i 



By G. Poulett Scrqpe, Esq., M.P. 63 



or wooden folding doors, perhaps for the purpose of concentrating 

 an extreme degree of heat in them, suitable to a Sudatorium or 

 Sweating Bath. 



In the chamber C a recess in the end wall is occupied by a 

 water-bath hollowed out of a block of freestone. The interior 

 measures four feet by two feet three inches, and two feet six inches 

 in depth. The front edge of this stone-bath was found broken. 

 The waU. of the niche it occupies above the stone was plastered 

 flush with the inside of the bath, and painted of a deep red colour. 

 A hole on one side gave passage to the supply of water through a 

 pipe, once perhaps of lead, bedded in cement which yet remained 

 along its course. 



The adjoining chamber D has a large semi-circular recess on the 

 same (the western) side. The suspended floor of this apartment 

 had been destroyed, but many of the pillars which formerly 

 supported it were entire up to the height of two feet, and the flues 

 between them were still coated with soot. Moreover within, or 

 rather upon, the flue which encircled the wall of the recess were 

 found three entire pots or pipkins of the black variety of pottery 

 and of Koman form, (see plate x. fig. 2.) each covered with a flat 

 circular disk of thin stone, standing upright, and, though empty, 

 suggesting the idea that they had contained some kind of food and 

 been placed there for culinary purposes just before the building 

 was finally ravaged and reduced to ruin. 



If the plan of this suite of chambers is examined, it will be seen 

 that the door- ways connecting them are placed so as to make the 

 arrangement correspond very accurately with that usually practised 

 in Roman Thermce, or Hot-baths, as described by Sir "William 

 Gell in his Pompeiana, and indeed as is recommended by Yitruvius 

 the classic writer on Architecture. The innermost room of all, B, 

 immediately adjoining the furnace E, and therefore the hottest, 

 was probably the inner sweating-bath, the " Laconicum " in the 

 language of Yitruvius. From this a door-way communicates with 

 another small heated apartment A, having also a niche, the " cal- 

 darium " probably. Next to this is the bathing-room proper, C, 

 having the " hutron," or stone-bath at the end. Then comes what 



