Cloaca Maxima

klo-a'ka mak'si-ma, a great stone sewer of Rome. It passes under the forum and discharges into the Tiber. It is an excellent piece of engineering, dating from the time of Augustus. It is still in use, but is absolutely prosaic and disagreeable, of interest chiefly to historians and scholars. The masonry consists of three concentric circles of hewn stones. The interior is about thirteen feet in diameter. The bodies of criminals displayed in the forum for the pleasure of the mob were usually thrown through a hole into this main sewer. A little statue near by was dedicated to Juno as the patroness of drainage purity.