222 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[JuLT, 



attemliiiits bad tlieir lodgings, we may judge what tlie rooms below 

 must liave been, for the reception of emperors, senators, knights, and 

 the Roman people. There were also in this same region some 

 thermfe erected by the emperor Decius about the middle of the 

 third century. We are also made aware of some thermae of Philip 

 by the fragment of an inscription, and we know from Vopiscus that 

 Aurelian built baths in the regions beyond the Tyber. But the next 

 great wonder were the prodigious thermffi of Diocletian, erected 

 towards the close of the third century. Scarcely any mention of this 

 stupendous fabric is to be found in any of the ancient writers whose 

 ■works are extant. The story that forty thousand Christians were 

 made to work like slaves in rearing the building, rests upon very 

 slender authority ; but if it were so, they might have been consoled 

 with the reflection that they were only aiding to erect a Christian 

 church, for one of the most splendid basilicas of Rome is now formed 

 out of the ruins. We shall shortly recur to the remains of those baths 

 when we come to description. The next and last edifice erected in 

 ancient Rome for this purpose were the therniE of Constantine, 

 probably about the year 325. Considerable remains of these exist 

 on the Quirinate Hill, adjoining the Colonna Gardens: .Sextus Aure- 

 lius says they were not inferior to the other. The two colossal 

 equestrian statues now on the Monte Cavallo, the bas-reliefs and 

 busts, as well as the fresco paintings kept in the Ruspigliosi Palace, 

 all came, as it is most probable, from those ruins. The three statues 

 of Constantine and his sons (two of which now stand on the balustrade 

 of the Campidoglio), and above all the inscription which relates that 

 a praefect restored those baths to their pristine splendour, prove 

 that we are right in identifying those ruins with the name of 

 Therma; Constantinianse. The remains now visible are used for 

 hay lofts, and are not sufficient to enable an ordinary observer to form 

 any idea of their plan or extent. Nevertheless the creative genius 

 of Palladio and Serlio has attempted the task of restoration, and it 

 is not for me to cope with such high authorities, of whom, as well as 

 of the baths they illustrate, it may be said to their immortal honour, 

 stant nominis umbras. 



We have now run through the catalogue of thermic which were 

 erected at Rome during the iirst three centuries of the Christian era, 

 and there is uo reason to suppose they were not all existing when 

 Constantine added those we have just mentioned. Publius Victor, in 

 his regionary or catalogue of public buildings, made about the year 

 360, enumerates all the great thermae we have mentioned as then ex- 

 isting; and under the same head (together with Lavacra) reckons up 

 a total of fourscore. Besides these, there were the balnea in private 

 houses, the nymphaea and laeus in gardens, and the aquse sanatariae, 

 more or less used for bathing; and such was the accommodation for 

 the luxury of cleanliness, that not an inhabitant of Rome, unless he 

 decidedly preferred it, need have continued unwashed, for in the 

 public establishments a bath might be had for the smallest piece of 

 money coined at Rome* But our wonder will be increased at the 

 magnificent luxury of the Romans, when we have made ourselves 

 acquainted with the different parts and uses of a thermae establishment, 

 which I now propose, according to my slender means, to point out 

 to you. 



Description'. 



All the thermae, as far as we have the means of ascertaining, had 

 the same aspect, and with very little variation in the distribution of 

 their parts. It will be seen by reference to the plan of ancient Rome, 

 that the three great fabrics of that description, which in part remain, 

 have had their principal elevations towards the south-west : by this 

 arrangement they secured the means of providing summer and winter 

 apartments, as they did in their large villas. The space occupied by 

 the thermae was nearly a square : in the case of Caracalla's each side 

 measured 1100 feet ; of Diocletian's about the same ; of Titus' some- 

 thing less. Attached to each was a castellum aqua; or reservoir, 

 divided into compartments, and supplied by an aqueduct, so that an 



Rex iJ^is. 



-Dum tu quadraiUe lavalnm, 



Ilorat. Sat. i. 3. 



abundance of water was always at hand for the purposes of the 

 establishment. In Diocletian's and Titus' baths those reservoirs were 

 detached from the main building ; in Caracalla's it served as the back 

 of the theatridiura, while the immense thickness of the walls pre- 

 vented all inconveniences. On each side of the theatridium, where 

 the spectators sat to view the exercises in the arena, was a paloestra, 

 (K) which, according to Vitruvius, ought to be a peristyle, either 

 square or oblong. In these, gymnastic exercises were performed iu 

 the winter months, and on either side of those were rooms destined 

 for the attendants or balneatores ; those at the end (O) have upper 

 stories, and the stairs cut in the walls are still to be traced. The same 

 disposition maybe observed in the baths of Diocletian, and something 

 similar, though much less perfect, in the Thermae Titiana;. I have 

 said that the place in front of the theatridium was the arena for 

 exercises in the open air: the ample space lying between that 

 and the principal elevation was the grand xystus (Q) or plea- 

 sure-ground. The xysta, Vitruvius says, ought to be made so 

 that, between the porticos, there may be groves and rows of 

 plane trees. Walks, he adds, (ambulationes) should be laid out among 

 the trees, and places for repose (stationes) should be made of opus 

 signinum. A similar space, though inferior, lies behind the north- 

 west elevation (Fj, and this I take to have been the minor xystus, 

 where the lower orders of the people were permitted to have free 

 access, and might extend their perambulations on each side of the 

 nine peristyles. Vitruvius speaks of xysta in the plural number, and 

 I think by comparing the plans of the other thermae, it is evident that 

 each was furnished with a major and minor xystus, observing that dis- 

 tinction of classes for which equality men are in all ages so remarkable, 

 but which we can adjust without any odious comparisons, by having 

 our xystus major at the end of Picadilly, and our xystus minor some- 

 where about'the Tower Hamlets 1 But to proceed with our outworks : 

 it is generallv supposed that the two large hemycylia, one of which 

 remains almost entire as to its ground plan, were added by Helio- 

 gabalus. They contained, first a paloestra (K), communicating with 

 rooms (L) or scholae where, in all probability, philosophers delivered 

 public lectures, and with some square compartments (Jj, which we 

 would designate academies for holding discussions. The open walks 

 (N) are Vitruvius' hypoethr:e, and they communicate with the covered 

 Ambulachra, which were not unlike the cloisters of a monastery. 

 Here the students and philosophers could take their exercise in undis- 

 turbed meditation, and repass at pleasure into the long hypa?tlirae 

 ambulationes (H) which, according to the Vitruvian precepts, ought 

 to join the xystus. In other therma- the two sides of the square 

 wanted those magnificent hemycyclia, and had more of the exedrae, 

 like (G) ; they were furnished with seats for conversazioni ; in Dio- 

 clesian's baths such recesses were numerous. The fourth side of the 

 exterior works, turned towards the via Appm, presented a splendid 

 elevation, as may be well conceived from the illustration of JM. Blouet. 

 There are sufficient indications of this lower series of compartments 

 having been used for baths, and I rather think that these were 

 dedicated to the use of the common people, who might pass from 

 them into the minor xystus. There were not less than fifty separate 

 baths, each with its ante-room (Cj, where the bathers might undress, 

 and from whence they might ascend by staircases to the higher parts 

 of the building, or pass into the portico, which continued the whole 

 length of the front. The elevation consisted in two rows of arches 

 supported by columns, and surmounted by a balustrade ornamented 

 with statues. The spectator, in viewing this front from the via Nova, 

 (a street made when the therms were erected,) saw the stately trees 

 of the xystus waving their luxurious foliage above the balustrade, and 

 the dome which covered the pinacotheca rising majestically over the 

 whole; and after approaching the vestibule (I) in the middle of the 

 elevation he ascended into the xystus, and betook himself, as we shall 

 now do in imagination, to the interior of the fabric. 



It will be remarked, by a slight reference to our ground plan, that 

 there are duplicates of all the rooms and peristylia, and that the 

 middle space is occupied principally by three large compartments, the 

 first (J') girt with the spacious hypaethrae (H), has been a circular 



