The look at the north-eastern side of the Curetes Street offers us a glimpse into the secrets of water supply to Ephesus as in this part of the city numerous monuments dedicated to this function were erected. The first one of them, as one walks down the street, is the Trajan's Nymphaeum. It has the shape of a pool surrounded on three sides by a two-storey structure. Like Rome, also ancient Ephesus was a city of fountains. Nowadays, with the running water readily available in our kitchens and bathrooms, we frequently underestimate the function of public fountains, treating them as a purely decorative element of the cityscape. However, in ancient cities of the Roman era, the majority of households had to draw drinking water from such fountains, and every day citizens, servants, and slaves rushed with vessels and buckets to fill them at the public fountains. These structures varied from simple ones to the elaborate monuments paid for by wealthy sponsors to commemorate their names or pay respects to the rulers of the Empire.

This text is a fragment of a guidebook to Ephesus: "The Secrets of Ephesus".