Roman and Grecian Curbs.
43
Chap. 6.]
we threw a pebble, but there was no water, and we should have beensorry had there been any, for our United strength could not have removedthe seal.”
Notwithstanding the precautions used, shepherds were often detectedin fraudulently watering their flocks at their neighbors’ wells, to preventwhich, locks were used to secure the covers. These continued to beused tili recent times. M. Chardin noticed them in several parts of Asia .The wells at Suez, according to Niebuhr, are surrounded by a strongwall to keep out the Arabs , and entered by a door ‘fastened with enor-mous clamps of iron.’ ln Greeee as in Asia , those wer efined who stolewater. When Themistocles during his banishment was in Sardis, he ob-served in the temple of Cybele a female figure of brass, called ‘ Hydro-phons’ or Water Bearer, which he himself had caused to be made anddedieated out of the fines of such as had stolen the water, or diverted thestream. 3 One of the Greek emperors of Constantinople issued an edictA. D. 404, imposing a fine of a pound of gold for every mnce of watersurreptitiously taken from the reservoirs. b And a more ancient ruler re-marked that ‘ stolen waters are sweet.’ Proverbs, ix, 17. The ancientPeruvians had a similar law.
Curbs or parapets were generally placed round the mouths of wells inthe cities of Greeee and Rome , as appears from many of them preserved tothe present time, as well as those discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum .The celebrated mosaic pavement at Preneste, contains the representationof an ancient well; by some authors supposed to be the famous fountainof Heliopolis. Montfaucon and Dr. Shaw have given a figure of it. Thecurb is represented as built of brick or cut stone. Curbs were generallymassive cylinders of marble and mostly formed of one block , but some-times of two, cramped together with iron. Their exterior resembledround altars. Those of the Greeks were ornamented with highly wroughtsculptures and were about twenty inches high. Roman curbs were ge-nerally plain, but one has been found in the Street of the Mercuries atPompeii , beautifully ornamented with triglyphs. To these curbs Juvenal appears to allude :
Oh! how much more devoutly should we eling
To thougbts that hover round the sacred spring,
Were it still margined with its native green,
And not a marble near the spot were seen. Sat. iii, 30 Badham.
That Roman wells were generally protected by curbs, appears also froma remark of the elder Pliny : “ at Gades the fountain next to the temple ofHercules, is enclosed about like a well.” B. ii, 97. Dr. Shaw mentions se-veral Roman wells with corridors round, and cupolas over them, in variousparts of Mauritania . Trav. 237. Mr. Dodwell describes the rieh curb ofa Corinthian well, ten figures^f divinities being carved on it. Such deco-rations he says were common to the sacred wells of Greeee.
In various parts of Asia and Egypt , the finest columns have been bro-ken and hollowed out to serve as curbs to wells; and in some instances,the capitals of splendid shafts may be seen appropriated to the same pur-pose. Although such scenes are anything but pleasant to the enlightenedtraveler, the preservation of valuable fragments of antiquity has been se-cured by these and similar applications of them. They certainly are lesssubject to destruction, as curbs of wells, than when employed, like thefine Corinthian Capital of Parian marble, which Dr. Shaw observed atArzew, ‘ as a block for a blacksmith’s anvil.’ Trav. 29, 30.