Nymphaeum (Olympia) (Latin, ), etymologically "home of the nymphs" or water goddesses, at ancient Olympia was the official name of a water-distribution structure constructed in the mid-2nd century at that site to provide water to the masses who attended the Olympic Games in July and August. Nymphaeum was the general name throughout the Mediterranean for an ornate structure that terminated an aqueduct bringing water from distant elevated terrain, say a stream or copious springs.Noting that the use of the term Nymphaeum for secular purposes dates to the 2nd century, Aristodemou distinguishes several types of Roman Nymphaea: 1. Caves 2. Royal (rectangular with arch and apse) 3. Cascading, or water theatre 4a. "Sigmoid" (exedrae or fountain-houses, such as the Olympic) 4b. Rectilinear 4c. Row of niches. This one had substructures, statues, and ornately patterned stonework; its main purpose, however, was functional. It received water from the aqueduct into a cistern and released it by stages into a system of open and closed channels leading around the site. The end partaker of the water carried a secular patera, or small drinking bowl, around with him, dipping into an open trough for the water, as is suggested by the fact that at least some of the statues carried such paterae in one hand (though they may also have been performing libations). Troughs went everywhere through the site to accommodate the crowds.
The Nymphaeum is a late feature at the site. Prior to then the more permanent population of athletes, trainers, and administrators relied on wells or short conduits to the Kladeos river, while the spectators suffered greatly, with only the water they could carry in. In mid-century Herodes Atticus, a wealthy savant, engineer, and friend, teacher, and confidant of emperors, was invited to attend the games with his wife Appia Annia Regilla, who was made an honorary priestess of Demeter to get around the exclusion of women. After experiencing the water deficit first hand, he promised to construct at his expense ample water facilities. By the next Olympiad, a first-rate water distribution system, which came to be known as the Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, had been constructed. It served as a copious water supply for new baths and the swimming pool of the new grand hotel. More importantly, long troughs brought drinking water along the sides of every playing field for the use of anyone there.
The construction involved more than just the fountain: an aqueduct was an essential part of it. The engineering team had to locate a good source of fresh water and build an aqueduct from it, tunneling through the hill. As it turned out, the source was very likely part of the municipal water supply of ancient Greek Pisa. From the fountain, the water had to be distributed to the whole site. The engineers provided open troughs in publicly accessible places. Hidden pipes went through the walls for transport in places not accessed by the public.
Development of the water problem at Olympia The Nymphaeum and its entire water supply system are historical developments of Roman Olympia; that is, of the imperial period during which the Romans took a deep interest in the Olympic Games, contributing funds to Olympia, helping to manage the site, competing in its games, and contributing to the new Greco-Roman culture. This phase flourished in the 2nd century. The Romans had dominated at Olympia since the late Roman Republic, but with varying policy toward and varying treatment of it, until, in the time of the "good emperors," they came down solidly in its favor and made many contributions.
A closer connection of Olympia to the Romans began when Elis joined the Achaean League after the Second Macedonian War (200–196 BC), during which the League had been an ally of Rome against Macedon. Rome won. In the subsequent Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC) the League chose the wrong side, leading to its punishment in the Achaean War (146 BC). Roman commander Lucius Mummius Achaicus sacked Corinth. The Senate subsequently dissolved the League and lumped its members into the new province of Macedonia. Olympia was disrespected as the symbol of a subjected enemy. Its moveable wealth was plundered and the statuary was shipped off to Rome.
Finally defeating the last contenders of the long Roman civil war, Octavius Caesar implemented the plan he had made with his adopted father, Julius. The platform had two main planks. First, powerful men were to be suppressed so that they would trouble Rome no more with their bids for power. Second, peace and good government were to be cultivated assiduously (Pax Romana). A new province was created for Greece, Achaea. Changing their policy toward Olympia, the Romans began to invest heavily in its future. The price to the Greeks was that the Romans adopted the place, competing in its games and becoming partners in its management.
All throughout the reigns of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and succeeding Flavian Dynasty; that is, the 1st century, Olympia attracted large numbers of contenders and spectators, becoming an international attraction. It expanded to accommodate the traffic. Among other changes, the stadium was pushed out and the palaistra was moved from the Echo Stoa to its current location. The water resources were not equal to the population. Both pump-up and gravity-flow facilities provided a minimum of drinkable water. By 1898 archaeologists had found nine wells, which required lifting water out. The lines must have been long. Each spectator would have had to bring his own jug.
There were a few facilities that received water from the Kladeos by short aqueducts, notably the "Greek baths," an open swimming pool, built over in the Roman period by the Kladeos baths. The pool was by by deep. Under it are the remains of a channel pointed south, presumed to have connected to the pool and the Kladeos lower down. It was presumed supplied by surface channels nearby, but not enough of them remains to trace the connections exactly, and that is true of a more extensive channel system northwest of the Phillipeion; that is, between Kronos and the Kladeos Wall. These channels date from the 5th to the 2nd centuries BC. As the elevation of the Kladeos baths is only and the elevation of the river at the bridge from the town to the park is , the channels must have taken water from the north of the park, above the Kladeos Wall, and diverted it to the facilities. The location of the future Nymphaeum was higher than these mini-aqueducts and thus inaccessible to them. Whether any structures, such as a spring capture, preceded the Nymphaeum is not known. Waste water must have drained to the south toward the confluence of the Kladeos and the Alfeios. The town must have had first options on the Kladeos above Olympia for its municipal water, but that is not known either.
The flow of the Kladeos was never great. When it rained it grew muddy. The lower Kladeos could not be used because all rivers next to settlements received the effluent of sewer ditches, mainly latrines. Roman sanitary regulations required a ditch or other channel with water flowing in it. The toilet seats were placed over the ditch, typically in a row, without regard to male or female. If there were any wooden superstructures, they did not survive.Judging from the graffiti and the baths it is probably safe to say that the Greeks and Romans were somewhat more frank about the body than today. Their idealization of it in sculpture is among the world's great art. On the south side, the swifter and more copious Alpheios was of little help because the water, flowing through limestone its whole distance, was too hard (high in dissolved carbonates) to drink.The Romans did not address the problem, for reasons unknown now. It was probably true that some people, such as the athletes, trainers and managers, as well as important visitors, had no problem obtaining water. The masses that arrived in July and August, the hottest months of the year, unrelieved by rain, apparently suffered the most. Infectious diseases were rampant, which the citizenry blamed on lack of water (being unfamiliar with microbes). Visiting Olympia could be a hellish experience, yet the spectators continued to show up in large numbers. This was the situation as Herodes Atticus found it in the middle of the 2nd century.
The gravity flow system of Herodes Atticus Engineering principles
The ancients had many methods of obtaining water from a source, all either pump-up or gravity flow. The simplest pump-up was a woman filling and carrying a water vessel to the location of use. If the source was not a surface one they dug for it, as at Mycenae, where a tunnel led down to a spring. Potential energy is added in pump-up, not necessarily by humans, but also by animals and mechanical devices.
In gravity flow the water loses potential energy. The water must always be kept moving downhill. Rain capture is one such system, in which rain falling on a roof or terrace drains into a gutter and exits the latter from a spout. So many lion's head spouts were found at Olympia that all the larger buildings must have had them. The method is not effective, however, if it does not rain. A second method is spring capture, in which a spring empties into a collection basin and is piped or channeled from there, such as Delphi had. There was, however, no Mount Parnassus at Olympia.
None of these methods being effective for municipal water, the Romans became adept at stream capture. Military camps were sited at locations where a stream would run through the camp, usually halfway up a hill. Larger settlements tapped streams from elevated terrain many miles away. The Romans built chutes, or aqueducts, that descended at a low gradient, crossing valleys on bridges and going through hills in tunnels. The key engineering principle was that the downward slope must be kept over the entire length. At the terminus was an elaborate distribution structure, called in the 2nd century a nymphaeum, "home of the nymphs," or water goddesses.
It is in the building of these systems that Herodes Atticus had become in essence a civil engineer with expertise in water supply. It was the duty of wealthy men to manage projects such as these, as it had been under the Republic, at their own expense, or assisted by empire funds, although they could levy taxes to cover it (not a popular method). Prominent men who refused the duty found themselves in public odium, or worse, imperial odium.
The aqueduct The Nymphaeum at Olympia was excavated 1877–1878 and the results were published in 1892.. Reported in The initial excavators believed they had found a spring capture, which they called "the exedra" (ex-hedra for *ex-sedra, "sitting room") in the sense of "spring house." The name stuck for decades. They saw it as a kind of grotto carved into the hill from which a spring was presumed to have flowed.One of the last presentations of the site as a grotto can be found in In it following Adler the rear wall is presented as a sort of hood buried in a cutting in the hill. By Adler's publication the aqueduct had been discovered, but the concept of a spring-house in a grotto still clung to it.