Page - 31 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

Nicolas Lamare 3 Fountains and theAncient City Social Interactions, Practical Uses, andPleasantSights Abstract: Fountainswere remarkable buildings in ancient cities. First, their functional aspect aswatersuppliersmadethemessential todaily life.Then,under theRomanEmpire, theygradu- ally acquired a role as ornamentation of the space and as amanifestation of the political dis- course thatmodified their architecture and appearance. Because of these dual characteristics, both functionalanddecorative, fountains, especiallymonumental fountains, areveryappropri- ate buildings for conducting an analysis of urban space and its perception. Where were the fountains located inthecity?Howdidtheyfit into thearchitectural framework?Whofrequented themonadaily basis?Howdid they evolve over time? This article argues that fountainswere buildings in their own right, whose practical and decorative functionsmust be considered in an equivalentway. Focusing onNorthAfrica provinces, it looks at the perception of fountains in the city, as monumental buildings and constructions decorated with water, which is their raisond’être. Theimageof theRomancityhas longbeenassociatedwithwater,mainlybecauseof thearcades of the aqueducts that still dominate the landscape around the ancient towns. The presence of water incities,both indomestic andpublic spaces, its abundanceand (over)consumptionhave longbeenconsideredessentialcharacteristicsof imperialurbanspace.Amongthewater-related monuments, fountains are themost representative, because they distributedwater and, in the caseof themostmonumentalof them,staged it.Astudyof theseparticularbuildingsaddresses several interconnectedissues.Thearchitectureanddecorationof thefountainsallowustostudy the stagingofpower, but alsoof theprofusionofwater. In fact, the visual andacousticdimen- sionof thecontinuous flowofwater in thecity is in response to thedesire to showthedomina- tion of man over the natural elements and the hazards of resource availability and climate change.Moreover,written testimoniesmake it possible to capture themental concepts relating towater in the city,whichwas essential as an element of everyday life and as a characteristic element of urbanaesthetics. Focusing onNorthAfrica provinceswith comparisons, this article falls into two parts, the first one dedicated to the Roman imperial period, followed by an investigation devoted to the late antique city, a period for which the problems are different, even though fountains still playedanessential role. For eachperiod, threeaspects arediscussed. First, the location, along with the visibility andaccessibility of the fountainswill be analysedaccording to the available sources. In a secondpart, fountainswill be discussed as ameeting point, a place of gathering or recreation, in their social dimension. Ina thirdpart, thediscussionwill focuson thevisuali- sation of fountains, based on architectural data, and on themeaning intended to be given to themonuments, thanks to epigraphic texts.1 1 The ideas presented in this article are based on a PhDdissertation onmonumental fountains in RomanNorth Africa. Cf. Lamare 2019. Iwould like to thankAnnetteHaugandNicolaChiarenza for their invitation to theUrban Water Colloquium, the reviewers for their remarks onmy paper, as well as Nichole Sheldrick for improving the first draft of theEnglish text. Allmistakes remainmyown.All dates areAD. OpenAccess.©2020Nicolas Lamare, publishedbyDeGruyter. Thiswork is licensedunder theCreative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110677065-003