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györgy spiró
story zigzagging system
of fortifications, spiked at
irregular intervals with strong
gates,bothsecretiveandexotic
to anyone not familiar with
this part of the Transtiberim.
Yet it was well known that
the Jews lived a wretched
existence: leprous Jews would
beg around the Porta Capena,
at the beginning of the Appian
Way, for all to see, and many
found themselves in that
part of town, given that the
main gateway to commerce
on the southern side of the
city was outside the nearby
Via Ostiensis. Produce was
cheaper there than around
the Forum, so half of Rome
shopped there. It would
also have been obvious that
haggard people with stooped
backs swarmed around with
their pitchers, bearded and
in worn sandals and frayed
togas: they were going for
drinking water because the
aqueducts supplied Far Side
with polluted water, good for
nothing more than irrigation,
if at all. Requests had been
made from one generation to
the next, but they were not
granted better water by the
City, and in districts that were
blessed with a better water
supply outsiders had to pay
the locals good money for
what the latter received free
of charge. The water of the
Tiber was drinkable in theory,
but the Jews considered it
unclean, especiallywhen, from
time to time, it overflowed
with corpses, so they did not
drink it or even wash with it.
They preferred water from
cisterns, and there were some
benighted souls who, obeying
the religious precepts of their
ancestors more strictly than
most, considered water from
any other district impure,