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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL, 



223 



room not unlike the Pantheon if stripped of its portico. This is sup- 

 posed to be the caldarium, and being exposed to the sun, received 

 much of its beat therefrom ; to which the hypocaustum or place for 

 heating water being adjacent, or underneath, gave additional warmth ; 

 in the midst was a circular reservoir, in which the batliers took their 

 exercise together, the spectators, leaning on a barrier, were admitted 

 to the suffocating sight. Any one who lias seen the large baths in 

 Turkey may form a correct notion of a caldarium. I allude now 

 especially to the baths at Bronsa, in Bythinia, at the foot of Mount 

 Olympus, where I have seen this process of hot bathing, and where 

 the Turks seem to enjoy swimming in water heated to a degree which 

 would certainly boil a Christian or skin a Jew. After the process of 

 scalding, it must have been grateful to the sensations to pass back 

 again into the next room (D, which was the tepidarium ; in this also 

 there was room for swimming about, and after this {in the reluming 

 process) the bathers passed into the large room, which is the second 

 of the three mentioned, and which was the cella tepidaria; here in 

 four recesses were deep and ample basins (G'), discovered in the 

 excavations of ISilO to have been lined with marble, with the steps 

 for descending into them existing; in the centre of each side were 

 two immense circular basins called Baptisteria, and which are probably 

 those now standing in the Piazza Farnese ; this spacious apartment 

 (F) with the rooms (B) at each end, measures 300 feet by 100, and 

 the centre portion of it was supported by eight immense columns of 

 granite, and must have been the most imposing saloon in the whole 

 establishment. Taken in its whole extent, we conceive this to have 

 been the pinacotheca, which the ample room now formed into the 

 church of Sta. Maria degli Angioli, at Diocletian's baths, resembles. 

 The third great compartment no one doubts was used as the natatio 

 or cold swimming bath, called also the frigidarium, and sometimes 

 piscina, because originally a large basin of cold water or a lake, where 

 fish were kept, was so called ; this too was supported by 8 columns, 

 not inferior to those of the pinacotheca. At each end were the 

 vestibula (Y), and the Apodyteria (Q'), and the rooms (A') 

 where the Capsarii took care of the clothes, and the correspond- 

 ing places B' C, where the Aliptse and Unguentarii were ready 

 to anoint and perfume the bathers, and the rooms D' called 

 Diffits, where they might have refreshments. By this arrange- 

 ment, the bathers who desired to go through the whole process 

 of a purification, might pass from the cold natatio facing the north to 

 the caldarium facing the south, and return again by the same gra- 

 dations of heat and perspiration, until they were ready for a repast or 

 a repose, or a conversation in some of the numerous apartments. 

 Such were the rooms (R' T') and perhaps others that might be reached 

 by ascending to the second story;* now either the large room (J') or 

 (F') must have been that famous cella solearis mentioned by Spartian, 

 and as the middle room, liolding the most prominent place in the 

 whole plan, appears to unite all the properties necessary to meet the 

 description, I have always been of opinion (before I had the satisfac- 

 tion of finding M. Blouet agree with me) that the pinacotheca was 

 the cella solearis ; 1 do not think it necessary, however, to stand out 

 for the heat of the sun, for antiquaries yet differ upon the word 

 solearis, and the room, as far as the epithet goes, might either be 

 <-alled from the sun or from the lacing of a slipper ; the remarkable 

 feature of this cella solearis was the working of the roof; it appears 

 to have been fretted or cancellated by copper lacing over a vast extent 

 of space, in such a way as to render both its design and execution a 

 matter of astonishment to artists; if the large central room which I 

 have designated the pinacotheca was the cella solearis, then its mag- 

 nificence would be increased by the works of art which were placed 

 in it, for such rooms in the public thermae became as many national 

 galleries where paintings were deposited (as the word pinacotheca 

 implies), and other speoimens of art which the authors thought fit to 

 expose. The space was so ample that it was not necessary to make 

 previous application for a good place, and the admission being gratui- 



* M. Filouet, however, designates the room (R') sudatorium, applying some 

 clirectiors of Vitruvius a little too vaguely. 



tons, the connoisseurs paid more than one visit, and found out the good 

 picture or statue in the most obscure places. Our attention is yet to 

 be called to the two large open peristyles (U') in which the athletic 

 exercises were performed, as the Mosaic pavement opened in 1826 

 indicated, for in the semicircular recesses (P'j were represented full 

 figures of Discobuli, some with their names written near them, others 

 with the wreath of conquest in their hands. The hemycyclia fP) were 

 used for the visitors of the sports, and the separate divisions (V) 

 were probably schools or ephebia, where the youthful arms were 

 practised in manly exercises. We have now only to finish, the prin- 

 cipal facade of the xystus. On each side of the caldarium (or circular 

 room in the middle) is a comparatively small basin (K), and these 

 I take to be the sudatoria, one for the men and another for the 

 women. By a passage from these we enter into two square rooms, 

 which are suitable for the vestiaria, and may be considered as the 

 apodyteria for this more dignified part of the baths. The rooms M' 

 and N' may fairly be assigned for gymnasia in fine weather ; the cor- 

 ner apartments (N') are open on two sides, and lead into the xystus ; 

 to complete our idea of this once splendid building, we may look at 

 the restored elevation of this facade by M. Blouet, which, after what 

 has been said, we can hardly believe to be over-wrought or exagge- 

 rated in ornament. 



I may not lengthen this paper by attempting to speak of the con- 

 struction and materials of this ancient edifice ; the quantity and 

 quality of its decorations may be inferred from the noble specimens 

 of art that have come out of its ruins ; the Farnese Hercules, the 

 Glycon, the Bull, the Torso Belvedere, the Atreus, are too well known 

 to need repetition. The treasures found and carried away by the 

 nephew of Pope Paul III. were enough to have formed an interesting 

 museum of antiquities ; the Flora, the tvs'o Gladiators, and a quantity 

 of busts were among them. The granite column now standing at 

 Florence attests the magnitude of the pinacotheca from whence it 

 was taken ; and yet all we know is perhaps but a fraction of the rich 

 art with which those thermas were embellished. When we consider 

 the immense provision made for bathing in ancient Rome (for there 

 were seven or eight great thermae at one time existing), the practice 

 must have been diffused throughout the whole population. As early 

 as the Augustus, a poor man might wash for a farthing, and little boys 

 (Juvenal intimates) paid nothing. But the practice, which at first 

 was wholesome and of public utility, afterwards degenerated into 

 effeminacy and indolence. The Emperors promoted the abuse of the 

 bath by their example ; Hadrian bathed in public with the lowest of 

 the people. But it is a consolation, to know that those splendid edi- 

 fices were not erected solely for the sordid purpose of bathing; by 

 reference to our ground plans we shall see that but a portion of the 

 whole therma was dedicated to that object ; we may leave the motley 

 throng in the frigidarium, pass by the half naked groups in the cella 

 tepedaria, and say nothing about the delights of the sudatorium, or 

 the boiling process of the caldarium ; the tilthy and effeminate we 

 may enclose within the limits of the three large centre rooms ; but all 

 the rest of the space was dedicated to nobler and more manly pur- 

 poses. The whole must have presented an animated scene, and the 

 magnificent display of works of art appears to have compensated in 

 some degree for the disgusting exhibition of works of nature. In the 

 peristyles were the competitors for a laurel crown exerting their mus- 

 cular strength, while poets and philosophers sat looking on in the 

 recesses of the exhedrs ; there a public orator delightens an in- 

 tellectual audience with the flowers of rhetoric ; in the walks of the 

 xystus wandered in groups the sons of Apollo, while the notes of the 

 lyre resounded from behind some shady plane tree ; parading in the 

 hypaethriE were senators and politicians, and in the more retired am- 

 bulachra the students of Plato's or Aristotle's philosophy ; in front of 

 the theatridiura the foot race was run, and the applause which saluted 

 the man who won, rung through the stately arches of the adjoining 

 hemycyclia; in the terraces of the upper story were companies of 

 idlebutwitty spectators, looking down upon the passengers moving 

 along the Via Appia, or espying from afar the approach of a governor 

 returning from his province. A thousand occupations of pleasure and 



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