throwing the javelin; and extensive libraries. Architecture, sculpture, and painting exhausted their refinements on these establishments, which for their extent were compared to cities: incrustations, metals, and marble were all employed in adorning them. Those of which the most numerous remains are still visible are the baths of Titus, Antoninus Caracalla, and Diocletian. In the order of time, these were of subsequent erection to the therma of Agrippa and of Nero. Of the magnificence of the baths of Agrippa, the relation, friend, and counsellor of Augustusan idea may be formed, from the circumstance of the Pantheon serving as a vestibule to them. By his will he bequeathed his gardens and the baths which went by his name to the Roman people, and he appropriated particular estates to their support, in order that bathing might be attended with no expense to the public. Still more rich and costly were the baths of Nero, erected in the spot now occupied, in part, by the Justiniani palace, near the church of St. Eustatius. Martial, in one of his epigrams, askswas there ever a more execrable man than Nero, and yet is there any building which equals his Thermæ in magnificence? The baths of Etruscus, made free by the emperor Claudius, also enjoyed considerable repute.

The baths of Caracalla were ornamented with two hundred pillars, and furnished with sixteen hundred seats of marble three thousand persons could be seated on them at one time. Those of Diocletian surpassed all the others in size and sumptuousness of decoration; and were, besides, enriched with the precious collection of the Ulpian library. We can entertain some idea of the extent of this edifice, when we are told that one of its halls forms at present the church of the Carthusians, which is among the largest, and at the same time most magnificent of modern Rome. Here we are furnished with one of the many monuments of the triumph of Christianity, in despite of the most persevering and cruel persecutions of the then sovereigns of the world. On this very spot, where the organ and the choral strain of devotion are now daily heard, Diocletian is said to have employed in the construction of his baths forty thousand Christian soldiers, whom, after degrading with all the insignia of ignominy, he caused to be massacred when the edifice was completed.

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CHAPTER VI.

BATHS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS-DIVISIONS OF THE GREEK BATHS-DIVISIONS OF THE ROMAN BATHS.

Baths of the Greeks and Romans.-As there was a considerable resemblance between the divisions of the baths in Greece and those in Rome, it may be well, in this place, to designate the chief apartments of which they were composed, and the auxiliary apparatus employed to give greater effect, either for luxury or health, to the use of the baths proper. There was this difference, however, in the appreciation of bathing by the Greeks and the Romans, that, whereas among the latter the gymnasium constituted a part of the bath, by the former the bath was looked upon as a part of the gymnasium. Hence, the gymnasia of the Greeks were chiefly frequented with a view to exercise, but those of the Romans for warm bathing.

The apartments constituting the series through which bathers passed were the following: Apodyterium, or apodytorium-undressing room; Tepidarium, or warm room, with a tepid bath; Frigidarium which contained a cold bath; Luconicum or hot-air room for sweating, or in its stead Caldarium or hot and sometimes vapour bath,vaporarium. There were, also, an Unctuarium, or Elaeothesium, for holding the ointments and oils with which the bathers were rubbed; a Sphæristerium or large room for exercises; the Ephæbeum of the Greeks. Below these rooms was the Hypocaustum or furnace for heating the rooms and the water in the boilers, before it was distributed to the baths. This also received the names of præfurnium, propnigeum, ostium furni, fornax. The Piscina was a cistern called also natatio or natatorium, holding cold water, large enough to allow of the exercise of swimming. Solium had also occasionally a similar meaning, with the prefix frigidum or calidum, according as its contents were cold or warm. "Solium is defined to be either a vessel to wash in, or a hollow into which those

who washed descended." Labrum, indicated a vessel or a basin of various sizes, from that large enough to allow of immersion of the entire body to one calculated merely for ablution of the face or feet, &c. Lavacrum was generally restricted to the latter meaning. The Greeks called the cold bath Loutron. Pliny designated it by the title of Baptisterium, a name retained by the early Christians for the vessel in which the infant, or the adult convert, was immersed in baptism.

Frigidarium, tepidarium, &c., served to designate both the temperature of the air of rooms through which the bathers passed, as well as that of the water in the reservoirs, and in the labra or baths proper, in the sense in which they are generally understood in Western Europe and by ourselves in this country. Cameron truly remarks, that it does not appear that the frequenters of the baths made use of the water either of the Tepidarium or Frigidarium, but only passed through these rooms, which, he adds, confirms our supposition that it was the temperature of the air and not of the water which made them so generally frequented in the return from the hot bath. In this sense these rooms were sometimes called Cella Frigidaria, Cella Tepidaria,&c.

In the smaller baths of the provincial towns, or in those belonging to individuals, all these several compartments were not met with. Thus, for example, the apodyterium or unrobing room was not unfrequently wanting; and its place was supplied by the frigidarium, or even by the tepidarium.

Baths of the Greeks.-Before speaking more in detail of Roman baths, we may give a few words to those of the Greeks, taking the description of these latter, as we find them included in that of the Gymnasia, by Vitruvius. He tells us that "it was their method to surround a square or oblong area, with a portico one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven feet in circumference, and to support that portico on three sides with a single row of columns; on the fourth side, with a double row, to prevent the dust blowing in during stormy weather. Round the three sides of this area were constructed spacious Exedre, with seats for the use of philosophers, and men of letters. In the centre of the double row of columns was a most elegant and spacious room; this, also, was furnished with seats,

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and was one-third longer than it was broad, and went by the name of Ephæbeum. To the right, or upon the east side, was the Corycæum, or room for shaving, dressing, &c. Next followed the Conisterium, where the sand for the use of the wrestlers was kept. In the corner of the peristyle was a cold bath which went by the name of Loutron. The apartments to the left of the Ephebeum, were, first the Elaeothesium, or room for holding the ointment; contiguous to it was the Frigidarium; out of which a passage led to the Propnigeum near the furnace, in the corner of the portico. Further on, but adjoining to the Frigidarium, was placed the Concamerata Sudatio, a vaulted room, twice as long as broad; in one angle a Laconicum, and on the opposite side a warm bath.

"There were likewise three other porticos, one at the going out of the Gymnasium, the other two for the use of the wrestlers, one on the right hand, the other on the left; that towards the north is to be made double and spacious; the other single: in the middle of this portico was a descent of a foot and a half by two steps, to a lower ground, which must not be less than twelve feet broad, and is to surrounded by a margin not ten feet in breadth. By this means the spectators will not be incommoded by those who are taking their exercises. This portico is called by the Greeks Xistos, because here the wrestlers exercised under cover in the winter.

"In the area between the two porticos were rows of plane trees, with walks, and, at proper intervals, Mosaic pavements. Between the Xysti and the double portico are walks exposed to the air, called by the Greeks Peridromidas, by us Xysti; in which, even in winter time, when the weather was fine, the wrestlers exercised, leaving the covered Xystus. Behind this Xystus was a Stadium, so constructed that a great number of spectators might commodiously see the exercises performed."

The Therma or Public Baths of Rome.-Taking the baths of Antoninus Caracalla as an example, on a large and complete scale, of those of Rome under the emperors, we meet with the following divisions and arrangements, which represent one-half of the edifice.*

* Cameron (The Baths of the Romans, London, 1775) ac

H

A. A circular room called the Solar Cell, used to contain the numerous labra of the baths, 111 feet in diameter. Spartianus describes it thus:-"Caracalla left magnificent Termæ, which went by his own name; the solar cell of which could not be equalled by the best architects of that age. The window lattices are said to have been overlaid with brass or copper, of which materials the whole vault was made; and so vast was its extent that learned mechanicians declare it impossible to make one like it "

B. The Apodyterium.

C. Xystos, or portico, for the athlete to exercise under in bad weather.

companies the description with an engraved plan, which, on a reduced scale, we introduce here, as we find it in the volume of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, entitled Pompeii.