L'eau dans les cités grecques antiques : approvisionnement et salubrité

Open Access

Abstract

International audience ; In a Mediterranean world subject to the vagaries of a contrasting climate, Greek societies benefit from rainfall that is certainly abundant, but so irregular that they have to manage this imbalance to make the most of it. Their historiographical tradition thus tells us of the existence of supply recommendations on the part of philosophers and of civic policies to feed the urban population. Based on a number of specific examples, in particular the case of the island of Delos, our paper aims to show how water, the basic drink of the ancient Greeks, became a resource managed and controlled by the community, a non-privatizable public good. From collective or private wells to public cisterns and fountains, created as part of an urban development program, city authorities have been concerned about the public health of the population by promoting an abundant supply of drinking water and by caring about this resource almost as much as they do about the supply of more common foodstuffs. It could have been explained, however, that hydraulic risks are not strictly food-related: the abundance of water at certain times of the year or in certain urban areas threatens residential neighbourhoods. Greek cities have also pursued a policy designed to minimise them and to make the most of the resources available to them, both in the city and in the countryside, for the development of cultivation. ; Dans un monde méditerranéen soumis aux aléas d'un climat contrasté, les sociétés grecques bénéficient d'une pluviosité certes abondante, mais si irrégulière qu'elles doivent gérer au mieux ce déséquilibre pour en tirer le meilleur parti. Leur tradition historiographique nous rapporte ainsi l'existence de préconisations en matière d'approvisionnement de la part des philosophes, et de politiques civiques pour alimenter la population, en général urbaine. En s'appuyant sur un certain nombre d'exemples précis, en particulier le cas de l'île de Délos, notre article veut montrer comment l'eau, ...