# Loeb Frontinus records the Claudia and Anio Novus as begun under Gaius

Date: 1925

## The fact

Frontinus, De aquaeductu, in Loeb/LacusCurtius English, states that Gaius began the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, finished by Claudius. The dated public instrument is that technical treatise in modern English. Aqueduct start is infrastructure, not a personality.

## Context

Water is a public good and a monument. Labour costs are not itemised here. Claudius’s completion is shared credit, hence complex contribution.

[Caligula](/people/caligula) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official edition, museum, or agency page and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Frontinus, De aquaeductu — LacusCurtius (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/De_Aquis/text*.html; LacusCurtius / University of Chicago).

## Significance

A printed aqueduct-start is an industrial-capacity path. Do not award the finished arches solely to Gaius.

A printed aqueduct-start is an industrial-capacity path. Do not award the finished arches solely to Gaius.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Caligula: https://factrail.ai/people/caligula

## Drivers

- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism

## Sources

- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/De_Aquis/text*.html
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caligula-Roman-emperor

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/cal-aqua-claudia-start