Profile of Individual Water User

One way to show our understanding of ancient Greek management of water is to follow an ordinary person in her daily patterns, observing when and how she uses water. This schedule ignores differences that derive from local geology, climate, or customs, but rather tries to set out the common patterns. 1. At daylight. Wake up. Go to room or alcove set aside for excreting and do that. Rinse with previously used water. Then go to courtyard, pull up bucket of water from cistern, pour into louter, and wash face and hands. Save water for re-use (Fig. 13.3). 2. First meal. Fix breakfast, using water from cistern for any cooking. Water donkey, dog, house plants, with water from cistern or re-usable water from cooking or bathing. 3. Work. Morning and mid-afternoon to late day: A. Do family laundry—use giant pithos or scrub-board at edge of courtyard, filled from downspout from roof or with buckets of water from the cistern; hang clothes to dry on poles or rope strung between posts (columns) supporting roofs around courtyard. Alternate: laundry might be done communally at a large tank that received the overflow from a fountain near the agora, and the wet clothes carried home and spread out to dry, as above (Fig. 17.5). B. Or do craft activity such as making pottery, using courtyard and water from cistern. C. Or go out to farm. Excrement and garbage were probably carried daily to the farm for fertilizer. An important farming task was to monitor the irrigation of timber lots, fields, orchards, and vineyards with waste water from the town or with spring or river water or dispersed rainwater. D. Or do shopping and/or selling. Periodically carry craft items to Agora to sell them. If need be, rinse items such as vases in public fountains to show off their best colors. In Athens, women participated in the markets, selling lettuce and other farm or craft products, but in some Greek cities shopping and selling were solely masculine activities. 4. Recreation. A. Talk with cousin from the country who waters his donkey at the public trough in the Agora. B. On the way home stop at neighborhood fountain to chat with other people fetching water to drink (Fig. 21.1). C. On special occasions (marriage, birth) go to a sanctuary for a ritual bath. (Fig. 6.1).