The ancient fountains of Rome are poorly preserved architectural monuments of the time. Like many other structures of the Republican and Imperial periods of Rome’s history, they were dismantled for building material in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, some of their elements found a new life, being moved to museums or becoming part of the scenery of new fountains actively built during the Renaissance.
The first inhabitants of Rome, i.e. the few tribes that settled on the legendary seven hills, drew water directly from the Tiber River. In addition, they may have used small pits or wells to store rainwater, such as the well found in the Caesar’s Forum area dating back to the 6th century BC.
Early Fountains
In Republican times, the Romans began to build their first fountains using underground springs they found in residential areas. Many of the names of these fountains, such as Fons Lupercalis, Fons Apollinaris, Fons Pici, Fons Mercurii and others, are mentioned in literary sources, and in some cases, we even know roughly where they were located.
Some of them, such as the Piscina Publica (Latin for Public Pool), were huge. the Piscina Publica pool was located in the southern part of the city and acted more like a water reservoir than a fountain.
By the 1st century AD, it had disappeared, but Emperor Octavian Augustus gave its name to the 12th district of the city, so that the memory of the pool remained with the citizens for a long time.
Today, little remains of the fountains of Rome’s Republican period. And even these ruins are barely visible and faintly resemble their original form. Only the legends they gave rise to have been preserved in their entirety. For example, Lacus Juturna was named after the goddess Juturna, the patroness of workers whose work involved water.
Lacus Juturna Fountain
The fountain was located in the area of the Roman Forum in front of the temple dedicated to the Dioscuri (brothers Castor and Pollux, sons of Jupiter) because, according to tradition, in 499 BC, after a battle on the side of the Romans against the Latin Alliance, they stopped here to give water to their horses.
Lacus Curtius
Little remains of Lacus Curtius, a water spring or, according to another source, a rainwater harvesting basin, also located in the area of the Roman Forum. The site was once the last part of a swamp on which the forum was built after it was drained. Legend has it that the spring was created here in 445 BC after a lightning strike.
The consul Gaius Curtius fenced off the site of the strike in accordance with the religious practice of the time – lightning was a harbinger of negative events. A council of ten priests, called bidentals, gathered near the lightning strike site and arranged a “burial” of a stone symbolizing the lightning, after which a sheep was sacrificed.
There is another, more exciting legend that tells of Lacus Curtius as the site of a bottomless hole. According to the oracle’s prediction, the hole could only be closed by throwing into it what was most precious in Rome.
So, in 362 BC, a young horseman named Marcus Curtius, wearing full battle gear and on horseback, threw himself into the hole. It immediately turned into a harmless spring. The relief marking the exit of the water depicts this version of events. A third version tells of a Sabine leader, Metius Curtius, who fell into the hole.
Now the site looks like an irregular quadrangle, tiled and marked with a copy of a relief depicting Marcus Curtius on horseback. The original relief from Republican times is preserved in the Capitoline Museums.
In general, it can be noted that during the Republican period, the existing fountains were not sufficient to meet the population’s needs. Many Romans continued taking water from the Tiber River.
For this reason, houses were not allowed to be built closer than a certain distance to the eastern bank of the river (the western bank was populated mainly by immigrants and foreign traders). This area free of private property was marked with stones, some of which have been found.
Imperial Period Fountains
The real exuberance for water began with the creation of many aqueducts in Rome between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. During the same period, the number of city fountains increased significantly. They no longer drew water from underground sources, but were fed by the main branches of the aqueducts and their many offshoots.
One of the most famous fountains of this period, known as the Meta Sudans (literally “sweating meta“), was located in the square in front of the Colosseum. It was shaped like a huge cone, reminiscent of the poles used in circuses (they were called “<i”>metas”) to mark the ends of a racetrack. It became famous because the water in it did not flow out of the nozzle, but seeped from inside through a special porous stone, giving the fountain its original luster (“sweating”), which was an absolute novelty for the time.
During the Middle Ages, the Meta Sudans suffered considerable damage – in the earliest sketches of the Colosseum it already looks ruined. And in 1936, because of its very poor condition and the interference it caused to traffic, the fountain was completely removed and a commemorative disk was placed in its place.
On the opposite side of the Colosseum in the area of Ludus Magnus, the main barracks where gladiators lived and trained, you can see the restored remains of another small fountain. Emperor Domitian (81-96) built this complex next to the amphitheater so that it could be reached from it to the arena by an underground passage.
The large courtyard of Ludus Magnus had its own small amphitheater, recreating the setting of the Colosseum arena, and four triangular fountains at the corners, of which only one is now visible. Today, the lower half of the complex is under private buildings, and San Giovanni in Laterano Street runs through its center.
As public fountains became more numerous, so did their private counterparts, which adorned luxurious villas and had the most bizarre shapes. Some of the fountains were built with scenographic decorations – niches, grottos and halls decorated with statues, mosaics, frescoes and vegetation. These were the so-called nymphaea. They varied greatly in size, some being surprisingly huge. Most nymphaea were located in private areas, but there were also public ones.
An example of such a structure is the imposing ruins of Alexander Severus’s Nymphaeum, located in the park in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. It is better known as the “Trophies of Marius.” The fountain was the outlet of a secondary branch of the Aqua Iulia aqueduct.
The large central niche of the nymphaeum was occupied by sculpture, above which was a chariot. Two marble groups depicting weapons and armor taken from barbarians as spoils of war were set under the arches on either side. The base of the structure was quadrangular, with a series of niches around it, each containing a statue.
Surrounding the entire nymphaeum was a large basin that collected water flowing from several side openings. Unfortunately, none of the original decorations of the monument remain in their original place. The shape of the fountain is known only thanks to coins from that period bearing its image.
In the 1500s, both groups of trophies were still in the ruins of the Nymphaeum. But by the end of the century they had been moved to Capitoline Square, where they remain today. They were called the Mario Trophies because they were thought to commemorate the victories of the warlord Gaius Marius over the Cimbri and Teutons (Germanic tribes) in 101 BC.
However, the dating of the sculptures has now been moved back a couple of centuries. They are now tied to Emperor Domitian’s victory over another Germanic tribe, the Chatti (83 AD), or the Dacians (89 AD). Nevertheless, they are still at least a century older than the nymphaeum. That is, they were not carved for the fountain, but taken from some pre-existing monument.
The ruins retained the name “Mario Trophies” even after the removal of the sculptural groups. Today it is home to a colony of street cats.
Nearby is the nymphaeum of Licinius, built around the 4th century AD. What remains now is the original domed hall. The walls were probably covered with drawings and marble, with water flowing from the statues in the center, surrounded by flowers and plants.
The Nymphaeum stood in the gardens of the Licinius family villa. Its territory is now crossed by railroad lines. It still bears the name Temple of Minerva Medica, because of a statue of the goddess found nearby. The statue likely adorned the aforementioned gardens and misled researchers about the hall’s purpose.
The statues that adorned ancient Roman fountains were usually allegories of seas or rivers – bearded figures in a reclining position. One such statue, known as the Marforio, is in the courtyard of the Palazzo Nuovo, part of the Capitoline Museums. For centuries, the statue lay in the neighborhood just north of the Roman Forum. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V moved it to the Capitol, perhaps intending to make it a fountain again.
A document from the same year indicates that the statue bore the inscription MARE IN FORO (Sea in the Forum). This gave rise to the theory that the statue represented a sea deity. Now, however, scholars believe it refers to a river, possibly the Tiber. The original inscription is no longer legible. But the statue’s name clearly arose from it. The early sea interpretation explains why the missing hand was replaced with a new one holding a seashell.
However, there is another version of the origin of the statue’s name. According to some medieval sources, the fountain was located in a temple in the Forum of Mars, from which “Marforio” came. For the last few centuries, Marforio was quite popular among the inhabitants of Rome, as it belonged to the group of so-called “talking statues.”
During Marforio’s move to the Capitol, its huge circular pool was discovered. It was left in the Forum area, converted into a water trough for cattle and horses. A new water outlet in the form of a grotesque face was carved by Giacomo della Porta, a prominent fountain builder of the late 16th century.
In 1816, when the pool was partially filled with rubble, Pope Pius VII moved it to a more noble location in front of the Dioscuri statues in front of the Quirinal Palace. The grotesque face was used in another small fountain.
Of the other ancient fountains, we can mention the bowl of gray granite in front of the Basilica of Maxentius, known as the Fountain of the Great Niche (not to be confused with the one of the same name at Pincho Hill). The bowl comes from Ostia, where it was discovered in 1696.
The then ruling Pope Innocent XII installed it in the Palazzo di Montecitorio, then called the Curia Innocentia, where it remained for more than two centuries. After the palazzo was converted into the Lower Chamber of Parliament, in 1932 the bowl was moved to the newly opened Via Fori Imperiali and placed on a square travertine foundation to fill a high niche in the wall running along the street.
The flow of water comes from the center of the bowl and drains into a very simple lower basin. Each side of the bowl is decorated with a finely carved human face.
Similarly, during excavations, a huge pool of Egyptian granite was found under the foundations of the Palazzo Madama (converted into the Upper Chamber). It is very likely that it belonged to the fountain from the neighboring Thermae of Nero (now defunct).
The pool was installed on the same site, in Via Staderari, giving it a simple modern foundation and an in-ground octagonal basin, making it a fountain again.
To be dismantled, moved, rebuilt, moved again is the fate of many, not only antique, but also less ancient fountains in Rome.
