Two females fill their hydrias with water at a fountain with lion-head waterspouts. A young male appears to be addressing one of them. On the right, an ithyphallic herm is depicted. The lekythos is attributed to the Diosphos Painter. Such scenes of daily life are more often depicted on hydrias, the vases women used to carry water from the public fountains. Women usually came in groups to the fountains, which thus became social meeting places. Sometimes, however, the fountains were also frequented by men who –on the pretext of being helpful– tried to harass sexually the unsuspecting ladies. The frequent depiction of fountains and fountain houses on Attic vases of the last decades of the 6th c. BC is most probably due to the influential role in contemporary Athenian life of famous public fountains –such as the Enneakrounos– which were constructed by the tyrant Peisistratos or the Peisistratids, as part of their populist policy. Herms (rectangular pillars crowned by a male bust and bearing an erect penis) were first set up in Athens by Hipparchos, son of Peisistratos, around 520 BC. They served as signposts and marked the mid-points between the various villages of Attica and the Athenian Agora. In no time, every neighbourhood of Athens acquired its own herm.