The Aqua Appia did not provide enough water after about forty years for the growing city so it was necessary to build the Aqua Anio Vetus. The Anio Vetus was built in 272 B.C. This aqueduct took away most of the need for the Aqua Appia. Due to vandalism and age, the two aqueducts were leaking and required repairs in 144 B.C. Praetor Marcius later built the Aqua Marcia in 144 B.C. This aqueduct brought its water from a source that was 58 miles away! That made it the longest of the Roman aqueducts. Over the following 350 years, eight more aqueducts were built from 125 B.C. to 226 A.D. During the time, the Aqua Tepula, Aqua Julia, Aqua Virgo, Aqua Alsietina, Aqua Claudia, Anio Novus, Aqua Trajana and Aqua Alexandria were built, respectively. Aqua Alexandria was the last aqueduct built to supply Rome and it was built in 226 A.D. The Romans also built aqueducts in Greece, France, Italy, Spain, North Africa and the Asia Minor.
In order to design and construct an aqueduct an enormous amount of time, technology and resources were necessary. The first step in the long process was to find a suitable spring. Because the Roman's did not have any means of pumping water to a higher elevation, they had to find springs that began at high elevations. This would enable water to flow downward into the city of Rome to be distributed. Also because their filtration techniques were primitive, the source had to be clean. There had to be enough water in a given spring or else other nearby ones could be channeled into the main one. Once a spring that met all the requirements was found, a water engineer was called upon. He would use a surveying tool called a chorobates to construct a line of the proper gradient from the source to the city. Next, an engineer used either a groma or dioptra for alignments. Once the line was decided on, the engineers would have to figure out how to get the water from the source to the city using covered trenches, tunnels, pressurized pipes, walls and arcades.