Seite - 163 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

10 SyracusanWaterNetworks inAntiquity 163 esse indistintamentesono incomunicazionecon ipozzi, iquali, attraversandoquellosuperiore, vanno a comunicare con l’altra sottostante, però sempre sull’asse di esse’. This description by Cavallari and Holm29 was adopted and repeated by historiography which sought the causes withoutprovidingconvincingones.The first twoeditorssuggested that theuppergalleryserved themaintenanceandrepairworkers,whocould travel along theaqueductwithoutharming the qualityof thewater flowing into the lowergallery.RenateTölleKastenbeingaveahypothetical readingwhich has a consensus of opinion, proposing that the upper gallery allowed the soil pressureon the runoff gallery tobe limited,particularly seismicmovements that coulddamage thepipe.30 Sicily is aparticularly sensitive zone fromthispoint of view, as shownby the traces of post antiquity earthquakeson theGalermiAqueduct. Marksof digging? First editors noticed that two of these aqueducts, Ninfeo and Paradiso, showed some Greek incised letters: one lambdaonsomeblocksof theNinfeowells31 andonealpha in theParadiso aqueduct.32AccordingtoJuliusSchubring, these lettersrepresenteither thenameorthenumber of theaqueduct, theabbreviationof thenameof thearchitect, or thedateof constructionof the installation.According toCavallariandHolm, theycharacterize thechannel.Wealsoknowthat thesequarrymarksappear frequentlyonblocksat theexit of thequarryandcancorrespond to thework carried out by theworker, or to the control of the foremanor theworksitemanager, or to the owner of the block, or to thenameof themagistrate in charge of the equipment.33 In theCastelloEurialo,Mertensobservedthesequarrymarksonblocks.34 InsomeGreekaqueducts thathavebeen investigatedelsewhere in theAegeanworld,Greek lettershavebeen interpreted asmarks of thework of a particularmason,maybe in order to claimpayment, as inMegara35 andSamos.36Thesemarksare theonlyepigraphicclues fordatingthewater installations,which thus seem tohavebeen realizedduring theGreekperiod. The fact that we have observed two different letters in two aqueducts encourages us to favour thehypothesis that they refer to the characterization of the aqueduct: lambda could be an abbreviation of the ancient name of Ninfeo,while alphawould be that of Paradiso, names unknown to us for now. None of them evokes the terminology of hydraulics: wewould have expected the letter omicron forochetos, a termusedbyThucydides to refer to theunderground pipeline, upsilon for hydragogion, a pipe or any other compound from the root hydor, water. Another interpretation is to read thealphaand lambdaas the initial anthroponymof the spon- sor or the aqueduct project manager without being able to explain more. Finally, the letters could refer to a layoutnumber: Paradisowouldbe the first aqueduct on the inventory, and the Ninfeo the eleventh; wewould then have to identify the other ten and integrate them into a coherentsystem,established in thesameurbanproject.The fewsections identified in theurban space until now37 could enter into this capillary network. If this reading is correct, onemust assume theexistenceof agenuinewaterproject,which couldbeprecisely that of a centralized governmentdesigningaglobal policy ofmajor urbanworks. 29 Cavallari –Holm1883, 127. 30 Tölle-Kastenbein 1990, 72–74;Wilson 2000. 31 Schubring 1865. 32 Cavallari –Holm1883. 33 Frontin.Aq. 105–113. 34 Beste et al. 2015. 35 Avgerinou 2019, 44. 36 Kienast 1995, 193f. 37 Arenaeal. 2018, 13–17.