their convexity towards the interior of the work. This seems to have been devised to allow room for a few more men to fire over their parapets than a straight wall could afford, and to prevent the distant batteries of the enemy from easily dismounting their artillery by firing along the interior side of the parapet. On some occasions these advantages may be worth obtaining, but as the soldier placed behind a parapet always fires nearly in a direction perpendicular to its length, it is evident that the curved flank may cause the lines of fire to tend towards the right or left of the main ditch, and thus endanger the safety of the defenders stationed in the neighbouring works. The desire of lessening the effect of what is called the enfilading fire, or that which an enemy may direct along the interior side of any parapet, has led Bousmard to give a small curvature to the faces of his bastions, the concave part being towards the interior; but it is evident that, by this construction, the lines of fire directed from the collateral flank for the defence of the face, instead of grazing the latter in its whole length, can only be tangents to the curve, each line of fire meeting it in but one point. It is therefore probable that the injury inflicted on the enemy would be found so much less than that arising from the usual construction, as to neutralise entirely the advantage of the diminished enfilade fire of the enemy. The destructive effect of this last mode of firing would be most effectually prevented by the formation of semicircular bastions, detached from the enceinte, in the manner proposed by Mr. Bordwine; but the ingenious author of that system is in consequence compelled to abandon, in a great, measure, the advantage of having the exterior of his walls well defended from those which are in collateral situations. The batteries however which he proposes to raise in the interior of his at the angle, A, of the polygon, according to the method of the first | Italian and French engineers, with an orillon and triple flank. The pentagonal figure about B is the plan of a modern bastion, of which the Fig. 3. T part on the left of the capital B E represents what is called a hollow, and that on the right a solid bastion. An imaginary line from f to g is the gorge, and the rampart, e f, is the curtain joining the right flank N of one bastion to the left of the next. The space, F GE, is the main ditch; and II and к are respectively the positions of a counter and enfilading battery which might be constructed by the enemy to silence the fires from the triple flank of D. The outworks, P, G, Q, R, S, [TENAILLE, CAPONNIERE, RAVELIN, COVERED-WAY, and GLACIS] will be described under those words. Fig. 2 represents a section supposed to be made from в to L, perpendicularly across the rampart on the left face of B, and the main ditch in its front. M and N are sections through the revetments, or walls which support the earth on the sides of the ditch. In fig. 3, v represents the plan of a detached bastion; T is a tower bastion at an angle of the polygon which surrounds the place. The bastioned systems will be further treated under FORTIFICATION. (Vitruvius, De Architectura; Maggi, Della Fortificatione delle Citta; Errard, La Fortification réduite en art; De Ville, L'Ingénieur Parfait; Vauban, Euvres Militaires, par Foissac; Belidor, La Science de l'Ingénieur; Fritach, L'Architecture Militaire; Cormontaigne, Euvres Posthumes; Montalembert, La Fortification Perpendiculaire; Bousmard, Essai Géneral de Fortification; St. Paul, Traité Complet de Fortification; Savart, Cours Elémentaire de Fortification; Mandar, De l'Architecture des Forteresses; Dufour, De la Fortification Permanente; Carnot, De la Défense des Places Fortes; Col. Pasley, Course of Elementary Fortification; Malortie, Permanent Fortification; Capt. Straith, A Treatise on Fortification. BA'TAVI, or BATA'VI (the forms Vatavi, Badai, and Betavi also occur in MSS. inscriptions), the name of the ancient inhabitants of South Holland, and some adjacent parts. The Batavi were a Germanic tribe of the race of the Catti, who, some time before the age of Cæsar, left their native district, and settled, according to Tacitus ('Hist.' iv. 12, Germ.' 129), "on the extreme borders of Gaul, such as they found destitute of inhabitants," but chiefly on an island formed by the northern arm of the Rhine (or Rhine of Leyden), the Vahalis, or Waal, and the Mosa or Maas after their junction, and the ocean; which island now constitutes part of the province of South Holland. The first mention of them is by Cæsar (De Bell. Gall.' iv. 10), who calls their country by the name of Insula Batavorum, and appears to consider it as belonging to Germany, and not to Gaul; the limits of Belgic Gaul on that side being placed at the southern branch of the Rhine, or Waal, after its junction with the Mosa, or Maas. Cæsar did not carry the war into the country of the Batavi. Under Augustus the Batavi became allies of the Romans; they were exempted from taxes, and they furnished cavalry to the Roman armies on the Lower Rhine and in Britain, where detachments of them long continued to be stationed. Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, resided for a time among them, and dug a canal, Fossa Drusiana, which connected the Rhine with the modern Yssel. Besides the Batavi there was another people on the same island, probably in its north-western extremity, called by the Roman historians Canninefates. They were of the same origin as the Batavi (Tacitus, 'Hist.' iv. 15), but not so numerous, and their name became gradually lost in that of the larger tribe. Tacitus speaks highly of the bravery of both these tribes, and "for Germans" of their mental capacity. The chief place of the Canninefates was Lugdunum Batavorum, now Leyden; and that of the Batavi was Batavodurum, afterwards called Noviomagus, and now Nymegen. This is Mannert's opinion, though others have placed Batavodurum at Duurstede, and made it a different place from Noviomagus. The other towns of the Batavi were Arena- | cum, generally supposed to be Arnheim, but placed by others near Werthuysen; Carvo, on the northern branch of the Rhine, probably near Arnheim; Grinnes, near the junction of the Waal with the Maas; Trajectum, the modern Utrecht; and Forum Hadriani, in the western part of the island near the sea. The name of the Batavi can be traced even now in that of Betuwe, which is a district of the ancient Batavorum Insula, between the Rhine, the Waal, and the Lek. Beyond the northern branch of the Rhine, and between that and the Flevium, or Yssel, in the province now called North Holland, were the Frisii and the Frisiaboni, tribes belonging to the great Frisian stock which inhabited the land north-east of the Yssel. Pliny places two other tribes, the Sturii and the Marsucii, on the islands off the western coast at the mouth of the Mosa, which islands now form part of Zealand. After the death of Galba, the army of the Rhine having proclaimed Vitellius, and followed him on his way to Italy, the Batavi took the opportunity of rising against the Romans, whose alliance had become very burthensome to them. Claudius Civilis, a man belonging to one of their principal families, though bearing a Latin name, acted as their leader. At one time the insurrection seems to have spread among the neighbouring tribes of Germans as well as of Belgian Gauls, but the speedy return of the legions suppressed the movement. Civilis achieved many successes, and the Batavi, with their allies, fought bravely, but were at last subdued. According to Tacitus, however, they preserved their privilege of being exempt from taxation; they were a portion of the Roman empire; or, as he says, "free from all imposition and payments, and only set apart for the purposes of fighting, they are reserved wholly for the wars, in the same manner as a magazine of weapons and armour." (Gordon's transl. 'Germ.') As tools of this description they served under Hadrian in Masia, where they are stated to have swum across the Rhine in full armour. At this time, or as early as the reign of Trajan, the Roman domination was probably more complete, as we find in the Antonine Itinerary and the Peutinger Table, two Roman roads across the country, one from Lugdunum eastward to Trajectum, and following the course of the northern Rhine to its separation from the Vahalis, and another from Lugdunum southward across the island to the Mosa, and then eastward along the bank of that river and the Vahalis to Noviomagus. We also find places named after the emperors, such as Forum Hadriani, and fortified camps, such as Castra Batava, which some, however, suppose to have been the same as Batavodurum. (See Mannert, Geographie der Griechen und Römer.') There was another place in Upper Germany, or, more properly, in Noricum, called also Castra Batava, near the confluence of the Inn and the Danube, which was colonised by Batavi, apparently in conformity with the policy which led the Romans to transplant their subjects and allies from their homes to foreign countries. The Batavi were employed by Agricola in his wars in Britain. (Tacit. 'Agric.' xxxvi.) In some inscriptions they are called" friends and brothers of the Roman people," or of the "Roman emperors." The date of one of these inscriptions is determined by the name of the Emperor Aurelius. (Gruter. lxxi.) In the latter part of the 3rd century, during the civil war which desolated the empire, the Salian Franks invaded the country of the Batavi, and established themselves in it. They armed pirate vessels, which were encountered and defeated at sea by Carausius. Constantius and Constantine waged war against the Franks of the Batavian island, but could not drive them out of it. The Franks lost it, however, under Julian, by an irruption of Frisians, who came from the northern country near the Zuiderzee, and drove the Salian Franks beyond the Maas. After this the Insula Batavorum formed part of the country called Fresia, which, in the time of the Merovingians, extended southward as far as the Scheldt. Under Charlemagne it formed a duchy bearing allegiance to the empire, "Ducatus Fresia usque ad Mosam." It afterwards became divided into Western Frisia, called Fresia Hæreditaria, which was subject to hereditary counts; and Eastern Frisia, or Fresia Libera, which remained independent. The Yssel formed the division between the two. About the 11th century we first find Western Fresia called by the name of Holland, some say from hohl land," a low hollow land," and its counts took the name of Counts of Holland. The country of the ancient Batavi formed the southern part of their dominions; but the islands at the mouth of the Maas, and between it and the Scheldt, were the subject of frequent contentions and wars between them and the Counts of Flanders. (D'Anville, Etats formés en Europe après la Chute de l'Empire Romain;' Meyer, 'Res Flandricæ.') Although the name Batavi has fallen into disuse, it has always been employed by modern authors writing in Latin, to signify the Dutch or Hollanders generally. BATH, a place for the purpose of washing the body, either with hot, warm, or cold water: the word is derived from the Saxon bad. The Greek name is balaneion (Baλaveîov), of which the Roman balineum, or balneum, is only a slight variation: the elements bal and bad in the Greek and English words are evidently related. The public baths of the Romans were generally called Therma, which literally means warm waters." The bath was also in common use among the Greeks, though we are not well acquainted with the construction and economy of their bathing-places. Homer often refers to the practice of bathing, but he speaks of the warm-bath as an unmanly habit ('Odyss.' viii. 248), and this view of the effeminacy of warm bathing was that held in the time of Demosthenes (Polyc.) At Athens there were both private and public baths: the public baths appear to have been the property of individuals, who kept them for their own profit or let them to others. (See Isæus, 'On the Inheritance of Dicæogenes,' cap. vi.; ditto 'of Philoctemon,' cap. vi.) Lucian, in his 'Hippias' (vol. iii. ed. Hemsterh.), has given a description of a magnificent bath. Though he does not tell us whether it was built in the Roman or the Greek style, we may safely conclude that he is speaking of a bath in a Greek city. His description is not precise enough to render it certain that this bath in its details agrees with those of Rome and Pompeii; but the general design and arrangement appear to be nearly the same. 66 We learn from Seneca that the Roman baths were very simple, even mean and dark, in the time of Scipio Africanus; and it was not until the age of Agrippa, and the emperors after Augustus, that they were built and finished in a style of luxury almost incredible. Seneca (Epist.' lxxxvi.), who inveighs against this luxury, observes that a person was held to be poor and sordid whose baths did not shine with a profusion of the most precious materials, the marbles of Egypt inlaid with those of Numidia; unless the walls were laboriously stuccoed in imitation of painting; unless the chambers were covered with glass, the basins with the rare Thasian stone, and the water conveyed through silver pipes." These, it appears, were the luxuries of plebeian baths. Those of freedmen had “a profusion of statues, a number of columns supporting nothing, placed as an ornament merely on account of the expense: the water murmuring down steps, and the floor of precious stones.' (Sen.' Epist.' lxxxvi.) These baths of which Seneca speaks were private baths. Ammianus Marcellinus reckons sixteen public baths in Rome. The chief were those of Agrippa, Nero, Titus, Domitian, Antoninus Caracalla, and Diocletian. These edifices, differing, of course, in magnitude and splendour, and in the details of the arrangement, were all constructed on a common plan. They stood among extensive gardens and walks, and were often surrounded by a portico. The main building contained large halls for swimming and bathing, some for conversation, others for various athletic and manly exercises, and some for the declamation of poets and the lectures of philosophers; in a word, for every species of polite and manly amusement. These noble rooms were lined and paved with marble, adorned with the most valuable columns, paintings, and statues, and furnished with collections of books for the studious who resorted to them. (See Pompeii,' published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. i.) These baths, which were called Therme, are now all in ruins. The best preserved are those of Titus, Diocletian, and Antoninus Caracalla. (See Life of Anton. Caracall.' by Æl. Spartianus.) We here subjoin a plan of the baths of Caracalla, which were finished, according to Eusebius, in the fourth year of that emperor's reign. These baths were among the most magnificent structures in existence. Mr. Fergusson says, that "even allowing for their being almost wholly of brick, and being disfigured by the bad taste inseparable from everything Roman, there is nothing in the world which for size and grandeur can compare with these imperial palaces of recreation." And he adds a comparison which will enable the ordinary English reader to form a better estimate of their size and character than he can readily do from mere description. He says: "St. George's Hall in Liverpool is the most exact copy in modern times of a part of these baths. The hall itself is a reproduction both in scale and design of the central hall of Caracalla's baths, but improved in detail and design, having five bays instead of only three. With the two courts at each end, it makes a ▲, a circular room, over which was a roof of copper; B, the Apodyterium; c, the Xystus; D, the Piscina; E, Vestibules, on the side of the Piscina, which served for the spectators and to contain the clothes of those who bathed; F, Vestibules at entering the Therma; on each side were libraries; G, G, Rooms where the wrestlers prepared for the exercises of the Palæstra, with a staircase to ascend to the upper story; H, H, the Peristyles, which we find in all the Roman Therme, having in the middle a Piscina for bathing; I, I, the Ephebium or place of exercise; K, K, the Elæothesium, or Elæothekium (EXαio-0éσiov-Onкiov): L, L, Vestibules, over which there is another room with a Mosaic pavement; M, M, Laconicum; N, N, Warm Bath; 0, 0, Tepidarium; P, P, Frigidarium; a, a, Rooms for the spectators and for the use of the wrestlers; R, R, Exhedræ for the philosophers; s, Stadium; T, T, Places for heating the water; u, v, Cells for bathing; w, w, Rooms for conversation; x, x, Cisterns of three stories to receive rain water; Y, Y, the Conisterium; z, z, Recesses for ornament, and which served for the spectators to sit in; 1, Theatre for the spectators to see the exercises in the open air; 2. Apartments of two stories for the use of those who had the care of the baths; 3, 3, Exhedræ, where the gymnastic exercises were taught; 4, 4, Rooms for those who exercised in the Stadium; 5, 5, Atria to the academies; 6, 6, Temples; 7, 7, Academies; 8, 8, Arcades for the masters to walk in, detached from the noise of the Palæstra; 9, 9, Covered Baths; 10, 10, Stairs, &c., which led to the top; 11, 11, Stairs by which you ascend to the Palæstra. Flaminius Vacca informs us that in 1471 there was to be seen in these baths an artificial island formed of marble, full of the remains of figures which had been carved on it. Near the island was a ship, with many figures in it, much broken. There was also a bathing vessel of granite. Two labra, of granite, found in the same place, are now employed as fountains in the great square before the Farnese Palace at Rome. In these baths were also found the Farnese Hercules and the great group of statues known by the name of the Farnese Bull. Besides the great granite column now in the palace of S. Lorenzo at Florence, Piranesi tells us that he saw, in the peristyle, two fountains enriched with the remains of bas-reliefs. The provincial towns had also their baths, both public and private. The public baths of Pompeii, which were discovered in 1824, in a very perfect state, throw much light on what the Roman writers (and especially Vitruvius) have written on the subject. The following description of them is taken from the second volume of the 'Pompeii' (published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge), with a few verbal alterations, and some omissions: These baths ART AND SCI. DIV. VOL. I. occupy a space of about 100 feet square, and are divided into three separate and distinct parts. One of them was appropriated to the fireplaces and to the servants of the establishment; the other two were occupied each by a set of baths contiguous to each other, similar, and adapted to the same purposes, and supplied with heat and water from the same furnace, and from the same reservoir. The apartments and passages are paved with white marble in mosaic. It is conjectured that the more spacious of the two sets of baths was for the use of the the smaller for the women. Vitruvius (lib. v. cap. 10) says that the caldarium for the women should be contiguous to that for the men, and be exposed to the same aspect; for thus the same hypocaustum, or stove, may suffice for both. Annexed is the plan of these Pompeian baths, situated near the Forum. men, The piscina or reservoir was separated at Pompeii from the baths themselves by the street which opens into the forum. The pipes which communicated between the reservoir and the bath passed over an arch thrown across the street. There were three entrances to the furnaces which heated the warm- and vapour-baths. The chief entrance 3 s 1, Piscina; 2, Street, over which was an aqueduct to convey the water from the Piscina to the baths; 3, Entrance to the baths of the men; 4, Watercloset; 5, Cortile, court, or vestibule to the baths; 6, Channel to collect the rain-water from the portico; 7, Colonnade round three sides of the vestibule; 8, Seats under the colonnade (Schola); 9, Oecus or exhedra; 10, Passage leading out of the baths; 11, Watercloset; 12, Entrance from the Street of Fortune; 13, Passage leading into the Apodyterium; 14, Apodyterium; 15, Seats; 16, Passage leading to the street; 17, Entrance from the Street of the Arch; 18, Wardrobe; 19, Frigidarium; 20, Niches in the Frigidarium; 21, Alveus or vase of the Frigidarium; 22, a bronze spout, through which the water ran into the Alveus; 23, Pipe out of which the water escaped; 24, Passages which lead from the Apodyterium to the furnaces; 25, Apartment for the stokers; 26, Doorway leading from this apartment to the Street of the Arch; 27, Furnace; 28, Calidarium, or boiler for hot water; 29, Tepidarium, or receptacle for tepid water; 30, Frigidarium, or reservoir for cold water; 31, Stairs leading to tbe boilers; 32, Passage which leads from the boilers to the court, where the fuel for the stoves was kept; 33, the court for fuel; 34, Columns which supported the roof of the court; 35, Stairs which lead to the arched roofs of the baths; 36, Door opening into the Street of the Forum; 37, Tepidarium; 38, Place where the bronze brazier was found; 39, Caldarium, having a suspended or hollow floor; 40, Laconicum; 41, Labrum: 42, Hot bath; 43, Entrance to the baths for the women; 44, Vestibule with seats; 45, Passage leading to the Apodyterium; 46, Apodyterium; 47, Seats in the same; 48, Frigidarium; 49, Tepidarium; 50, Caldarium with a hollow pavement; 51, Laconicum; 52, Labrum; 53, Hot bath; 54, a small room, use unknown; 55, Street, called the Street of the Arch; 56, Stairs; 57, 58, Two small voids without any communication. 1, Window closed with one great pane of glass; 2, Decorated archivolt; 3, a place for a lamp; 4, Seats of the Apodyterium with a raised step, serving as a footstool; 5, Holes in which were pegs for the dresses; 6, a window; 7, Conical ceiling of the Frigidarium; 8, Niches; 9, Alveus or marble vase. duty it was to keep up the fires. Here was found a quantity of pitch, | (25) led up to the coppers. The third entrance led from the used by the furnace-men to enliven the fires; the stairs in the room apodyterium of the men's bath by means of a corridor (23). There is 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. 1, Window; 2, a circular aperture by which the temperature was regulated; 3, another window; 4, Laconicum; 5, a place for a lamp; 6, Labrum; 7. Leaden pipe through which the water of the Labrum was either introduced or made its escape; 8, Hollow walls of the Caldarium; 9, Hollow pavement covered with Mosaic; 10, small piers which support the pavement; 11, the communication between the hollow pavement and the furnace; 12, Hot bath; 13, Steps to ascend the bath. (Museo Borbonico,' vol. ii.) 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 |