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Installation details

english name	Great Nymphaeum (Region X)
turkish name	-
original name	Nymphaeum maius, hydreion megiston, nymphaion, δαψιλὲς ὕδωρ
ottoman name	-
events	Great Fountain - Construction 364 - 373
event persons	Clearchus - Founder (372-373)
purposes	Display, Storage, Supply
still exists	No
type	Fountain
location	-
description	Located in Region X, near the future site of the Forum Taurus (now Istanbul University’s main courtyard), the Great Nymphaeum was likely constructed by the city prefect Clearchus in 372–373 CE. According to Crow (2022), it played a crucial role in distributing water from the Valens Waterway to elevated areas of the city, including the Binbirdirek Cistern, which housed a castellum aquae. Excavations near the Forum of Theodosius (Beyazıt) revealed vaulted conduits from the north, leading Bauer to identify the remains east of the Arch of Theodosius as the Nymphaeum. Recent studies (Bayülgen & Saner, 2024) further discuss these findings. Crow et al. (2008) suggest that the Great Nymphaeum may have initially served as the terminal point of the Valens Waterway before later cisterns (such as Aetius, Aspar, and Binbirdirek) were added to the system.
comments	See p. 127 for the other Nympheae
systems	Valens Waterway
external	-

Literature of related events

#	Event	Code	Type	Page	Excerpt
1	Construction: 364	Crow, Bardill & Bayliss 2008	Secundary literature	10	The ‘temple’ was probably the new Nymphaion constructed during Valens’ reign by the city prefect Clearchus and located near the site where Theodosius I was to build his forum; it was recorded by Socrates as a Hydreion megiston.
2	Construction: 364	Socrates 439	Primary source	99	(Church History 4.8) Of the Oracle found inscribed on a Stone, when the Walls of Chalcedon were demolished by Order of the Emperor Valens. An order was issued by the emperor that the walls of Chalcedon, a city opposite to Byzantium, should be demolished: for he had sworn to do this, after he should have conquered the usurper, because the Chalcedonians had sided with the usurper, and had used insulting language toward Valens, and shut their gates against him as he passed by their city. In consequence of the imperial decree, therefore, the walls were razed and the stones were conveyed to Constantinople to serve for the formation of the public baths which are called Constantianae. On one of these stones an oracle was found engraven, which had lain concealed for a long time, in which it was predicted that when the city should be supplied with abundance of water, then should the wall serve for a bath; and that innumerable hordes of barbarous nations having overrun the provinces of the Roman empire, and done a great deal of mischief, should themselves at length be destroyed. We shall here insert this oracle for the gratification of the studious: 'When nymphs their mystic dance with wat'ry feet Shall tread through proud Byzantium's stately street; When rage the city wall shall overthrow, Whose stones to fence a bathing-place shall go: Then savage lands shall send forth myriad swarms, Adorned with golden locks and burnished arms, That having Ister's silver streams o'erpast, Shall Scythian fields and Moesia's meadows waste. But then with conquest flushed they enter Thrace, Fate shall assign them there a burial-place.' Such was the prophecy. And indeed it afterwards happened, that when Valens by building an aqueduct supplied Constantinople with abundance of water, the barbarous nations made various irruptions, as we shall hereafter see. But it happened that some explained the prediction otherwise. For when that aqueduct was completed, Clearchus the prefect of the city built a stately bath (hydreion megiston = large nymphaeum), to which the name of 'the Plentiful Water' was given, in that which is now called the Forum of Theodosius: on which account the people celebrated a festival with great rejoicings, whereby there was, say they, an accomplishment of those words of the oracle, 'their mystic dance with wat'ry feet shall tread through proud Byzantium's stately street.' But the completion of the prophecy took place afterwards. While the demolition was in progress, the Constantinopolitans besought the emperor to suspend the destruction of the walls; and the inhabitants of Nicomedia and Nicaea, sending from Bithynia to Constantinople, made the same request. But the emperor being exceedingly exasperated against the Chalcedonian, was with difficulty prevailed upon to listen to these petitions in their favour: but that he might perform his oath, he commanded that the walls should be pulled down, while at the same time the breaches should be repaired by being filled up with other small stones. Whence it is that in the present day one may see in certain parts of the wall very inferior materials laid upon prodigiously large stones, forming those unsightly patched which were made on that occasion. So much will be sufficient on the walls of Chalcedon. Comment by Crow 2008: According to the Notitia of c. 425 the nymphaeum maius was in Region X, and therefore near, but not in, the Forum of Theodosius, which was divided between Regions VII and VIII, see the discussion in Chapter 6.
3	Construction: 364	Themistius 357	Primary source	224	(Oratio XI.151a-152b) Blessed, happy Constantine! Do you sense that for you the emperor (Valens) has turned the beloved from an inanimate to an animate state, and that against expectation he has breathed life into this beautiful and desirable body that was still feeble, to say it with Homer, and that for you the city is truly a city and no longer a mere sketch? You and your son were clever in finding for her and giving to her many and manifold girdles and necklaces and bracelets and torques. And lest bedecked with much gold and precious objects she be more thirsty than those who are dressed in rags, you would have made great expenditure, but this honour was preserved and left to another, since God took care that the thank-offering of the emperor did not appear second to the imperial garb, which the beautiful city had first fixed on him. Now both exchange rivalling gifts with one another and not gold for bronze but things of quite equal worth. And it is difficult to pronounce which of them is more precious. For famous and renowned poets agree with both, one calling the imperial rank godlike and the other declaring water the best thing. But the originator of both of you rejoices and revels in this rivalry. I hear that he enquires with joy about the number of the nymphs and the course in order that with you as a leader and guide they appear from here and there and are invited to the Bosphorus. And the names are Thracian and manly, but the beauty and the splendour are exceedingly delicate. And one is tempted to call Pirene and Thisbe mere chatter and that Alphius troubled himself in vain when loving Arethusa. And I did not see winged Victories and Amores in bronze or in stone or in colours, but God let grow wings on the emperor's virtues alone. Thus they come to us faster than thought and neither rocks hold them back nor narrows nor the tops of high mountains nor craggy cliffs nor lightless ravines, but they run underneath the ones and around the others and they fly high above the third and they have come together into one place and have welcomed each other and have made a pact to flow together to the temple that is Constantine's by name but is already Valens' as far as its construction is concerned. For by right the origin of each thing does not belong to the one who started it but to the one who completed it. You, however, have both begun the headpiece of good fortune for it and completed it. And before, as it seems, it did not deserve its name and when we used the epithet 'rich' it was idle words. But since your expenditure and your love of honour have called the nymphs inside and have settled them inside, they are not only rich but are already thrice rich.
4	Construction: 364	Themistius 357	Primary source	224	(Oratio XIII.167c-168c) For the city of Constantine and of the son of Constantine, with whose blood you have been mixed and the race of founders is already immortal and secure for us through the blood that you share with them, this city was in a certain sense beautiful even before and did not shame the love of the founders but with all their zeal and eagerness both lovers ended up seeing it beautiful rather than making it so. It was as if somebody fell in love with a beautiful and noble woman and took care of rouge and makeup and cosmetics and other things (so that very many of them appeared on her) and by Jove also of precious bracelets and earrings and purple and gilded dresses, and dressed her up once with these and then again with others and applied makeup to her and brought things together from every land and sea, but saw her afflicted by thirst and drought and not far from vanishing together with the gold and together with the purple. Form such a love the beloved has indeed great profit! But your uncle who as I believe divined that you would wed the city, instead of making a mere sketch strove to inscribe the name of Constantine on an adamantine pillar and he made her the mother of imperial rank and soon gave the city clouds, which he took from Zeus out of heaven, having gathered as maidservants in one place these, which were situated here and there far apart from each other and which squatted unpleasant and useless haunts. And they, faster than wings and thought, either fly high up through the air or run underneath steep jutting hills, in the earth and in the air, resembling a bunch of grapes as regards their backs, more than a thousand stadia uphill and downhill, neither running upwards nor downwards, and neither being held down nor being held in. And roofed over they come together and they have arrived here before the gates and they camp in the open waiting for the originator in order that with him as host they might settle in their temple, in which dance together Hephaestus and Asclepius and Panacea.