no communication between these furnaces and the bath of the women, which was heated from them. The furnace was round, and had in the lower part of it two pipes, which transmitted hot air under the pavements, and between the walls of the vapour-baths, which were built hollow for that purpose. Close to the furnace, at the distance of four inches, a round vacant space still remains, in which was placed the copper (caldarium) for boiling water; near which, with the same interval between them, was situated the copper for warm water

(tepidarium); and at the distance of two feet from this was the receptacle (30) for cold water (frigidarium), which was square, and plastered round the interior, like the piscina or reservoir. A constant communication was maintained between these vessels, so that as fast as hot water was drawn off from the caldarium, the void was supplied from the tepidarium, which being already considerably heated, did but slightly reduce the temperature of the hotter boiler. The tepidarium in its turn was supplied from the piscina, and that from the aqueduct.

The terms frigidarium, tepidarium, and caldarium were applied to the apartments in which the cold, tepid, and hot-baths were placed, as well as to the vessels already described under these respective names. The furnace and the coppers were placed between the men's baths and the women's baths, as near as possible to both, to avoid the waste of heat consequent on transmitting the fluids through a length of pipe. The coppers and reservoir were elevated considerably above the baths, to cause the water to flow more rapidly into them.

The men's bath had three public entrances (3, 12, 17). Entering at the principal one (12), which opens to the street leading to the forum, we descend three steps into the (5) vestibule, cortile, or portico of the baths, along three sides of which runs a portico (ambulacrum). The seats (8), which are arranged round the walls, were for the slaves who accompanied their masters to the baths, and for the servants of the baths themselves, to whom also the apartment (9) appears to have been appropriated. In this court was found the box for the quadrans, or piece of money, which was paid by each bather. Another door (17) leads to the same vestibule by means of a corridor. From the Street of the Arch (55) we proceed through the passage (17) into the apodyterium, or undressing-room (14), which is also accessible by another corridor (13) from a street called the Street of the Arch: a vast number of lamps were found here. The ceiling of this passage is decorated with stars. The apodyterium has three seats, made of lava, with a step to place the feet on; holes still remain in the wall, in which (it is conjectured) pegs were fixed for the bathers to hang their clothes upon. This room is highly decorated with stuccoed ornaments, relieved by colour. In the centre of the end of the room is a small opening or recess, once covered with a piece of glass; in this recess, as is plain from the appearance of smoke, a lamp has been placed. In the archivolt, or vaulted roof, immediately above, is a window two feet eight inches high, and three feet eight inches broad, closed by a single pane of cast glass two-fifths of an inch thick, fixed into the wall, and ground on one side: the floor is paved with white marble worked in mosaic, and the ceiling divided into panels. In this room there are six doors, one leading to the præfurnium; another into a small room, perhaps designed for a wardrobe; the third, by a narrow passage into the street; the fourth, to the tepidarium; the fifth, to the frigidarium; and the sixth, along the corridor to the vestibule or portico of the bath.

The frigidarium (19), or cold bath, is a round chamber, with a ceiling in the form of a truncated cone; near the top is a window from which it was lighted. The plinth, or base of the wall, is entirely of marble, and four niches are disposed round the room at equal distances; in these niches were seats (schola) for the convenience of the bathers. The basin (alveus) is twelve feet ten inches in diameter, two feet nine inches deep, and entirely lined with white marble; two marble steps facilitate the descent into the basin, and at the bottom is a sort of cushion (pulvinus), also of marble, to enable those who bathed to sit down. The water ran into this bath in a copious stream, through a spout or lip of bronze four inches wide, placed in the wall, three feet seven inches from the edge of the basin. At the bottom of the alveus is a small outlet, for the purpose of emptying and cleansing it; and in the rim there is a waste pipe to carry off the superfluous water: like the apodyterium, the frigidarium has been highly decorated, and is remarkable for its preservation and beauty. The tepidarium (37), or

warm-chamber, adjoining the apodyterium, was so called from a warm, but soft mild temperature, which prepared the bodies of the bathers for the more intense heat of the vapour and hot-baths, and vice versa, softened the transition from the hot-bath to the external air. This apartment is decorated with niches, divided by telamónes. [ATLANTES.] The room was highly enriched, both with stucco ornaments and colour, and was lighted by a window two feet six inches high and three feet wide, in the bronze frame of which were found set four very beautiful panes of glass, fastened by small nuts and screws, very ingeniously contrived with a view to their being removed at pleasure. In this room a large bronze brazier and three bronze benches were found. A doorway led from the tepidarium into the caldarium, or vapour-bath (39); at one end was the laconicum, where a vase (41) for washing the hands and face was placed, called labrum; on the opposite side of the room was the hot-bath, called lavacrum. Vitruvius, in explaining the structure of the apartments, says (cap. xi. lib. v.), "Here should be placed the vaulted sweating-room, twice the length of its width, which should have at one end the laconicum, made as described above, at the other end the hot-bath." apartment is exactly as described, twice the length of its width, exclusively of the laconicum at one end, and the hot-bath at the other. The pavement and walls of the whole were made hollow, to admit the heat. Vitruvius never mentions the laconicum as being separated from the yapour-bath; it may therefore be presumed to have been always connected with it in his time, although in the therma constructed by the later emperors, it appears always to have formed a separate apartment. In the baths of Pompeii they are united, and adjoin the tepidarium, in this respect exactly agreeing with the description of Vitruvius.

This

The laconicum is a large semicircular niche, seven feet wide, and three feet six inches deep, in the middle of which was placed a vase, or labrum. The ceiling was formed by a quarter of a sphere; and it had on one side a circular opening one foot six inches in diameter, over which, according to Vitruvius, a shield of bronze was suspended, which, by means of a chain attached to it, could be drawn over, or drawn aside from the aperture, and thus regulate the temperature of the bath.

The laconicum at Pompeii does not exactly correspond with the laconicum painted on the walls of the Baths of Titus, and the laconicum described by Vitruvius. In the laconicum of Pompeii there is no cupola, such as we see represented in the painting of the Baths of Titus, nor aperture in the floor, although the flue in the hypocaustum runs beneath it. The brazen shield also is applied to regulate the escape of heat through the roof, not to admit or exclude the smoke and flame coming direct from the furnace, as appears to have been the case in the Baths of Titus. The latter was a clumsy and dirty way of heating a room, and strangely at variance, if it were really practised, with the finished elegance and luxury prevailing in every part of the Roman baths. The cupola in the Baths of Titus might, however, have been a contrivance similar to our modern stoves for heating with hot air. Where this cupola did not exist, the room probably was heated, as at Pompeii, by a large brazier. The proper meaning of the word laconicum, whether it should be applied to the cupola and clypeus, or to the room in which they were placed, has been much disputed. It seems pretty certain that the name laconicum, which meant in the

more than five feet in diameter, into which the hot water bubbled up through a pipe in its centre; it served for the partial ablutions of those who took the vapour-bath. It was raised about three feet six inches above the level of the pavement, on a round base, built of small pieces of stone or lava, stuccoed and coloured. In the Vatican there is a magnificent porphyry labrum, found in one of the imperial baths; and Baccius, a great modern authority on baths (see his work 'De Thermis,' Venice, 1588, and Rome, 1622), speaks of labra made of glass. This apartment, like the others, is highly enriched. The hot bath (42) on the plan, occupied the whole end of the room opposite the laconicum and next to the furnace. It was four feet four inches long, and one foot eight inches deep, constructed entirely of marble, with only one pipe to introduce the water, and was elevated two steps above the floor, while a single step led down into the bath itself, forming a continuous bench round it for the convenience of the bathers.

The Romans, who, according to Vitruvius, called their vapour-baths caldaria, or sudationes concameratæ, constructed them with suspended or hollow floors, and with hollow walls communicating with the furnace, that the smoke and hot air might be spread over a large surface, and readily raise them to the required warmth. The temperature was regulated by the clypeus or bronze shield already described, which

acted as a ventilator.

In the baths of Pompeii, the hollow floors are thus constructed: Upon a floor of cement, made of lime and pounded bricks, were built small brick pillars, nine inches square, and one foot seven inches high, supporting strong tiles, fifteen inches square; the pavement was laid on these tiles, and incrusted with mosaic. The hollow walls, the void spaces of which communicated with the hollow of the suspended pavement, were constructed in the following manner: Upon the walls large square tiles were fastened, by means of iron clamps. These tiles were made in a curious manner; while the clay was moist, some circular instrument was pushed through the tiles, so as to make a hole, at the same time forcing out the clay and forming a hollow projection or pipe, about three inches long, on the inside of the tile: these being made at the four corners, iron clamps passed through them, and

[Transverse Section of the Apodyterium.]

fastened them to the wall. The sides of the apartments being thus formed, were afterwards carefully stuccoed and painted. The hollow space in the walls of the bath at Pompeii reaches to the top of the cornice; but the ceilings are not hollow, as in the baths which Vitruvius described, and which he distinguishes, for that reason, by the name of concameratæ. The ceilings of the apodyterium, tepidarium, and the caldarium are arched.

The women's bath resembles very much that of the men, and differs

only in being smaller and less ornamented: for an account of it, we refer to Gell's Pompeii,' the Museo Borbonico,' and Pompeii' pub.. lished by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Vitruvius recommends a situation for baths, which is defended from the north and north-west winds, and he says that the windows should be opposite the south, or, if the nature of the ground will not permit this, at least towards the south, because the hours of bathing among the Romans being from after mid-day till evening, those who bathed could by these windows have the advantage of the rays and the heat of the declining sun. Accordingly the baths just described have the greater part of their windows turned to the south, and are constructed in a low part of the city, where the adjoining buildings served as a protection from the north-west winds.

The baths at Rome were on a much larger scale. The public baths of Caracalla were 1500 feet in length, and 1250 in breadth: "at each end were two temples, one to Apollo, and another to Esculapius, as the tutelary deities of the place (genii tutelares), sacred to the improvement of the mind, and the care of the body; the two other temples were dedicated to the two protecting divinities of the Antonine family, Hercules and Bacchus. In the principal building were, in the first place, a grand circular vestibule, with four halls on each side, for cold, tepid, warm, and steam baths; in the centre was an immense square for exercise, when the weather was unfavourable to it in the open air; beyond it a great hall, where 1600 marble seats were placed for the convenience of the bathers; at each end of this hall were libraries. This building terminated on both sides in a court surrounded with porticoes, with an odeum for music, and in the middle a spacious basin for swimming. Round this edifice were walks shaded by rows of trees, particularly the plane; and in its front extended a gymnasium for running, wrestling, &c., in fine weather. The whole was bounded by a vast portico, opening into exhedræ or spacious halls, where the poets declaimed, and philosophers gave lectures to their auditors. This immense fabric was adorned, within and without, with pillars, stuccowork, paintings, and statues. The stucco and paintings are yet in many places perceptible. Pillars have been dug up, and some still remain amidst the ruin; while the Farnesian bull and the famous Hercules, found in one of these halls, announce the multiplicity and beauty of the statues which once adorned the Thermae of Caracalla." (Eustace's Classical Tour,' vol. i. p. 226.) For an account of the baths of Titus and Diocletian, see the same author.

6

On entering these baths the bathers first proceeded to undress. They next went to the elæothesium (the oil-chamber), as it was called in Greek, or unctuarium, where they anointed themselves all over with a coarse cheap oil before they began their exercise. (Plin. xv. c. 4 & 7.) Here the finer odoriferous ointments which were used on coming out of the bath were also kept (Plin. 1. ii. Epist.' 41), and the room was so situated as to receive a considerable degree of heat. This chamber of perfumes was full of pots, like an apothecary's shop; and those who wished to anoint and perfume the body received perfumes and unguents. In the representation of a Roman bath, copied from a painting on a wall forming part of the Baths of Titus, the unctuarium, called also elæothesium, appears filled with a vast number of vases. The vases contained a great variety of perfumes and balsams. When anointed, the bathers passed into the sphæristerium, a very light and extensive apartment, in which were performed the various kinds of exercises to which this part of the baths was appropriated. (Plin. lib. i,

Epist.' 101.) When its situation permitted, this apartment was exposed to the afternoon sun, otherwise it was supplied with heat from the furnace. (Plin. 1. 11. Epist.' 41.) After the exercise, they went to the adjoining warm-bath, wherein they sat and washed themselves.