For wealthy elite men in the eastern provinces of the ancient Roman Empire, providing public good works was part and parcel of being an elite member of a community. These good works included paying for games, festivals, and amenities, and office holders were expected to make monetary payment as part of the honor of being elected.1 In addition to such requisite payments for office, some magistrates and priests chose to use their own funds to furnish communities with additional amenities that went beyond the expenditure required for office; these amenities ranged from providing oil for athletes to financing building projects. Such gifts both improved the general quality of life in the community and elevated the patron’s social status, as largesse towards a community came with communal obligation to honor the benefactor.

Like their male counterparts, wealthy elite women living in the larger region of Greece and the eastern Greek cities of Anatolia during the time of the Roman Empire were both encouraged and obligated to participate in public life.2 They were expected to hold religious and, at times, civic positions that benefited the community, and these roles reflected the woman’s high social status as well as that of her family. While women’s public service brought recognition and responsibilities similar to those of men, from undertaking liturgies to sponsoring feasts to making distributions, modern scholars often downplay the financial and social agency of the women involved and/or frame their participation in the religious and municipal realms as primarily motivated by familial or community duty rather than personal social status.3 This article examines and contextualizes the physical remains of the hydraulic projects of five female patrons – Junia Rufina in Buthrotum, Regilla in Olympia, an anonymous woman in Priene, Julia Laterane in Ephesos, and Aurelia Paulina in Perge – to consider whether such interpretations of the motivations for women contributing amenities to the community warrant revision.

Junia Rufina in Buthrotum and Regilla in Olympia

In the first half of the second century CE, a civic benefactor monumentalized an existing well in the Roman colony of Buthrotum (modern Butrint) in the Roman province of Epirus. Fed by a flowing spring of mineral water, the rock-cut well was tucked into a corner formed by the city’s walls and accessed by a series of steps just inside the northern city gate, known today as the Lion Gate (figures 1 and 2). The natural well shaft, which Luigi Ugolini recorded as descending 4.20 m beneath the level of the pavement, was first embellished when the city’s fortification circuit was expanded in the third century BCE to include the natural well.4 At this time, a masonry wall was added to the three natural rock faces to create the well shaft. Shortly thereafter small stones were used to build up the lower parts of the walls. Then, in the first half of the second century CE, the walls were further built up with bricks and a vault made of brick-faced concrete was added to protect the water from sun and contaminants; this vault also transformed the appearance of the well into a shadowy grotto.5 The front parapet wall was formed by three large limestone slabs, and water was accessed by vessels attached to ropes slung over the front wall. The rope grooves worn into the white limestone balustrade attest to the popularity of the well’s sulphureous water, which, given the dedicatory inscription discussed in the next paragraph, probably was sacral in nature.

 

 

 

 

As part of the second-century CE renovations to the well, an inscription was incised across the front of the newly installed parapet wall (figure 3).6 Stretching over two meters in length and written in letters 6 centimeters tall, the monumental inscription identifies the person responsible for the renovations as follows:

’Ιουνία ‘Ρουφεῖνα νύμφῶν φίλη7

Junia Rufina, friend of the nymphs, (dedicated this)

This simple inscription for a major civic amenity is somewhat of an anomaly for its time and place in the second-century Greek east because it provides the female patron’s name without reference to any family members, including father, husband, and son. But there is at least one roughly contemporary parallel: the dedicatory inscription for a monumental fountain in Olympia built in the mid second century CE by a Roman woman named Regilla (figure 4). Located in the Altis, the sacred heart of the sanctuary, and often attributed to her husband and thus erroneously called the nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, this fountain consists of a two-storied semicircular façade stretching 31 m in length and framing a hypaethral apsidal basin, an architectural type that the emperor Hadrian had introduced to Greece a generation previous.8 The dedicatory inscription of the fountain was inscribed on the flank of an archaizing marble statue of a bull rather than a balustrade or other architectural feature (figure 5). This bull was found in 1878 in the middle of the lower rectangular settling basin,9 and so Renate Bol reconstructs it as standing along the central axis on the front wall of the apsidal settling basin (figure 6), where its visual and physical proximity to the water source parallels the centralized placement of Junia Rufina’s roughly contemporary inscription across the front parapet wall of the well in Buthrotum.

 

 

 

 

Both dedicatory inscriptions identify the monument’s patron by her relationship to divinities but not family members. In Olympia, Regilla’s priesthood for a local deity is highlighted:

῾Ρήγιλλα ἱέρεια / Δήμητρος τὸ ὕδωρ / καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸ ὕδωρ τῷ Διί10

Regilla, priestess of Demeter, (dedicated) the water and everything connected with the water to Zeus.

Philostratus credits the Athenian millionaire Herodes Atticus with the construction of an aqueduct at Olympia in honor of Zeus.11 And yet this dedicatory inscription clearly states that Regilla dedicated the apsidal fountain as well as the one-kilometer-long aqueduct feeding it during the year she served as priestess of Demeter Chamyne, which was probably in the 233^rd Olympiad (153 CE).12

The names of Regilla and Junia Rufina in their respective dedicatory inscriptions share two further similarities that make their monumental benefactions stand out among the hydraulic edifices built by female patrons in the region. First, their Latin names hint at ties to families in Rome, suggesting that the benefactors were gifting monuments to communities far from their birthplaces. Second, the lack of a patronymic or other indication of a familial relationship in the dedicatory inscription comes at a time when most female patrons of civic and religious edifices are identified as daughters, mothers, wives, and/or widows.13 For most women, this reference is to a male relative, but there are notable exceptions.14 For a non-imperial elite woman to not reference a family member in a monumental dedicatory inscription is unusual enough to suggest that either their familial information was provided elsewhere on the monument and/or these two women were so well known to the community that no further introduction was necessary.

In Regilla’s case, both options are probably at play. The daughter of the Roman senator Appius Annius Gallus and the patrician Atilia Caucidia Tertulla, Regilla was distantly related to the current empress Faustina the Elder and her daughter Faustina the Younger, statues of whom stood in Regilla’s fountain in Olympia. When Regilla’s father served as consul in 139 CE, he betrothed his thirteen- or fourteen-year-old daughter to the almost forty-year-old Herodes, who was a friend of the emperor and in Rome tutoring the future emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.15 The couple moved permanently to Greece after their first child was born and died in 141 CE and after Herodes served as consul in 143 CE.16 Regilla is not known to have returned to Italy again, instead living the rest of her brief life in Greece, where Herodes gifted her part of his ancestral villa at Marathon in Attica.17 According to Philostratus, she died in Athens while eight months pregnant; her brother prosecuted Herodes for her murder in 160 or 161 CE.18

The familial and imperial relationships that Regilla brought to the marriage are a major focal point of the fountain’s extensive sculptural display, which include 24 statues spread across two stories of the fountain’s back façade (figure 6). Each story of the façade featured eleven sculptural niches; the central niche in each story held a statue of Zeus. The remaining niches displayed four generations of honorific portraits, with the upper story showcasing Pentelic marble statues of Regilla, Herodes, and their family members.19 These were dedicated by the city of Elis, the polis in control of Olympia, and these statues effectively created a familial dynastic backdrop for the dedicatory inscription on the bovine statue at the front of the apsidal settling basin below.20 These statues included Regilla’s mother, father, grandfather, two daughters, and two sons as well as her husband, father-in-law, and mother-in-law.21 In the lower story, Herodes dedicated eleven slightly larger Pentelic marble statues of imperial family members, his name prominently inscribed on each of the statue bases.22 In other words, each of the twenty-four honorific portraits set into the architectural framework of the nymphaeum stood on a base that provided the name and titulature of the honored individual as well as the name of the dedicator – either Herodes or the city of Elis. This precise division and careful crediting of responsibilities – Regilla for the hydraulic infrastructure and architecture, Herodes for statues honoring the imperial family, and the Eleans for statues honoring the families of Regilla and Herodes – underscores the importance placed at the time on accurately recognizing each benefactor’s contribution to this major amenity for the sanctuary. It also illustrates the clear parceling of fiscal responsibility and commemorative roles among patron, husband, and local community.

Regilla’s paternal connection to Faustina the Elder brought her husband’s family a new level of social prestige and connection with the imperial house, and this connection was both highlighted in the sculptural display and juxtaposed with her husband’s prestige that had provided her entrance into the panhellenic community. The significance of Regilla’s imperial relationship is emphasized by her honorific statue, which repeats the costume and pose of the empress (figures 7 and 8). Both statues take the form known today as the Large Herculaneum Woman, a standard body type for elite Roman women across the empire. In the Antonine period, the Large Herculaneum Women was among the most common body types used for civic portraits of local and regional elite women,23 and yet only three statues take this form in the nymphaeum. One can be identified by portrait features as the current empress and Regilla’s distant relative, Faustina the Elder.24 The second can be identified as Regilla due to the body’s findspot in the middle of the apsidal basin as well as the fragments of a poorly preserved female head wreathed in laurel that Georg Treu matched to the statue due to its corresponding size and style (figure 9).25 Bol identifies the truly headless example as the deified empress Sabina.26

 

 

 

 

Jennifer Trimble has convincingly demonstrated that these richly draped matronly statues showcased the importance, wealth, and high social status of an elite family, and, because the Large Herculaneum Woman type was used by elite and imperial women across the empire, it provided elite women with the means to engage in an imperial-wide dialogue with social peers.27 By echoing the drapery and pose used for the statues of the former and current empresses that stood in the first story, Regilla’s statue in the upper story visually emphasized her Roman roots and placed her in conversation with the female members of the imperial family.28 This visual connection between the three women also serves as a reminder that Regilla’s relationship to the imperial family increased the social status of her Greek husband and his family.29 After her death, Herodes will add a temple of Demeter/Faustina to Regilla’s estate outside Rome, suggesting that these divine and imperial connections were essential components of her biography, either for Regilla, Herodes, or for both of them.30

At Olympia, details of the statue of Regilla remind the observant viewer that the new hydraulic monument was given to the sanctuary because of her role as priestess of Demeter. For, not only was the portrait head wreathed to indicate her statue as priestess, but it appears that the statue once held an attribute in the left hand. The fabric held by this hand has a long indentation carved into it with negative space above, suggesting that the hand once held an attribute like a sheaf of grain.31 In a similar fashion, the statue of her daughter, Elpinike, holds a phiale in the right hand, and that of her mother, Atilia Caucidia Tertulla, once held a round object – probably a pomegranate – in the left hand.32 All three symbols contribute to the overall picture of the venerable and intergenerational piety of the benefactress responsible for this major new amenity in the heart of Olympia.

The influence and fame of her millionaire husband guaranteed that Regilla herself was known to the Eleans, who in turn appointed her priestess of Demeter Chamyne. As a foreigner, Regilla was not eligible for hereditary priesthoods, and so the costly priesthood of Demeter was one of a limited number of prominent priesthoods open to her in Greece. The importance of a wife’s priesthoods for a family’s cultural capital is hinted at by the fact that Herodes incorporated a temple of Tyche into his stadium complex in Athens that was dedicated in 143/4 CE, and by the fact that Regilla served as the first priestess of the new cult.33 This priesthood, which Regilla probably held for life, permitted Regilla to preside over the athletic games associated with the venerable Panathenaic festival, integrating her into the longstanding Athenian traditions in a manner suitable for the foreign wife of the local millionaire and mother of his children. The cult and its Ionic temple of Tyche deliberately referenced the Classical past of Athens. Placed on a hill above the stadium and made of Pentelic marble, the temple contained an ivory cult statue, drawing inevitable comparison to the chryselephantine statue in the Parthenon.34 The strong ties between the newly created priesthood of Tyche and the venerable religious landscape of Athens probably paved the way for Regilla to become priestess of Demeter Chamyne at Olympia, positioning her as a pious benefactor with strong ties to the sacred heritage of Greece.35 These ties to Greek heritage are subtly highlighted by the dedicatory inscription for the fountain at Olympia. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, carving it into the flank of a bull was an unusual choice that recalls traditional dedications in Classical Greece.36 Such intentional archaizing emphasizes the longevity of this place sacred to Zeus, a god to whom the dedication of a bull was particularly suitable, and projects a picture of traditional piety that assimilates Regilla into the Greek community to which she now belongs.

Regilla is known to us not only through her fountain in Olympia, the temple of Tyche at Athens, the villa at Marathon, and Philostratus’ account of Herodes’ life, but also through additional monuments in Delphi and Corinth that suggest her years in Greece were punctuated by religious activity and regional travel.37 Junia Rufina, on the other hand, is known to us only through her dedication in Buthrotum. Without additional information, her biography cannot be recreated. But we can propose two hypotheses based on her name and the monument in Buthrotum. First: because she shares her name with the senatorial Junii Rufini and is named alone as the dedicant of the newly refurbished sacred well, it is tempting to consider whether she was related by birth to the Junius Rufinus who served as proconsul of the province of Macedonia under Hadrian – and thus approximately at the same time when Junia Rufina dedicated her edifice in the nearby province of Epirus.38 It is also possible but perhaps less likely, given that she built a monumental edifice in an area in which her familial name is otherwise absent, that she comes from a wealthy but less elite family that moved to the region. Second: Junia Rufina’s monumentalization of the natural well located at the outskirts of the walled city of Buthrotum suggests that Junia Rufina had become part of the community in Buthrotum, possibly through marriage. For if we look at the other monuments built by women in the Greek provinces, few lack a familial or priestly connection to the community. These include the Roman Regilla, who became connected to the panhellenic world through her marriage.

If Junia Rufina was Roman, then she, like Regilla, would not be permitted to serve in most civic and regional priesthoods. This limitation may help explain Junia Rufina’s statement that she is “friend of the nymphs,” a phrase that is unknown from other civic, sanctuary, or domestic contexts. Since the second century BCE, the priesthoods, liturgies, and civic positions held by female benefactors in the Greek east were recorded in their honorific and dedicatory inscriptions.39 This linking of benefaction with offices held emphasized the civic patron’s elite social standing and connected her project with a specific role she had played in the community, often indicating that the project was created because of the woman’s public role. Because “friend of the nymphs” is not attested elsewhere, this phrase may imply Junia Rufina’s relationship with the deities protecting the spring water accessed via the well in Buthrotum was an extraordinarily local title not otherwise preserved – or it may indicate Junia Rufina had an intense yet informal connection with the nymphs guarding the water source rather than a codified position in a cult.

In the Greek world, nymphs are associated with landscape features, particularly springs and natural caves, and caves dedicated to nymphs have been identified on several Ionian islands, including Leukas (modern Lefkada), Meganisi, Kephallenia (modern Cephalonia), and Korkyra (modern Corfu).40 On the mainland, Ambracia is the closest city to Buthrotum with a cave identified as sacred to the nymphs.41 But nymphs are also associated with the oracular fire spring at Apollonia,42 which is located approximately 100 km north of Buthrotum, as well as the oracular oak of Zeus at Dodona, which is located about the same distance to the southeast of Buthrotum. The latter had a priest of the nymphs during the Roman period.43 At Buthrotum, no priests or other direct evidence for the worship of nymphs is known. But Junia Rufina’s dedicatory inscription across the parapet of the cavernous well with sulphureous water is a strong indication that such a cult existed. The paved forecourt in front of the well suggests that an activity took place here beyond the utilitarian collecting of water (figure 1), and the stairs descending to this forecourt are reminiscent of those that provided access to the cave of the nymphs at Cyrene, where pregnant women ritually bathed and presented animal skins to Artemis.44 At Buthrotum, the person descending the staircase faced a prominent statue niche that presumably displayed the nymphs honored here; perhaps freestanding honorific statues also once stood on bases set at the top and/or bottom of the staircase, where they would frame the water source and ornament the space, like the portrait statues in Regilla’s fountain at Olympia.

The existence of a shrine to Pan, the male companion of the nymphs who was rumored to have died in Buthrotum during the reign of Tiberius (14-37 CE), provides additional evidence for a cult of the nymphs in the city.45 A first-century BCE inscribed boundary stele for the sanctuary was found just inside the Asklepieion Gate, leading David Hernandez and Richard Hodges to suggest that Pan shared the nearby crossroad shrine with the lares. This shrine featured a round altar, apsidal bench, and water basin.46 Interestingly enough, Ugolini found a statue base for Pasa, Pan’s female companion, dedicated by the same priest of Pan who was responsible for the boundary stele of Pan’s sanctuary.47 Perhaps this divine companion (a nymph?) provides a link between the cult of Pan and the well of Junia Rufina.

Comparing Junia Rufina and her expansion of an existing well with Regilla and her newly built nymphaeum brings this otherwise unknown civic patron into clearer focus. Probably related to the governor of Macedonia Junius Rufinus, Junia Rufina presumably married to someone with ties to Buthrotum. Ineligible for most Greek priesthoods, Junia Rufina honored the local deities of her new community in the ways open to her: through her monumental building project and her formal or informal status of “friend of the nymphs.”

If we leave mainland Greece and move to the Roman province of Asia Minor, we will find the material remains of fountains and wells associated with female benefactors in three cities: Ephesos, Priene, and Perge. None of these women are contemporaries of Junia Rufina and Regilla, but each provides a glimpse of a different way in which a woman was involved in funding hydraulic amenities while fulfilling civic and religious roles for their local community. These examples have the potential to shed further light on what is missing from Junia Rufina’s well: the decorative features.

Women and hydraulic works in Roman Asia Minor

In Asia Minor, elite women had been serving as priestesses and other cult agents since the Archaic period,48 and in the late third or early second century BCE, the positions available to women broadened to include eponymous offices in certain cities.49 Eponymous magistracies were fairly expensive positions for the office holder, and Riet van Bremen has pointed out that cities depended on a small collective of individuals and families to share the financial burdens of the municipality; she suggests the addition of female benefactors to the rotation of potential eponymous office holders helped spread out financial burdens.50 In addition to holding eponymous magistracies, women also held offices with primarily monetary duties, including the ἀγωνοθεσία, which is involved in organizing and financing games or festivals, and the γυμνασιαρχία, which funded various aspects of gymnasium life. These expensive offices could be attached to priesthoods that women might share with their husbands. Because the few civic offices open to women were primarily limited to religious, financial, and ceremonial duties, van Bremen has suggested that the perceived difference between a female priestess and a female eponymous magistrate would have been slight; naming the year after a woman who was willing to preside over and pay for civic sacrifices and public banquets was a relatively small tradeoff for the benefits experienced by the community during and after her tenure.51

In ṭhe city of Priene, an inscription dating to the first century BCE or later names a woman (whose name is unfortunately is not preserved) as the patron of the city’s updated civic water supply. The dedicatory inscription in question is located on an unadorned bluish marble pillar just over one meter tall that was modified to contain a water pipe and three spouts from which water could be accessed:52

[ ]ή̣ Ἀπολλωνίου
[γυ]νὴ δὲ Θεσσαλοῦ
[τ]οῦ Πολυδεύκου,
[στ]εφανηφορήσα[σα]
[πρ]ώτη γυναικῶν ἀν[έ]-
θηκε παρ’ ἑαυτῆς τ[ὸ]
ἐγδοχῖον τοῦ [ὕ]δ̣ạτ[ος]
καὶ τὰ ἐν τῆι πόλε[ι]
ὑδραγώγια53

…e, daughter of Apollonios and wife of Thessalos son of Polydeukes, was the first woman to hold the office of στεφανήφορος. She built with her own resources a water reservoir and the pipelines in the city.

This simple street fountain, which is located just below a reservoir and about 50 m from the theater, is one of three such street fountain pillars found in the early twentieth-century excavations of the city.54 The commonalities between these modest fountains suggest that the pipelines mentioned in the inscription reference an updated civic hydraulic network supplying water throughout the city rather than an aqueduct bringing water into the city.

Water delivered to Priene via the aqueduct was stored in three cisterns and distributed throughout the city by the system of pipes that fed the network of public fountains and some private homes.55 Priene’s original water distribution system dates to the city’s founding in the fourth century BCE, and from the beginning its potable water sources were part of a sophisticated street grid system that included basins for easy drainage.56 The anonymous woman’s benefaction of a civic reservoir and a refurbished civic fountain network centuries later represented a major investment in public infrastructure and civic life that supported urban growth and sanitation.

An updated hydraulic network was among the most generous gifts any individual could give to a city, and in this case the street fountain’s inscription links the woman’s munificence with the stephanephorate: the chief eponymous magistrate of Priene. The individual holding this annual position was responsible for funding monthly sacrifices for the city’s gods and banquets for the city’s citizens. The hydraulic system donated by this particular officeholder would ensure her service remained vivid in collective memory, providing a far more conspicuous memorial than the customary cup dedicated to Zeus by the eponymous magistrate upon completing the annual term.57 The reservoir and newly refurbished fountains provided a permanent reminder of the unique position the generous benefactress had held as the city’s first female στεφανήφορος.58

In marked contrast to Junia Rufina and Regilla, the benefactress of Priene’s refurbished water network is identified by her relationships to three male members of her family: her father, her husband, and her father-in-law. This placing of the woman in Priene through her relationship with male family members is common in the Greek east, where civic munificence of individuals augmented and reflected the family’s social status.59 But sometimes this lineage would include female family members as well. For instance, in the early second century CE, Theogenis identifies herself as daughter of not only her father, Iason, but also of her mother, Mnemosyne.60 Theogenis served at Didyma as ὑδροφόρος (water-bearer), which was an annual priesthood of Artemis Pythia held by young elite women. The ὑδροφόρος not only presided over the sacrifices and mystery rites for the goddess but also provided feasts and made regular cash distributions to the council members, citizens, women, and children of Didyma.61 Going above and beyond these monetary expectations of the office, Theogenis provided the sanctuary’s water supply. In honor of her position, her mother, father, and brother also provided the sanctuary with new water pipes, wells, reservoirs, and fountains.62

Epigraphic evidence for female benefactions can be found throughout Anatolia, revealing that in the centuries following the refurbishing of Priene’s hydraulic network, elite women throughout the region provided communities with civic building projects ranging from baths to gymnasia while serving in any number of religious and civic offices.63 Most of the extant or recorded inscriptions that mention a female patron cannot be associated with the physical remains of an architectural monument, leaving many questions about how the characterization of the woman in the inscription relates to her presentation in the monument she created. Among the notable exceptions are the hydraulic network and monumental fountains located in Ephesos, to which we will turn now.

Julia Lydia Laterane in Ephesos

While jointly serving as high priests of the imperial cult under Trajan, Claudius Aristion and Julia Lydia Laterane bequeathed a massive and costly hydraulic system to the city of Ephesos (ca. 102-114 CE). The donation included a twenty-mile-long aqueduct that terminated at a two-story π-shaped fountain commonly known today as the nymphaeum of Trajan (Figure 10). The two-story façade of the monument stretches 17 m in length and has a total height of 9.5 m. Two-story lateral projecting wings of the façade (7.5 m long) frame a rectangular settling basin, which is fronted by a narrow draw basin that stretched across the entire 17 m length of the edifice.64 The dedicatory inscription for the project filled the frieze course of the fountain’s first story:

[Ἀ]ρτέμιδι Ἐφ[ε]σία̣ κα[ὶ] Αὐ[τοκράτορι] Νέρουα̣ Τρα[ιανῷι Κα]ίσα[ρι Σεβαστῷ]ι Γερμ[ανικ]ῶ̣ Δακικῷι καὶ τῇ πατρίδι Κλαύδιος Ἀριστίων τρὶς ἀσιάρχης καὶ νεωκό[ρος] | [με]τὰ Ἰουλίας Λυδίας Λα[τερανῆς – ίλ]λη[ς] τῆ[ς γυναικός,] θυγα[τ]ρὸς Ἀσίας, ἀρχιε[ρείας καὶ πρυτά]νεως [ ] ὕδωρ [εἰσαγαγών δι᾽ οὗ κ[ατεσκεύασεν ὀχ]ετοῦ διακοσίων καὶ δέκα σταδίων καὶ τὸ ὑδρεκδοχῖον σὺν παντὶ τῶ̣ κόσμω̣ ἀνέθηκεν ἐκ τῶν ἰδί[ων] 65

To Ephesian Artemis and to the Emperor Nerva Trajan Caesar Augustus Germanicus Dacicus and to the fatherland. Claudius Aristion, thrice asiarch and temple warden, with his wife, Julia Lydia Laterane …illa, daughter of Asia, high priestess and chief magistrate, he dedicated the [ ] water, having brought it 210 stades through the water conduit he constructed, and the water reservoir, with all its decorations, at his own expense.

This dedication, which clearly states that Aristion alone paid for the lengthy aqueduct feeding the fountain as well as the fountain’s architecture and sculptural display, recalls the precision with which the benefactors of the fountain at Olympia accounted for who paid for which aspects of the monument. At the nymphaeum of Trajan, Aristion’s fiscal responsibility with the statement that he used his own money (ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων) for the project. What makes Aristion’s precision here particularly interesting is that a similar list of features he paid for is not provided for a second two-story π-shaped fountain dedicated by the couple near the Magnesian Gate. This fountain, which stretched 27 m in length and was 16.3 m tall, stood in a section of the city beyond the reach of the new aqueduct line Aristion built:

Ἀρτέμιδι Ἐφεσίᾳ καὶ Αὐτοκράτορι Νέρουᾳ Τραιανῷ Καίσα]ρι Σεβαστῷ Γ[ερμανικῷ] Δακικῷ καὶ τῷ δ[ή]μῳ Ἐφεσίων Τιβ. [Κλαύδιος Ἀριστίων ἀρχιερεὺς] τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ νεοκόρος μετὰ Ἰουλίας Λυδίας Λατερανῆς ἀρχιερείας καὶ θυγατρὸς Ἀσίας | [σὺν παντὶ] τῷ κόσμῳ66

To Ephesian Artemis and to the Emperor Nerva Trajan Caesar Augustus Germanicus Dacicus and to the city of Ephesos. Tiberius Claudius Aristion, high priest of Asia and temple warden, [dedicated this monument] with Julia Lydia Laterane, high priestess and daughter of Asia, with all its decoration.

For this fountain near the Magnesian Gate, no mention is made of the hydraulic infrastructure. Rather, the emphasis is on Aristion’s responsibility for all aspects of the sculptural display (σὺν παντὶ τῶ̣ κόσμω).

 

 

In both dedicatory inscriptions, Aristion is identified as high priest of the imperial cult in Asia Minor (ἀσιάρχης and ἀρχιερεύς τῆς Ἀσίας) and temple warden (νεωκόρος) while Laterane is identified as high priestess of the imperial cult in the same region (ἀρχιέρεια). These titles indicate that Aristion and Julia Laterane were serving the imperial cult jointly when the hydraulic system was promised or dedicated, and, at first glance, the listing of offices seems to put the husband and wife on equal footing. But the use of the phrase “with his wife” in both dedicatory inscriptions and the third person singular verbs in the dedicatory inscription of the nymphaeum of Trajan indicate that Aristion alone paid for the two fountains. Van Bremen notes that wives in Ephesos were most typically involved in building projects not as primary sponsors, but as secondary participants in their husbands’ undertakings.67 These two fountains dedicated by Aristion and Julia Laterane but paid for by Aristion alone speak to the ways that building projects acknowledged and augmented an elite family’s presence in the city as well as a traditional ideological preference for elevating a primary male above other members of the family.

In the second century CE, the position of ἀρχιέρεια was often held by wives serving jointly with their husbands, and in Ephesos it was usually held by women who had already served as the eponymous magistrate of Ephesos (πρύτανις) or priestess of Artemis.68 In the dedicatory inscription of the nymphaeum of Trajan, Laterane’s previous position as πρύτανις is listed, confirming that Laterane’s public service is part of this general trend. The πρύτανις and ἀρχιέρεια are annual positions held by an elite woman in Ephesos over the course of many years, and thus their inclusion in their inscription provides a window onto the municipal expectations placed on Laterane over the course of her life.

Most female πρυτάνεις were unmarried, and none of these women held the office in conjunction with a husband,69 and so Laterane probably held the position before marriage and while still living in her father’s household. Serving as πρύτανις was an expensive and time-consuming honor that provided a woman’s family a good deal of public exposure. Like many of the women who held eponymous offices in Asia Minor, Laterane may have served either because it was her family’s turn in the rotation or because her family saw this as an opportunity to enhance her family’s visibility and prestige in the community.70 The inclusion of Laterane’s position as πρύτανις in the dedicatory inscription speaks to her birth family’s wealth and status in the Ephesian community more so than her husband’s, and thus the inscription provides a statement of Laterane’s intersecting obligations to her family and community as daughter and wife. The dedicatory inscription summarizes the trajectory of Laterane’s lifetime of public service within a single city, moving from unmarried πρύτανις to married priestess of the imperial cult.71

The inscription of the nymphaeum of Trajan emphasizes that Aristion paid for the project with his own money, and both fountains’ inscriptions emphasize that the bequest included all of the decorative elements. The decorative program of the Fountain of the Magnesian Gate is no longer extant, but the decorative program of the nymphaeum of Trajan emphasizes the imperial cult served by Aristion and Laterane. The focal point of the monument was a twice-life size statue of Trajan, beneath whose feet water poured into the monument. Aristion and Laterane’s shared position in the imperial cult explains the overpowering emphasis of the sculptural arrangement on the divinity of the emperor. The other statue niches along the two stories of the back and lateral facades were occupied by life size or smaller statues of gods and their entourages, the local hero Androkles, members of the imperial family, and presumably Laterane and Aristion. No statue of Aristion has been found among the display, but a portrait statue of a woman with a Trajanic hairstyle stood in the northeast intercolumniation of the lower story’s eastern lateral wing; Robert Fleischer identifies this figure as Laterane (figure 11).72 Dressed in a chiton and weighty mantle and depicted in the so-called Ceres type, the statue’s stance recalls that of a caryatid, with the columnar weight leg hidden beneath the folds of her drapery and the knee of the free leg pushed forward. A doubled-over roll of fabric pulled from beneath the right arm to the left shoulder is a common motif in female statues from the end of the fifth century BC to the fourth century CE.73 Rarer is the detail of the doubled-over fabric at the bottom of the mantle, which the left hand lifts to expose the chiton beneath. These two rolls of fabric create strong diagonals that draw attention to the activities of the hands: the now-missing right hand that presumably held an attribute associated with her office and the left hand that lifts and pull the fabric of the mantle across her lower body in a manner reminiscent of an Archaic kore. Laterane’s classicizing stance and archaizing gesture emphasizes the Greek heritage she shared with the citizens of Ephesos at a time when many female donors in the Greek east had honorific statues that highlighted their status as Roman citizens.

 

 

Aurelia Paulina at Perge

Regilla’s combined use of the dedicatory inscription on the flank of the archaizing bull and wreathed portrait statue to emphasize her ephemeral position as priestess of Demeter in her fountain at Olympia is taken a step further in the unusual hydraulic monument at Perge built by Aurelia Paulina during the reign of Septimius Severus (193-211 CE). Former priestess of the imperial cult and current priestess of Artemis Pergaia, Aurelia Paulina claims sole fiscal responsibility for the monument and its decoration:

[ἰέρε]ια θεᾶς Ἀρτέ[μ]ιδος [Πε]ργαίας ἀσύλου διὰ

[βί]ọụ Αὐρηλία Παυλῖνα
[ἀρχ] ι̣ερασαμένη τῶν
[Σεβ]αστῶν ἐν τῇ Σιλλυ-
[έων] πόλει μετὰ τοῦ γενο-
[μέν]ου ἀνδρὸς αὐτῆς Ἀκυ-
[λίου τ]ọῦ φύ(σει) υἱοῦ Κιδραμύου,
[θυγάτ]ηρ δὲ Διονυσίου Ἀπέλλου
[…] καὶ Αἰλιανῆς Τερτύλλης,
[τειμηθ]εῖσα δὲ καὶ ὑπὸ θεοῦ Κομό-
[δου πολ] ι̣τείᾳ Ῥωμαίων, τὸ ὑδρεῖο[ν]
[ἐκ θεμε]λ̣ίων σὺμ παντὶ τῷ περὶ αὐ-
[τὸ κόσμῳ] κ̣ατασκευάσασα ἐκ τῶν ἰ[δί]-
[ων] κ̣α̣θ̣ι̣έ̣ρ̣ω̣ς̣[εν]74

Aurelia Paulina, priestess for life of asylum-granting Artemis Pergaia, daughter of Apellas the son of Dionysos and Aelia Tertulla, formerly the priestess of the imperial cult in the city of Sillyon alongside her deceased husband Aquilius the son of Kidramuas, was presented with Roman citizenship by Commodus. She built and inaugurated this ὑδρεῖον and all its ornamentation at her own expense.

Of all the aspects of her identity presented in the inscription – daughter, granddaughter, widow, Roman citizen, and priestess –, Aurelia Paulina focuses the architectural and decorative details of her monument on her connection with the local cult of Artemis Pergaia.75 The decidedly asymmetrical monument stretches 16.4 m in length and is visually divided into two parts: a newly built nymphaeum and a pre-existing well sacred to Artemis Pergaia (figures 12 and 13).76 The nymphaeum, which takes up the larger portion of the monument to the north, features a rectangular two-story aedicular façade fronted by a rectangular settling basin. The venerable well, which occupies a smaller footprint to the south, is covered by a barrel vault and framed by twin two-story projecting aediculae.

 

 

 

This monumentalization of a sacred well recalls Junia Rufina’s renovations to the sacred well at Buthrotum. At Perge, however, the spring water tapped by the well is augmented by the piped water supply newly added to the monument at the same time as the original water source is given new focus. For the arch over the well was surmounted by a niche in the second story and a decorated pediment in the attic (Figure 14). This pediment presents Artemis in her Pergaian costume of a long chiton and radiate crown.77 Tending to an altar, Artemis stands among several divine figures, including Apollo and the three graces. A veiled figure wearing a belted chiton over trousers stands on the other side of the altar from the goddess and twists her head back to gaze at Artemis. Arif Mansel identified this figure, with its high cheekbones and fleshy cheeks, as a priestess of Artemis Pergaia. But this figure stands at the same height as the deities in the frieze, and so cannot represent a mortal woman.78 Rather than looking in this frieze for a portrait of Aurelia Paulina, we should consider the real possibility that an honorific statue of the benefactor once stood in the central niche directly below this relief and above the sacred well.79

 

 

Like the fountains associated with Laterane in Ephesos, this fountain at Perge is dedicated to the emperors, the local divinity, and the city itself.80 At Perge, however, the list of dedicants also includes the empress Julia Domna, a statue of whom stood in the lower story of the northern aedicula flanking the well.81 A statue of Septimius Severus stood on the other side of the well, leaving the niches in the upper story open for statues of Aurelia Paulina and her family members, perhaps including her paternal grandmother mentioned in the dedicatory inscription. Such a sculptural display would echo the ones at Olympia and Ephesos.

This display of local divinities, the imperial family, and the patron’s family is typical for monumental fountains built by non-imperial elites in the second and third centuries.82 Like Regilla, Aurelia Paulina is presented in her local priestly role and focuses the artistic water display on the local divinity rather than the emperor, choices that stand in stark contrast to the colossal statue of Trajan dominating the central axis of the ὑδρεκδοχεῖον at Ephesos, a monument dedicated when its patrons were priests of the imperial cult. Whereas Regilla chose a fountain form inspired by the imperial fountain type introduced to Greece under Hadrian, Aurelia Paulina chose a unique architectural form, the asymmetry of which is unrelated to the current trends in Roman architecture. Rather, the architectural type was created to physically embrace and reframe the preexisting sacred well within the religious and familial history of Aurelia Paulina. I think the architectural and sculptural reframing of the well at Perge may provide a useful comparative reference when thinking about why Junia Rufina added an arched roof over the well at Buthrotum. Like at Perge, the vaulted roof at Buthrotum not only protected the waters within but also added vertical space above. Might imagery have also been added here related to the worship of the nymphs?83 For, the monuments and inscriptions at Perge, Ephesos, and Olympia make it clear that we are missing the decorative elements that once augmented and complemented the reconceived well at Buthrotum.

Conclusion

Monumental fountains like the ones sponsored by Regilla, Laterane, and Aurelia Paulina were built in select cities and sanctuaries. These eye-catching and imposing monuments gave visual and lasting form to the prestige of all involved in the construction: the patron(s), the city or sanctuary in which it was built, and the deities to whom they were dedicated. In the inscriptions associated with each edifice, the woman is identified as a priestess of the imperial cult and/or an important local cult, indicating that she participated fully in the avenues of public life traditionally traversed by elite women in the second and third centuries CE. In addition, all three women are visually placed alongside their family members in the decorative program of the hydraulic edifice.

But beyond these communalities the women diverge, with only Laterane providing an example of what we might (wrongly) assume to be the most typical way for a woman to dedicate a civic monument: a co-dedication with her husband that was completely paid for by her husband. This monument is in Ephesos, which was the capital of the Roman province of Asia after 89 CE. Here, Laterane and her husband Claudius Aristion, who are both Ephesians, jointly dedicated the Hydrekdocheion of Trajan to the city, its gods, and the emperor while jointly serving the imperial cult at some point between 102-114 CE. At Olympia, the Roman Regilla, priestess of Demeter and wife of the Athenian millionaire Herodes, dedicated a two-story nymphaeum in 153 CE, the first source of potable water in the sacred Altis.84 Despite its modern name, Herodes was only fiscally responsible for a portion of the sculptural program; Regilla paid for the architecture and aqueduct. In Perge, Aurelia Paulina, a former priestess of the imperial cult in her husband’s hometown and a lifelong priestess in Perge with a Roman name,85 single handedly updated a sacred well of Artemis Pergaia with a striking new fountain (ca. 198-211), effectively adding a second water source that refocused attention on to the sacral one.

In light of these benefactions, it becomes clear that key elements are missing from Junia Rufina’s well at Buthrotum. Most notable are the decorative elements, which would have included images of the nymphs to whom the well was dedicated. The sculptural display, which was conceived of as an integral component of almost every architectural monument in the second century CE,86 probably included at least an honorific statue of the benefactor, if not her family members and members of the imperial family. While Junia Rufina’s well may appear anomalous today, situating it within the larger framework of female hydraulic patronage – including the hydraulic networks at Priene and Didyma – helps us better understand what was once there and thus less atypical.

These women and their monuments illustrate the range of patronage that was possible for an elite Roman woman: as a daughter who provides a hydraulic network alongside her parents and siblings, as a wife who co-dedicates an edifice with her husband but does not contribute monetarily to the project, as a wife who dedicates and pays for the architecture and hydraulics but leaves the sculptural display to be sponsored by husband and city, as a widow who acts on her own authority and with her own funds. In each case, the civic and/or cultic offices named in the accompanying inscriptions seem to have provided the woman with the authority and impetus for bequeathing such monuments to communities. As priestesses, women served as guardians of venerable community traditions. As patrons, they leveraged their priestly or communal positions to build monuments that spoke to their importance to family and community alike.

Ultimately, hometowns – either birthplaces or adopted – were the central arenas in which women gained public visibility as benefactors and priestess, although women with panhellenic priesthoods and familial connections, like Regilla, could attain recognition on a broader stage. By choosing a monument type that nourished their communities physically and symbolically, Junia Rufina, Regilla, the anonymous woman in Priene, Laterane, and Aurelia Paulina positioned themselves not just as caretakers of family legacies, but as enduring stewards of civic wellbeing.