Page - 44 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

44 Nicolas Lamare Fig. 10:Sbeitla, Fountainnear the Basilica of Servus. In the centre, the slotwhere theparapet’s slabs originally stood; on the left, the small tankdirectly below theoriginal basin. tains built during the Early Roman Empire were restored until a very late period, but many monumentswere not built before the 3rd and early 4thcenturies; in contrast, the construction ofMicrasiatic fountainswas active until the first two decades of the 3rd century and fewwere newlybuilt after this date.95 Clear andabundantwater: fountains asametaphor of urbanaesthetics andpermanence These restorations, or even new constructions, should open the way for a discussion on late antiqueurbanplanning.ThequestionhasbeendebatedaboutNorthAfrica through thecaseof Sbeitla. Jean-PierreCèbeproposed that theconstructionof fountains shouldbean indicationof an extension of the city in the 4th century.96 This hypothesiswas rejected byNoël Duval, who pointedout that the threemonumentswere located in theuniformlyplannedarea,arguing that their constructioncannotbeexplainedbyanextensionof thecityorapopulation increase,but rather represented a change in the supply system, a transformation of the city centre into a residential area, or simply a ‘taste of the time’ for nymphaea.97 Since Claude Lepelley’s research on North African cities, initiated by the earlier work of Paul-Albert Février,weknowthat therewasnobreak in themaintenanceof theurbanenviron- mentafter the3rd centuryandthat it remainedoneof themajor concernsof the local elite,both through constructions and restorations.98 The fountains erected after the Severan periodwere allbuilt inalreadydevelopedpartsof thecity.LukeLavanpointedout that inOstia theconstruc- tion of newpublic squareswas exceptional in the late period, compared to other provinces.99 On the other hand, he indicated that the attentionpaid to thepedestrian functionof thedecu- 95 Jacobs–Richard 2012, 9–12. 96 Cèbe 1957, 204. 97 Duval 1964, 94–96. 98 Lepelley 1979; Lepelley 1981. 99 Lavan 2012, 686f.