The Nymphaeum of Trajan is a huge public fountain located in the city center of Ephesus. The monument stands on the main thoroughfare of the city, the Curetes Street, on its northern side, dominating its main stretch. As the street was shaped as a colonnaded street, with two parallel rows of columns running from the beginning to the end of the roadway, the monument, slightly jutting outwards, dwarfed all the surrounding area. The huge monument, 17 m in length, shaped as the Greek letter Π, consisted of a water basin surrounded on three sides by a two-storey monumental façade. The main facing wing, broken in two at the entrance, was flanked by two wings protruding outwards, surrounding the basin. Each lateral wing presented a tetrastyle front, formed by the column located on each corner of the main façade, together with three more columns. Moreover, each wing presented an outer façade, composed of two columns, the second one in fact supported by the back wall. The plan of the second upper storey is similar to that of the first. Thus, in the main facing wing, the central niche, or aedicula, also formed by two columns, standing on pediments, and crowned by Corinthian capitals, is topped by a triangular pediment. The two other quasi-identical niches, albeit slightly smaller, are, however, topped by a flat gable. On the side wings, the two front columns form together an outer niche, which is crowned by a semicircular gable. The fragments of at least ten statues, located in the various aediculae, attest the presence of an ambitious sculptural program. The main statue, which was located in the central niche on the upper storey, dominated the whole building. This was a huge statue of Trajan, twice the size of a normal statue, depicting the emperor completely naked but for a mantle, possibly a chlamys, possibly a paludamentum, which fell from his left shoulder. The statue probably held a spear in its right hand. The inscription near the statue of Trajan refers to him as emperor Caesar, Nerva, Trajan, Augustus, Germanicus, Dacicus, son of a god. Together with the emperor, depicted in a nude heroic posture following the Greek tradition, stood other statues depicting various members of the imperial family, including its female members. Thus, a statue of a woman, dressed in a long tunic, and probably draped in a peplos had been found. Besides, various other fragments point to the presence of statues of gods, such as Aphrodite, Dionysus, and the Greek hero Androcles, the mythical founder of Ephesus (Longfellow, Roman Imperialism and Civic Patronage, p. 77-95).