Sunset At Aqua Claudia

 

By Hermann Corrodi, an Italian painter; done sometime in the 1870s.  The remnants of a vanished world.  

The Aqua Claudia was one of the largest capacity aqueducts supplying water to Rome.  Started under Emperor Caligula (37-41 AD) and completed in the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), it eventually extended to most of the districts of Rome, including the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill.  Most of its 43 mile length was underground until it emerged on the plains outside Rome from where it was carried on arches the last few miles into the city.   The cutting of Aqua Claudia and the other aqueducts during the 6th century siege of Rome by the Goths accelerated the decline of the classical city, prompting the abandonment of the Palatine Hill, and migration of the city's remaining population to other locations in Italy or closer to the Tiber River.

From Wikipedia, this is a current view of the largest remaining section of the aqueduct.