Page - 172 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

172 SophieBouffier Apoliticalwill behind thehydraulic programmes What lessons can we draw then from the renewed study of the Syracusan aqueducts? As it stands, the aqueducts of urban spaces, Ninfeo, Paradiso, Tremilia, offer little historical data, unlessone interprets theGreek letters identified in the late 19thcenturyas themarksofacount- ing system; if this is the case,we canpropose that therewas a realwater policy that needs to be related to a specific time during the urban expansion of Syracuse. The first phase of urban development,asmentionedinthe introduction, is thatof theDeinomenids,Gelonandhisbroth- erHieron I,who transformed the city into amegalopolisworthy of the great Aegeanmetropo- lises,Corinth firstly,butalsoAthensandSamos, especiallyas theAegeancontext supports this policy.42 TheGreek cities led large hydraulicworks policies, known fromboth literary sources and fromarchaeology,with fountains anddrinkingwaterpipes: inSamos,43Athens,44Naxos45 andMegara.46 In Corinth, themother city of Syracuse, the Kypselid Dynastywould have con- structed aqueducts andmonumental fountains, what remains to be proved archaeologically.47 These often imposing facilities have generally been attributed to tyrannical regimes of these citiesbetween theearly6thor even the late7th centuryBCand theyears480/460BC.According to the philosopher Aristotle,48 the aim was to put to sleep the aspirations of the people for freedomby providingwork and comfort, but in reality,most known aqueductswere designed in ancient citieswithboomingeconomies and correspond to stages ofmonumentalizingurban centresand improving the livingconditions,notably sanitisation,of thepopulation. Themodel for thesemegalomaniactyrants,whosought toassert theirpowerandtoensurethesustainabili- tyof theirpowerover theirpeople,was theneighbouringPersianEmpire,where theGreatKings habituallymade the towns under their domination into paradises, irrigated areas that hosted faunaand flora fromall their empire andappearedas a showcaseof their power.49 InSicily, the tyranny isconfirmed later inseveral cities: fromthe firsthalfof the5th century BC, autocratic governments pursued expansionary policies that resulted in significant urban andmonumental growth. The sovereignsofAgrigento andSyracuse, theEmmenidTheronand theDeinomenidGelon, respectively, benefittedespecially fromanextraordinarybonanza, their victory over the Carthaginians at Himera in 480BC, being the firstmajor dispute between the cityofCarthageandtheGreeksof the island.Thisvictorybroughtcapital (bootyandwar indem- nities) and cheap labour (prisoners) pouring in. At Agrigento in particular, the ally and also somehow rival of Gelon launched a vast programme of religious and hydraulic construction, wellattestedbothbysourcesandarchaeology:50anetworkofaqueducts,agiganticpoolproba- bly to imitate thePersianparadises, but also to storewater in a citywith insufficient rainwater 42 Arvanitis 2008. 43 Kienast 1995. 44 Tölle-Kastenbein 1994; Camp1990. 45 Labrinoudakis et al. 2017. 46 Avgerinou 2019. 47 Landon 1994;Robinson 2011. 48 Arist. Pol. 1313a–b. 49 Briant 1996, 94–96. 214–216. 50 Diod. Sic. 11, 25:Most of them [the Carthaginian captives]were handed over to the state, and it was thesemen whoquarried the stones ofwhichnot only the largest temples of the godswere constructedbut also theunderground conduitswerebuilt to leadoff thewaters from thecity: theseare so large that their construction iswellworth seeing, although it is little thought of since theywere built at slight expense. The builder in charge of theseworks,whobore thenameofPhaeax, brought it about that, becauseof the fameof the construction, theundergroundconduits got the name ‘Phaeaces’ fromhim. TheAcragantini also built an expensive kolumbethra, seven stades in circumference and twentycubitsdeep (translationbyOldfather 1970); seealsoDiod.Sic. 13,82;Arnone1952;Furcas2016;Furcas2018. According to Giovanni Luca Furcas (oral communication during the conference ‘De l’Hydrologie à l’archéologie hydrauliqueenMéditerranéeantique, colloque interdisciplinaire’,Aix-en-Provence, 15mai 2019),DiodorusSiculus is right in considering the conduits asdrains andnot as aqueducts.