Fons Peirene

About

A monumental spring-fed fountain house at the heart of Roman Corinth, just north of the speaker's platform, drawing on a source linked in myth to the winged horse Pegasus since the Archaic period. The elaborate two-story marble facade often credited to Herodes Atticus dates from the 150s CE, well after this snapshot. In 117 CE a simpler Hellenistic-era fountain house still stood on the same spot, already centuries old.

What happened here

This is where most of the town gets its water, and it runs continuously because the aqueduct cannot be switched off. A basin catches the flow, jars are filled from spouts, and the overflow goes into a channel that flushes the street. Queues form early and the fountain is where the neighbourhood's news circulates. The stonework wears into grooves where thousands of hands and rope have rested on the rim. Animals drink at a lower trough. Bigger show-fountains at street corners and road junctions are put up by magistrates and carry their names; the water is the gift and the inscription is the receipt. Blocking, fouling or tapping a public fountain is an offence people are actually prosecuted for.

Sources

• Pausanias Description of Greece 2.3.2-3
• https://www.worldhistory.org/corinth/