have been only suggested by political hostility towards Q. Marcius Rex, which did exist and played a very relevant role, but could also have depended on a different attitude to water supply, or on an alternative programme. The decemviri sacris faciundis did not attempt to completely stop the construction of the aqueduct, but they especially aimed to exclude the Capitol from the project. A working hypothesis concerns the possibility that the religious scruples depended in part on a sacral and juridical practice, which limited economic development in certain collective spaces of the city: a juridical context in some ways similar to that which governed the mid-republican leges luci, which protected the sacredness of certain public spaces by regulating the activities that could take place there.