All the above measurements are in quinariae. It is calculated that each quinaria represents a daily supply of 63.18 cubic metres, or 13,906 gallons.

Table III. Detailed account of expenditure of water
for public purposes (Column 5 in Table II)

The Roman numerals in the inner columns show the number of public institutions on which the quinariae of water detailed in the other columns were bestowed. Adding these together we get — 19 Castra, 95 Opera Publica, 39 Munera, and 591 Lacus. It is certain, however, that we ought not thus to add them except to get a more approximate estimate of their number, as the same camp or fountain was, perhaps invariably, fed by two or even three aqueducts, that it might not be dependent on one single source of supply.

The camps are probably chiefly the great Castra Praetoria, but also the smaller camps of the cohortes vigilum and other troops quartered in the city.

p160 The Opera Publica are, partly at least, the great sheets of water on which mock sea‑fights and other spectacles were exhibited. We get a hint of their character from the words of Frontinus, who says that of the 1380 quinariae contributed by the Aqua Virgo to public works 460 went 'to the Euripus alone, to which it gave its own name' of Virgo. The name Euripus, from the channel which separates Euboea from the mainland of Greece, was given to any great artificial channel, particularly (as it seems) to a large trench which was dug along the outer circumference of the Circus Maximus and filled with water.

The translation of Munera and Lacus is by no means certain. It is clear from the Table that the former were much larger than the latter — an average of 9 quinariae going to each munus and little more than 2 to ea lacus. Jordan (Topographie der Stadt Rom, II.49‑60) discusses the meaning of lacus at great length, and seems upon the whole to incline to the meaning which I have adopted above, and which is also that favoured by Lanciani (p369).

Evidently at the time of Frontinus the term munus was a lately introduced piece of fashionable slang, whatever was the thing which it was meant to describe. He says  (III) that he will state 'quantum publicis operibus, quantum muneribus — ita enim cultiores appellant — quantum lacibus . . . detur.'

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