There are no references in literature to aqueducts which brought water to Praeneste.  Were we left to this evidence alone, we should conclude that Praeneste had depended upon reservoirs for water.  But in inscriptions we have mention of baths,[84] the existence of which implies aqueducts, and there is the specus of an aqueduct to be seen outside the Porta S. Francesco.[85] This ran across to the Colle S. Martino to supply a large brick reservoir of imperial date.[86] There were aqueducts still in 1437, for Cardinal Vitelleschi captured Palestrina by cutting off its water supply.[87] This shows that the water came from outside the city, and through aqueducts which probably dated back to Roman times,[88] and also that the reservoirs were at this time no longer used.  In 1581 the city undertook to restore the old aqueduct which brought water from back of Capranica, but no description was left of its exact course or ancient construction.[89] While these repairs were in progress, Francesco Cecconi leased to the city his property called Terreni, where there were thirty fine springs of clear water not far from the city walls.  Again in 1776 the springs called delle cannuccete sent in dirty water to the city, so citizens were appointed to remedy matters.  They added a new spring to those already in use and this water came to the city through an aqueduct.[90]

The remains of four great reservoirs, all of brick construction, are plainly enough to be seen at Palestrina, and as far as situation and size are concerned, are well enough described in other places.[91] But in the case of these reservoirs, as in that of all the other remains of ancient construction at Praeneste, the writers on the history of the town have made great mistakes, because all of them have been predisposed to the pleasant task of making all the ruins fit some restoration or other of the temple of Fortuna, although, as a matter of fact, none of the reservoirs have any connection whatever with the temple.[92] The fine brick reservoir of the time of Tiberius,[93] which is at the junction of the Via degli Arconi and the road from the Porta S. Martino, was not built to supply fountains or baths in the forum below, but was simply a great supply reservoir for the citizens who lived in particular about the lower forum, and the water from this reservoir was carried away by hand, as is shown by the two openings like well heads in the top of each compartment of the reservoir, and by the steps which gave entrance to it on the east.  The reservoir above this in the Barberini gardens is of a date a half century later.[94] It is of the same brick work as the great fountain which stands, now debased to a grist mill, across the Via degli Arconi about half way between S. Lucia and Porta del Sole.  The upper reservoir undoubtedly supplied this fountain, and other public buildings in the forum below.  There is another large brick reservoir below the present ground level in the angle between the Via degli Arconi and the Cave road below the Porta del Sole, but it is too low ever to have served for public use.  It was in connection with some private bath.  The fourth huge reservoir, the one on Colle S. Martino, has already been mentioned.