water
water(Gk. hudōr, Lat. aqua) in the mostly arid Mediterranean climate by its local availability shaped patterns of settlement and, as erratic rainfall, determined harvest-fluctuations and food-shortages (see famine; food supply). In agriculture, although dry-farming was the norm in ancient Greece and Italy, irrigation was by no means unknown (e.g. at Hellenistic Sparta: Supplementum epigraphicum Graecum 40. 348. For the Persian empire see Ai khanoum). The use of hydraulic technology to increase the water supply was an early concern of the polis; some of the most spectacular installations (e.g. on Samos) were the work of the Archaic tyrants (see also tyranny); Rome pioneered raised aqueducts. Communal fountains were a social focus (e.g. Euripides Medea 68–9, about Corinth's...
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