Location: In the E corner of the South Stoa I. Number 15 in the Agora plan of the Guide: Μc Camp II, J., The Athenian Agora, A Short Guide to the Excavations, Excavations of the Athenian Agora, Picture Book no 16, American School of Classical Studies, Princeton 2003, pp. 2 and 24-25.
Date of Construction: 530-520 BC
Periods of Use: Classical, Hellenistic, Roman
INTRODUCTION
This is the best-preserved structure in the South side of the Agora. It is an oblong square measuring 6.8 Χ 18.2m with its longer axis in E-W. A narrow passage separates it from the South Stoa Ι.
CLASSICAL PERIOD
The building originally featured three parts: a central room and two side rooms (measuring 3.2 Χ 5m); of these only few blocks of hard grey limestone survive, and more specifically the lower layer of stones adjoined using the polygonal system, while in other parts even the foundations have been lost. Based on the pottery and the masonry, it is dated to 530-520 BC. The foundation of the side rooms is of hard grey limestone in a polygonal arrangement. The floors are made of thin marble slabs resting on irregular pieces of limestone. The marble slabs are of an uneven length, but have been conjoined with care, while between the floor and the walls a layer of clay had been added for waterproofing. The floor of the central room was on a spot somewhat higher that that of the two flanking rooms. Of this central room nothing survives, but for the traces of the foundation dug into the rock. Its identification as a drinking fountain results from the existence of a clay pipe which supplied the building with water from the east side, as well as that of two drainage ducts designed so as to expel overflowing water from the two side rooms. In these two rooms the water must have gushed out of spouts placed on the wall. Both the side rooms were basin-like. There was probably some sort of a parapet, but very few traces of this survive today, only in the eastern room. One would enter the fountain from the main room and fill one’s receptacle directly from the lion-shaped spouts, which must have been placed rather low on the wall, or, more likely, by immersing it into the basin.
The floor of the central room lies 0.15m higher that the floor of the east room, but it is thought that this variance must have been approximately 0.5m.
The shape of the fountain corresponds to that of a 4th cent. fountain from Tinos (Αρχ.Εφημ. 1937, pp. 608-620) and also to representations of fountains on pottery of the late 6th cent. BC. We could mention especially a hydria in the British Museum which depicts a very similar fountain, with four columns in front of the central room and two side-rooms which do not, however, appear to function as basins (Μ. Τιβέριος, Ελληνικά Αγγεία, pp. 93, pic. 56, Athens 1996).
The curators of the Agora have reconstructed a building with three Doric columns in its facade, although, save for the foundation, no trace of them survives. We owe an alternative suggestion to L.C. Meritt; she reconstructed the fountain with two Archaic Ionic columns (one from the Acropolis) and three Ionic column-bases of island marble, which certainly belong to the same building. Apparently this suggestion did not gain support.
The Building’s Identification
Pausanias thought that this building was the Enneakrounos, the famous fountain built by Peisistratus. This view, however, is contradicted by a piece of information surviving in Thucydides, according to which the Enneakrounos was situated in another part of the city. It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the building so as to incorporate nine spouts.
HELLENISTIC PERIOD
In the first half of the 4th century BC, the area of the fountain was extensively reformed. The marble floor of the west basin was removed and replaced by large pieces of soft crème-coloured limestone. Possibly the same happened in the east as well as in the central room, but we have no clear indications. The excavators, however, think that in the central room, the floor was lowered by approximately 0.3-0.35m. These alterations rendered useless the Archaic Period pipes. The north side was walled up, and the water arrived now through an open duct starting from the SE corner. The part between the fountain and the South Stoa I was sealed with concrete. During the 3rd cent. AD, a well was dug in the south part of the building, an act connected with the raid of the Heruli in 267 AD, and possibly with the fountain’s abandonment. It is possible, nonetheless, that the fountain had fallen into disuse much earlier, when the other watering places of the Agora were constructed.
Pausanias thought that this building was the Enneakrounos, the famous fountain built by Peisistratus. This view, however, is contradicted by a piece of information surviving in Thucydides, according to which the Enneakrounos was situated in another part of the city. It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the building so as to incorporate nine spouts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mc CAMP II, J., The Athenian Agora: A Guide to the Excavation and Museum, 4th ed., Athens, 1990.
Μc CAMP II, J., The Athenian Agora, A Short Guide to the Excavations, Excavations of the Athenian Agora, Picture Book no 16, American School of Classical Studies, Princeton 2003. pp. 22.
Mc CAMP II, J., The Athenian Agora: Excavations in the Heart of the Classical City², Cambridge University Press 2001, pp. 64-65.
MERITT, L.S., “Some Ionic Architectural Fragments from the Athenian Agora”, in Studies in Athenian Architecture, Sculpture and Topography presented to Homer A. Thompson, Hesperia Supplement XX, Princeton 1982, pp. 82-92, tables 12-13.
THOMPSON, H.A., “Excavations in the Athenian Agora: 1952”, Hesperia 22 (1953), pp. 29-35.
THOMPSON, H.A., WYCHERLEY, R., The Agora of Athens. The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora, vol. XIV, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton 1972, pp. 197-200.
TRAVLOS, J., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens, Princeton 1971.
Southeast fountain, Representation in VR environment 
