Chapter VI - Thermae |
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Excavated in 1824. Balnea Vina Venus corrumpunt corpora
sana The design and destination of no edifice in the whole circuit of Pompeii is more clearly and certainly established than in the case of the thermae or baths, occupying an irregular quadrilateral space lying to the north of the Forum. It is, nevertheless, not so easy to assign to every apartment its appropriate and classical name ; for, though many treatises have been written on the subject of the baths of the ancients, the models referred to have been usually the stupendous piles of Imperial Rome, where innumerable chambers and porticos, adapted to various uses not necessarily connected with ablution, have extended the thermae to a degree which, admitting of no comparison, destroys any analogy with a building dedicated to a single purpose. |
The Berlin edition of Vitruvius by Roder, and the English
translation by Wilkins, have both exhibited the plan of
certain Roman remains at Baden Weiler in Germany, as those
nearest corresponding with the information we have received
from Vitruvius on the subject of the thermae of the
ancients, yet even these do not seem to agree precisely with
the baths of Pompeii. At the Roman baths of Baden, according
to Wilkins, the exedra is at the entrance, from which
a vestibule, having an elaeotheca on one side, and a
heated stufa on the other, leads to a frigidarium, to
which succeed a tepidarium and a caldarium. A
repetition of this plan for the women's baths forms the whole
of the edifice, and all seems perfectly intelligible.
This is one of the few remains of thermae in which
names can be assigned to the apartments with any degree of
certainty. A learned man, Andreas Baccius, has collected an
immense mass of all that the ancients have said on the
subject ; and, as they appear to have described, according to
circumstances and situations, such buildings as each of them
frequented, without reference to any common example, so a
more inextricable confusion has perhaps never been produced
than the whole of his most erudite dissertation. His facts
have materially assisted the present account of the baths of
Pompeii, and may be depended upon, though his quotations are
not always correct as to the chapter and verse whence they
were professedly taken.
Among others Celsus and Galen are cited, who, as physiciens,
directed their patients in the order to be followed in the
use of the baths ; but nothing as to the plan can be gained
from these doctors, as they differ as much as the other
authors ; Celsus recommending to his patients first the
tepidarium, then the caldarium, and lastly the
frigidarium ; while Galen prescribes first the hot air
of the laconicum, then the loutron or warm
water bath, and then the frigidarium.
The thermae of Pompeii may, perhaps, be best explained
by comparison with the baths of the Turks and other oriental
nations who, succeeding by conquest to the luxuries of the
enervated Greeks and Romans of the Eastern Empire, seem, as
was most natural, to have retained the institution of the
baths nearly in their original state.
A bather in Turkey first enters a large apartment of a low
temperature, furnished with couches in recesses, where he
undresses and leaves his clothes, attended by a person who
immediately furnishes him with another covering formed of
long towels or perizwma, answering to the subligar,
and a rolled towel on the head, corresponding with the
arculus of the Romans. This room seems, by its use, to
correspond with the apodyterium of the ancients, which
appears to have been the same as the frigidarium of
smaller establishments.
On other occasions the tepidarium and
apodyterium are mentioned as the same room, and those
who bathed are said to have left their clothes in this
doubly-named apartment, which answers to the first chamber of
an oriental hamam, with the additional correspondence of
being equally the station of persons who kept the garments of
the bathers, and who were responsible, on pain of death, both
by the ancient and modern law, for any theft committed.
From the outer room of the Turkish bath the stranger is
conducted through two or more rooms, each increasing in
warmth, to a hall, generally vaulted, and heated to a degree
which would be disagreeable to a person in ordinary
habiliments, but to which he soon becomes reconciled, and
which shortly produces a most profuse perspiration.
This can be no other than the laconicum of the
ancients, which was, like it, vaulted and filled with warm
air from stoves and hot water, and was called also
caldarium, vaporarium, and
sudatorium.
This was anciently, as at present, a chamber under the
pavement of which the heat of a furnace was introduced,
whence it derived its appellation of
hypocaustum.
These are the principal divisions of a Turkish hamam, derived
and continued from the Greeks and the Romans. The story of
the taking of Alexandria by the Saracens, and the destruction
of the library by the application of the volumes to the
heating of the baths, is at least a proof that these
institutions did not fall into disuse during the general
change of manners which then took place.
To reason from analogy, and, at the same time, to avail
ourselves of the numerous though perplexed accounts left us
by the ancients, seems the most probable method of getting at
the real uses of the Pompeian thermae.
The grand entrance seems to have been that in the street of
Fortune, so called, at present, from the temple of that
Goddess.
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This is seen in the general view of the
thermae, plate XXIV, being the only entrance
remaining perfect, near the centre of the street
leading to the Forum. |
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This entry or passage, marked 21 on the plan, vide
plate XXIII, opened into a court, 20, about sixty feet
long, bounded on two sides by a Doric portico, and on
the third by a crypt. Over the crypt was a second
story, where the doubtful indications of a chimney may
be observed. |
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The spot marked 19, which is observable in plate
XXVI, and is singular on account of a sort of
pronaos with seats, is vaulted, and has been
lighted at night by a lamp so placed that its rays fell
into the chamber 15 on one side, and enlightened 19 on
the other. |
Both these lamps were protected by circular convex
glasses, the fragments of which were found in the inner
chambers at their excavation.
As the baths of Pompeii were not of consequence sufficient to
be furnished with every sort of apartment like those of the
capital, we are to look for the vestibulum and the
exedra, or a place which might serve instead of them,
near the entrance of the thermae. «In vestibulo
deberet esse porticus ad deambulationes his qui essent
ingressuri».
That portico is undoubtedly the one in the court ; and the
exedra, so called from the a edrai, or seats,
where those who did not choose to walk in the portico might
repose, is represented by the bench which runs along the
wall. Vitruvius mentions that, while some were bathing,
others were generally waiting to succeed them.
In this court or vestibule was found a sword with a leather
sheath, and the box for the quadrans, or money, which was
paid by each visiter. The quadrans was the fourth part of the
assis and the fourteenth part of a denarius ; a
sum so moderate that the heating of the baths could not have
been defrayed without a crowd of bathers.
The Poet remarks upon the trifling sum with which a man made
himself as happy as a king :
Dum tu quadrante lavatum
Rex ibis.
Horace, Sat. III
Juvenal says that youths under the age of fourteen paid
nothing. - Sat. II.
The smallness of the sum, however, was a great encouragement
to bathers, who, according to Pliny, sornetimes bathed seven
times in one day.
It is exceedingly probable that the sword was that of the
keeper of the thermae, or balneator, whose station,
with his box of money, must have been the ala of the
portico, 19. This room was not painted, and the roof seems to
have been blackened by the smoke of the lamps.
Vignette 28 - Commentary |
Those who had paid here might have entered with some sort
of ticket. Tickets for the theatre have been found at Pompei,
and have been engraved. One for the show of gladiators is in
the possession of Mr. Dodwell at Rome. It is of bronze, and
of the size here represented.
In this Doric portico persons waited for admission to the
thermae, which were not of sufficient size to admit
conveniently more than twenty or thirty at once. Here,
therefore, notices of shows, games, exhibitions, or sales,
might conveniently be exposed to the public. Accordingly on
the south wall was painted, in large letters
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The word P0LY in the centre of the letter O signified, in
Latin as in Greek, «many». The sparsiones
were certain sprinklings of water perfumed with saffron, or
other odours, with which the people were regaled in the
theatre ; and, as these produced what was called a nimbus, a
cloud or a shower, the perfumed waters were probably
dispersed in drops by means of pipes or spouts over the
audience.
Another inscription mentions the same practice :
MER VENATIO ATHLET...
... E . SPASSIONES . VELA . ERVNT
The use of the word spassiones for
sparsiones, appeared common to these two inscriptions
when they were fresh, and it is not impossible that such a
provincialism might have been common in the country.
From the court, those who intended to bathe passed, by a
small corridor, into the chamber 17, which must be supposed
to have corresponded with the first room of the Turkish bath,
where a stranger is undressed.
In this corridor was found a great number of lamps, perhaps
more than fixe hundred, but above one thousand were
discovered in the whole circuit of the baths, of which it is
said the workmen were ordered to make a general destruction
after the best had been selected.
These lamps were generally of common terra cotta, and
some of them had the impression of the figures of the Graces,
and others of Harpocrates, of moderate execution. Athenaeus,
B. XV, says that the lamps in baths were of brass, and
distinguished by narres expressive of the number of burners,
such as monomixi, dimixi, trimixi, and
polymixi ; but the authors who have written on the
subject seem to speak always of buildings and customs on a
scale of magnificence too extravagant to guide us in the
explanation of the Pompeian thermae.
Some attention had been paid to the decoration of this
passage, the ceiling being covered with stars.
In the room 17, those who frequented the thermae for
the purpose of bathing met, whether they entered by the
portico, or from either of the doors from the street on the
north ; and here was certainly the frigidarium, in
which many persons took off their garments, but more
especially those who intended to make use only of the
natatio, or cold bath.
To them, at least, this chamber served as the
spoliatorium, apodyterium, or
apodyterium, so called from the Apoduthria of
the Greeks, signifying the place where the clothes were left,
and, accordingly, we may observe, on entering, certain holes
in the wall, in which have either been inserted rafters or
pegs for supporting shelves, or for hanging garments.
Pliny mentions that people first entered into the
apodyterium, or tepidarium, with a temperate
air, and consigned their garments to caprarii, which
were probably pegs so called from their likeness to
horns.
The chamber itself, which is spacious, is vaulted, and the
arch springs from a projecting cornice covered with a richly
coloured painting of griffins and lyres.
The ceiling appears to have consisted in panels of white
within red Borders, and the pavement of the common sort of
white mosaic. The walls were painted yellow. Stone benches
occupy the greater part of the walls, with a step running
below them, slightly raised from the floor. A little
apartment at the north end may have been either a
latrina, or, if it had sufficient light, a
tonstrina for shaving, or it might possibly have
served for keeping the unguents, strigils, towels, and other
articles necessary for the accommodation of visiters.
It is probable that a window once existed at the north, like
that now remaining at the south end ; but in no case could
this, or any other room in the Pompeian thermae,
answer to the description of the wide windows of the
frigidarium of the author, who says,
«frigidarium locus ventis proflatus fenestris
amplis».
The yet remaining window admitted light from the south, and
is placed close under the vault of the roof, and rather
intrenching upon it.
It opens upon the cemented or plaster roof of the chamber 18,
and was not only formed of glass, but of good plate glass,
slightly ground on one side so as to prevent the curiosity of
any person upon the roof. This glass was divided by cruciform
bars of copper, and secured by what might be termed turning
buttons of the same metal.
Of this glass all the fragments remained at the excavation, a
circumstance which appeared not a little curious to those who
imagined that its use was either unknown, or very rare, among
the ancients, and did not know that a window of the same kind
had been found in the baths of the villa of Diomedes.
Glass seems to have, at first, been brought from Egypt, and
to have in fact received its name of ualoV from the
Coptic. Crystal, krustalloV, or the permanent ice of
the ancients, originally designated the natural stone itself.
It is said to have been little known in Rome before 536,
U.C., but this would give ample time for its use at Pompeii
long before its destruction.
There are few subjects on which the learned seem to have been
so generally mistaken as that of the art of glass-making
among the ancients, who seem to have been far more skilful
than was at first imagined.
Not to mention the description of a burning glass in the
Nubes of Aristophanes, v. 764, the collection which
Mr. Dodwell first formed and brought into notice at Rome by
repolishing the fragments, is sufficient to prove that
specimens of every known marble, and of many not now existing
in cabinets, as well as every sort of precious stone, were
commonly and most successfully imitated by the ancients, who
used these imitations in cups and vases of every size and
shape.
In the time of Martial, about a century after Christ, glass
cups were common, except the calices allasontes, which
displayed changeable or prismatic colours, and, as Vossius
says, were procured in Egypt, and were so rare that Adrian
sending some to Servianus ordered that they should only be
used on great occasions.
The myrrhine vases, however, which were in such request, seem
at last to have been successfully traced to China. Propertius
calls them Parthian, and it seems certain that the porcelain
of the east was called Mirrha di Smyrna to as late a date as
1555.
The vast collection of bottles, glasses, and other utensils
discovered at Pompeii is sufficient to show that the ancients
were well acquainted with the art of glass-blowing in all its
branches ; but it is not the less true that they sometimes
used, much as we do, horn for lanterns, which Plautus terms
Vulcan in a prison of horn ; and that windows, and Cicero
says lanterns, were sometimes made of linen instead of glass,
as we see oiled paper in modern times. The common expressions
for these objects in Latin appear to be «Fenestrae
volubiles, vel lineis velis, vel specularia vitratis
clausae».
In process of time glass became so much the fashion that
whole chambers were lined with it. The remains of such a room
were discovered in the year 1826, near Ficulnea in the Roman
territory ; and these are hinted at in a passage of the Roman
naturalist. «Non dubie vitreas facturas cameras, si
prius id inventurn fuisset». In the time of Seneca the
chambers in thermae had walls covered with glass and
Thasian marble, the water issued from silver tubes, and the
decorations were mirrors.
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In the semicircular compartment containing the window was a large basso relievo in stucco, of which the subject appeared to be the destruction of the Titans by Jupiter, or, perhaps, by Saturn, whose colossal head appeared in the centre. Bacchus was one of the great assistants of Jupiter in that combat; and the cup of Bacchus, or one of the same shape, appears on the right, as if thrown at the Titan. The subject is at present scarcely intelligible, having suffered much in the reparation of the roof. Vide plate XXVII. |
From the frigidarium a short passage opened into
the street on the north, and a little recess is observable in
it, where, possibly, another person sat to receive the money
of the bathers. The third passage communicated with the
hypocaust or stoves, and these again with the street.
A door, uniform with that leading from the court, opened into
apartment 18, in which was the natatio or
natatorium, piscina, or cold bath. Some may be
inclined to apply the term baptisterion to this vase
into which the bathers plunged. The word piscina is
applied to the bath by the younger Pliny. It appears that
Loutron was the Greek appellation. That this was
called baptisterium in the time of Pliny appears from
this passage, considering its connexion with the
frigidarium. «Inde apodyterium balinei laxum et
hilare excipit cella frigidaria in qua baptisterium amplum
atque opacum». Plinius de Villa apud
Thuscos.
This is perfectly preserved, and nothing but the water is
wanting, which anciently gushed from a copper pipe opposite
the entrance, about four feet from the floor, and fell into
the cistern, being supplied by pipes yet to be traced from
the great reservoir near the praefurnium. This
apartment is a circle enclosed by a square, in the angles of
which are four alcoves, called by the ancients scholae, a
word derived from the Hebrew, and signifying repose. Some
have given the name of schola to the platform round
the bath on which visiters waited, but there seems little
doubt that the schola was generally a hemicycle connected
with that platform.
The diameter of the circle is eighteen feet six inches. Round
the whole runs a walk or ambulatory two feet four inches and
a half wide. The piscina or vase itself is twelve feet
ten inches in diameter, and has a seat eleven inches wide
surrounding it at the depth of ten inches below the lip, and
two feet four from the bottom, allowing a depth of water
equal to about three feet. There was a channel to get rid of
the superfluous water, and a low step at the bottom to assist
in getting out of the water.
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The alcoves, or scholae, are five feet two
inches wide, by two feet half an inch deep. Their
arches, which rise to the height of one foot eight
inches, spring from a point five feet six inches above
the floor. Vide plate XXVIII. |
About eight feet from the floor, a cornice runs round the
whole, nearly eighteen inches high, coloured red, and adorned
with stucco figures representing, in all appearance, the
course on foot, on horseback, and in chariots.
The spina, or, perhaps, the goal, is also visible ;
and, though much ruined, the chariot-race and the running
horses with their riders, have an air of life and verity
which seems to evince that they were at least copied from
sculptures of the most brilliant period of the arts.
It is, possibly, the Olympic hippodrome which is represented.
An attempt to give an idea of the figures may be observed in
the internal frieze of the shrine in the frontispiece of this
work.
The men on foot seem to raise their arms as if they were
athletae or boxers, and it is curious that they either are
far inferior to the rest in spirit and design, or appear so
from their more mutilated condition.
The cistern, or bath, in this apartment was decidedly that
termed piscina by Cicero, when, in writing to Quintus
his brother, he observes, «Latiorem piscinam
voluissem ubi jactata brachia non offenderentur». This
passage is scarcely applicable to any vessel except one in
which the whole body might be placed.
The piscina, called also natatio or
natatorium, seems the only member of the bath which
has not survived the revolution of manners in the east, at
least in cities, for the cistern or vase yet exists in the
neighbourhood of many thermal waters, immersion being the
only way of benefiting by them.
The natatorium of the baths of Diocletian was 200 feet
long, by half that width, the Aqua Mania supplying copious
streams of water, which spouted forth in grottos artificially
contrived.
With the magnificence of the capital the piscina of
Pompeii cannot pretend to vie ; but nothing can be more
elegant, or more aptly calculated for the purpose of bathing
than the chamber in question, of which a view is given in
plate XXVIII.
It is to be supposed that many preferred this species of bath
to undergoing the perspiration of the thermal chamber ; and,
as the frigidarium alone could have produced no
effect, so it must be understood that the natatio was
intended, when it is asserted that, at one period, the cold
bath was in the greatest request. «Adeoque praevaluit
semper frigidarum usus ut vix quidam aliis balneis
uterentur».
It would seem possible that the vase, or natatorium,
either hot or cold, might sometimes have had the name of
solium, for the word implies it. A solium is
defined to be, among its other senses, «alveus in quem
descenderent lavaturi». This had a connexion with the
tepidarium, or apodyterium, or
spoliatorium, whether hot or cold.
A doorway, the jambs of which are somewhat inclined, and
prove that the folding-doors, which turned upon
umbilici, or pivots, were calculated to shut by their
own weight, conducted the visiter to the chamber 15, which
was called either tepidarium, ALEIPTHRION,
apodyterium, elaeothesium, or unctuarium
; for, in thermae of small dimensions, one chamber
must have served for many of those purposes to which, in the
imperial city, separate apartments were allotted.
It is therefore probable that, though the frigidarium
served as an apodyterium to the cold bathers, those
who took the warm bath undressed in the second chamber, 15,
which was warmed, not only by a portable fire-place, or
foculare, called by the Italians bracciere, but
by means of a suspended pavement heated by the distant fires
of the stove of the caldarium or laconicum. The
temperature did not, probably, much exceed that necessary to
impart an agreeable warmth, and supply the want of the more
cumbrous articles of dress.
In the tepidarium are three seats of bronze, about six
feet long and one broad. Their general form may be observed
in the view, plate XXIV, where the foculare is seen in
its original position. This beautiful chamber was excavated
in the autumn of 1824, at which period the whole vault, or
very nearly the whole, was full of the common
lapillae. The seats are inscribed with the name of the
donor, Marcus Nigidius Vaccula, whose heraldic cognizance, if
that expression were admissible, was a pun upon his name, the
legs of the seats being those of a cow, whose head forms
their upper ornament, and whose entire figure is the
decoration of the foculare.
The inscription runs thus
M. NIGIDIVS. VACCVLA. P. S
The hearth, 16, is about seven feet long, and two feet six
broad. It is, generally, of bronze, and is ornamented by
thirteen battlemented summits and a lotus at the
angles.
Within these is an iron lining, calculated to resist the heat
of the embers ; and the bottom is formed by bars of brass, on
which are laid bricks supporting the pumice stones for the
reception of the charcoal.
Plate 25 - Commentary |
By the view it will be seen that this apartment was decorated in a manner suitable to its importance. The pavement of white mosaic, with two small borders of black, the ceiling elegantly painted, the walls coloured with crimson, and the cornice supported by statues, all conspired to render this a beautiful and splendid place of relaxation for the inhabitants of Pompeii. «Signis ornatum et jucundis picturis». The section, plate XXV, united with the plan, will assist in forming an idea of the connexion of this room with the first and with the third chambers ; and the suspended floor and hypocaust will be easily understood. Some have traced the invention of suspensurae, pensile, or suspended floors, to the Sybarites, and some have imagined they only existed in private baths. Vitruvius directs that the props to support these pavements should be two feet high, on which tiles two feet long should be laid for the placing of the ornemental mosaic.
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In the view, plate XXIX, which is copied, by
permission, from a large drawing made with the
camera lucida by my friend M. Zahn,
architectural painter to the Elector of Hesse Cassel,
will be observed the curious fine of figures which are
supported by a heavy projecting cornice, and themselves
sustain an entablature from whence springs the vault or
roof. |
Figures, used as supports to the mutules and corona, are
mentioned by Vitruvius (Chap. X.) as architectural ornaments.
He adds that the Romans called these telamones, and
the Greeks atlantes. They have been called fawns on
the spot, on account of the hairy accoutrements of some of
them ; but that was a dress common to all the divinities of
remote antiquity. The word Telamo seems to have, at
length, been used for any sort of prop, and to have been
derived from the Greek word talaw, sustineo,
without any necessary reference to the strength of the
hero.
Hercules was also, in some manner, connected with the baths
of the ancients ; and Dion Chrysostomus mentions a portion of
a therma dedicated to him, possibly, however, as
connected with the Palaestra ; but the use of those figures
in the baths of Pompeii, by whatever name they may have been
called, was evidently to ornament the separations between a
number of niches, or recesses, in which the garments of those
who vent into the sudatorium, or inner apartment, to
perspire, were laid up till their return.
Pliny observes that the tepidarium was «locum
laxum et hilarem amoenum a meridie illustratum». He
adds that the garments of bathers were left there.
Six of the intervals are closed on the side nearest to the
frigidarium, the reason for which is not apparent,
though there was still a sufficient number vacant to have
contained the garments of the visiters.
The heat in this chamber was a dry warmth produced by the
hypocaust and the foculare, and, consequently, an
agreeable place for perfuming, anointing, and all the other
operations after the sudatory.
The ancients had an astonishing number of oils, soaps, and
perfumes ; and their washballs seem to have had the general
name of smegmata, a word derived from the Greek. Among
the oils are named the mendesium, megalium, metopium,
amaracinum, cyprinum, susinum, nardinum, spicatum, and
jasmine ; and Heliogabalus never bathed without oil of
saffron or crocum, which was thought most precious. We hear
also of nitre and aphronitrum in the baths. To these were
added all kinds of odoriferous powders, called
diapasmata. The cyprian was not only a perfume, but
was supposed to put a stop to further perspiration, and its
name has been retained to the present day.
Persons of lower condition sometimes used, instead of soap,
meal of lupins, called lomentum, which, with common
meal, is yet used in the north of England ; while the rich
carried their own most precious unguents to the
thermae in phials of alabaster, gold, and
glass, which were of such common use, both in ordinary life
and at funerals, that they have very frequently been found in
modern times, when they acquired the name of
lachrymatories, from a mistaken notion concerning
their original destination.
Pliny mentions that, in the apodyterium or
tepidarium, was the elaeothesia, or place for
anointing, called also in Latin unctorium, where
persons called, from their office, unctores were
employed. It is to be supposed that, in the great
therma of the capital, this aleipthrion, or
unctuarium, was a separate chamber.
A verse of Lucilius, quoted by Green in his work De
Rusticatione Romanorum, describes the operations which
took place in this apartment :
Scabor, suppellor, desquamor, pumicor, ornor,
Expilor, pingor
The third apartment, 12, for the use of those who frequented the hot baths, is entered by a door opening from the tepidarium, which closed by its own weight, and, it is probable, was generally shut, to prevent the admission of cold or less heated air. Vitruvius says that the laconicum and sudatories ought to join the tepidarium ; and that, when these were separate rooms, they were entered by two doors from the apodyterium.
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This chamber, though perhaps not decorated with all
the art displayed in the tepidarium, possibly
because the constant ascent of steam would have
destroyed the colours of the ceiling or vault, was,
nevertheless, delicately ornamented with mouldings of
stucco, which have an elegant and beautiful
effect. |
Not only is the pavement suspended in the manner
recommended by Vitruvius, but the walls are so constructed
that a column of heated air encloses the apartment on ail
sides.
This is not effected by flues, but by one universal flue
formed by a lining of bricks or, tiles, strongly connected
with the outer wall by cramps of iron, yet distant about four
inches from it, so as to leave a space by which the hot air
might ascend from the furnace, and increase, almost equally,
the temperature of the whole room.
Some parts of this casing having fallen, the whole of this
admirable contrivance is now apparent ; and the pavement
having, in some places, been forced in, by the fall of some
part of the vault, the method of suspending it was, at the
period of the excavation, sufficiently visible.
In the view, plate XXXI, it will be observed that scarcely
any thing was placed in symmetry with the centre ; the
circular window in the alcove, with its ornemental dolphins
in stucco, being to the left, and the two side-windows in the
vault being neither equal in size nor situation.
This may be accounted for, by supposing that these holes were
pierced in the vault, in places where fewer obstacles to the
transmission of light existed on the exterior of the roof
above. The walls are painted yellow, with pilasters and
cornice in red, and the alcove is prettily decorated with
coloured panels or compartments, in relievo, generally
painted alternately in blue and red, and adorned with figures
ill preserved, as may be seen in the view.
Vitruvius directs that, on account of the penetrating vapour,
the roof of the caldarium should, if possible, be
stone. He recommends also certain precautions where that
cannot be effected.
The most striking object in the apartment is the
labrum, 14, placed in the centre of the alcove which
forms one extremity of the caldarium, as the hot-water
bath. This consists in a vase or tazza of white marble, not
less than eight feet in diameter, and, internally, not more
than eight inches in depth. In the centre is a projection, or
umbo, rising from the bottom, in the middle of which a
brass tube has thrown up the water, which, judging from the
customary process in an oriental bath, was probably cold, or
as nearly so as was judged expedient for pouring upon the
head of the bather before he quitted tliis heated
atmosphere.
This is supposed in the East a necessary practice ; but it
must be understood that the water is by no means cold except
by comparison.
It is not a little remarkable, that this circular basin of
marble is placed on a mass of volcanic stone of oval form,
which, besides being too bulky for the tazza, injures its
appearance by hiding a portion. It is not impossible that
certain cracks in the marble may have suggested the adoption
of this precaution to prevent the increase of the evil.
The labrum was presented to the thermae of
Pompeii by a private individual, whose name, together with
the value, is inscribed in letters of bronze yet remaining on
the lip of the basin.
CN. MELISSAEO. CN. F.A PRO. M. STAIO.
M. F. RVFO. II. VIR. ITER. ID. LABRVM.
EX. D. D. EX. P. I. F. C. CONSTAT. HSP. C.C.L.
The position of this labrum seems, in some
respects, to accord with the instructions given by Vitruvius
for the construction of such a vase : «Scholas autem
labrorum ita fieri oportet spaciosas ut cum priores
occupaverint loca circumspectantes reliqui recte stare
possunt». Vit. (1.v.c.X). He says also :
«labrum sub lumine faciendum videtur ne stantes
circum suis umbris obscurent lucem». Even this, as
applied to our labrum, is not very intelligible.
Andreas Baccius, who has written and collected much of what
the ancients have left us on the subject of baths, says that
some labra existed made of glass ; and he very
sensibly concludes, that all the great tazza of Rome, like
that at present on the Quirinal, were originally the
labra of the public or private baths of the city.
Ficoroni mentions labri in Rome of basalt, granite,
porphyry, and alabaster, and observes that many of
these had a lion's head in the centre. Mention is also made
of the labrum in a private bath by Cicero, in a letter
to his wife Terentia : «labrum si non est in
balneo fac ut sit».
The opening for the lamp, which has been formerly noticed as
giving light, on one side, to the Doric portico, and on the
other to the caldarium, is visible above the
labrum, and had, anciently, a convex glass to prevent
the entrance of cold air from without.
The view, plate XXXI, which was taken with the camera
lucida, will give an idea of the proportions of the
semicircular and chamber, which is thirty-seven feet long, by
seventeen feet four inches in breadth. Having been taken from
the hot bath at the north end, the first objects in the
foreground are the step and the brink by which the bathers
entered it. The surbase, or plinth, is ten inches high, and
the wall is seven feet high up to the lowest cornice, which
is, like the pilasters, painted red.
From the pavement of the caldarium, which was of white
tesserae, with two small borders of black, bathers
ascended by two steps so as to sit down conveniently upon the
third or marble wall, one foot four inches broad, which
formed the brink of the vase or vat of hot water. Thence one
step dividing the whole depth of the cistern, not exceeding
two feet and half an inch, permitted them to immerse
themselves by degrees in the heated fluid. The whole length
of the cistern is fifteen feet, and the breadth four. About
ten persons might have sat upon the marble pavement, without
inconvenience, at the same moment, immersed in the hot water.
It is evident, from the shallowness of this cistern, that
persons must have sat on the pavement in order to have been
sufficiently immersed ; and, accordingly, the side next the
north wall is constructed with marble, sloping like the back
of a chair in an angle well adapted to the support of the
body in that position.
Hot water entered this bath, 13, at one of the angles,
immediately from the caldron 9, which boiled on the other
side of the wall.
There appears to have been a moveable stone in the pavement,
near this cistern, possibly for permitting the entrance of a
column of hot air on certain occasions.
This chamber, from the water which must have fallen upon the
pavement, and the distillation caused by the vapour from so
great a quantity of heated liquid, must have always been wet,
and must have had an outlet, called fusorium, to which
the floor inclined. Perhaps the opening near the hot bath
served, in part, for this purpose. The floor was found much
damaged and broken in by the fall of a part of the arch on
its first discovery.
The seats in this chamber were probably of wood, as the whole
must have been constantly in a state of humid heat, which
would have corroded furniture of bronze like those of Vaccula
in the tepidarium. In that portion of the vaulted roof
yet remaining are no fewer than four openings for the
admission of light, and the transmission of hot air and
vapour.
These must have been glazed, or closed with linen windows,
called vela, for it was probably previous to that
common use of glass which evidently prevailed at Pompeii,
that the brazen shields, or circular shutters, mentioned by
Vitruvius as hanging by chains, for the purpose of opening
and shutting the windows of the laconicum or sudatory,
were necessary. It appears, from that author, that these
shields were lowered to open, or raised to close, the
circular openings in the roof of the laconicum. Over
the labrum is seen one of these circular
windows.
An author named Robortellius, in the collection of Graevius
and Gronovius, says that the openings in the roof of the
baths of Pisa are yet visible, and are, some of them, six
feet in diameter. In the Moorish baths at Granada, in the
palace of the Alhambra, a number of small orifices exist ;
and, in Turkish baths, these holes are generally numerous and
covered with convex glasses.
It is evident that, when the vaults were entire, none of
these apartments could have been supplied with a cheerful
light ; and that, when the brazen shields were in use, the
darkness must have increased with the increase of
temperature.
In some instances, these shields seem to have condensed the
vapours, and caused them to fall in showers ; and this, which
must have followed of course, is mentioned to have happened
in the hemisphere of the laconicum.
It may be supposed that, in an establishment so small as this
at Pompeii, this inner room, or caldarium, might unite
in itself more than one of the numerous appellations in use
in the Roman capital.
The caldarium seems to be the hot bath, the absolute
vessel of hot water, the loutron or lavacrum ;
but this was always close to the laconicum. «Ex
laconico aditus in caldarium». The words, however,
caldarium, vaporarium, sudatorium, and
laconicum, seem to have been often indiscriminately
used, to say nothing of hypocaustum, which, at
Pompeii, applies equally to the tepidarium, and
signifies, in fact, any chamber heated bysubterraneous flues.
They were, as it was said, first invented by the Sybarites,
and, in private bouses, were called apoqhkaV
qermaV.
Wilkins says that the laconicum is a circular stove ;
and it certainly appears that it was often circular and full
of warm vapours from stoves and hot water. A certain
Oribasius observes that the laconicum was very hot,
yet exceedingly humid, which proves that he alluded to a bath
where the laconicum and caldarium were united
like this at Pompeii. Under the pavement of the
laconicum was the furnus upokauston.
The laconicum, even in baths of great dimensions,
seems to have been often small, as many persons preferred
producing the perspiration by exercise. For this purpose such
thermae were provided with all the adjuncts of
palaestra, xysta, ephebium, corycaeum, conisterium,
sphaeristerium, peristylia, theatre, and other endless
divisions, which augmented the imperial thermae of
Rome to the size of moderate towns, but which have no
existence at Pompeii. The presence of so many of these
apartments has been the cause of the difficulties which have
arisen in comprehending the accounts of the ancients.
It was the custom, to perspire first, and, after the
operation of the strigil, to resort to the warm-water bath.
The strigil is well known to have been a sort of concave and
sickle-shaped scraper, made of bone, iron, copper, or silver,
for cleansing the skin from the copions perspiration caused
by the laconicum. It was by no means a very agreeable
operation, and Suetonius says Augustus was a sufferer by its
having been too roughly used. Its place is now supplied, in a
Turkish bath, by a sort of bag or glove of camels' hair,
which, without pain, peels off the perspiration in large
flakes, and leaves the skin in a most wonderfully luxurious
state of softness and polish. Persons of quality carried with
them their own apparatus, whence Persius, in Sat. V.,
says
I puer et strigiles Crispini ad balnea defer.
After the warm water, a cooler stream was probably poured
on the head from the labrum, and this was the
preparation for encountering the lover temperature of the
tepidarium, whence, after the use of unguents, it was
thought safe to enter the frigidarium, and thence to
pass into the open air.
The thermae must have been of great advantage to the
practice of medicine. Alexander the Great is said to have
slept in the bath during a fever ; and certainly, where
perspiration vas the object, such a plan could scarcely fail.
They practised cupping, and bleeding with leeches also, in
the laconicum.
The physicians of antiquity have written much on the subject
of therma and their effects, without always rendering
the subject very intelligible.
Galen, Book X., says a bather should first go into the warm
air, thence into the warm water or loutron, thence
into the cold. After this he should enter the
tepidarium or apodyterium, where the scraping
off of the perspiration should be performed, and where Celsus
says persons were anointed. This is not very comprehensible ;
but Celsus, Book I. c. IV., seems to have given real
information, and that which is applicable to the Pompeian
thermae, when he cells us that people perspired a
littte in the tepidarium, thence entered the
caldarium or laconicum, and retired in order
through the hot, the tepid, and the cold apartments.
Galen says that he who neglects the cold chamber, or cold
water, is in danger from open pores on passing into the open
air. This may serve to show that the tepidarium was
not the last chamber recommended by him ; and it is not
improbable that some, who were ordered by the physician to
pass «from the laconicum to the
caldarium, and thence to the apodyterium, from
whence they are to use the solium frigidum»,
might, in the baths of Pompeii, have plunged into the
natatorium, 18, as a termination of the process.
Solium is defined to be either a vessel to wash in, or
a hollow into which those who washed descended.
In places not affording the convenience for immersion in the
solium frigidum, aspersions of cold water, like a
shower-bath, are recommended ; and this is, in fact, resorted
to in the Turkish baths, where the natatorium does not
commonly exist.
It is observable that those who bathe, or rather perspire, in
the Turkish hamam, very rarely, if ever, take cold on
returning to the open air. A disease depending on impeded
perspiration could indeed scarcely exist where every thing
like perspiration had been previously so carefully
removed.
From the frigidarium, 17, a very narrow passage ran to
the furnace 9, upon which were placed caldrons to the number
of three, one above another, and possibly, as may be gathered
from an inspection of the ruins, placed in three columns of
three caldrons each, so that the water in the uppermost or
ninth vase, nearest the cisterns 10 and 11, would be very
nearly cold. One author has observed that, in some instances,
in the pavement of the frigidarium was a hole through
which the furnarius, or fire-lighter, vent to the
propnigeum, or furnace.
Praefurnium, propnigeum, ostium furni, fornax, all
seem terms applicable to this part of the therma, which was
under the care of persons called also fornacatores and
furnacatores. Vitruvius says, on the left of the
hypocaust or fornax inferior were the male
baths, and on the right those of the women, a position
according with those of Pompeii. A Pompeian inscription,
relating to those who had the care of the fires, is given by
Mazzocchi or Rossini :
SECVNDVM. AED FVRNACATOR ROG
In the section of the baths, plate XXV, may be observed,
on the right, the three vases placed one above the other over
the fire.
They were named, litre the chambers, according to their
situations, the lowest being the caldarium, the next
the tepidarium, and the last the frigidarium,
though, probably, no water was absolutely cold in the whole
building.
The form and proportions of these vases or caldrons are given
in the section, plate XXV, from the impression they have very
visibly left in the cement which fixed them.
The caldron immediately above the flames was of course
boiling ; and, on the water being withdrawn for use, it was
contrived that an equal portion should replace it from the
tepidarium, into which at the same time the
frigidarium was discharged.
It does not seem improbable, from the appearance of the
place, that there were three columns of these caldrons at
Pompeii dependent on a single fire ; and if so, the upper
caldron of the column nearest the cistern, 10, contained
water nearly cold, and hence that was probably derived which
rose in the centre of the labrum, and must have had a
higher level.
From one of these, or the cisterns adjoining, the circular
bath, or natatorium, was also supplied, through tubes
yet to be traced in the wall.
We read of some of these vases, or cisterns, which were made
of lead, and called miliaria ; but these were, of
course, far from the furnace, and were so named because of
the thousand measures of water contained, or of the pounds of
lead employed.
In the section, only the chambers of the men, or one set of
baths, are given, as the plate would either have been
considerably longer, or the objects would have been too much
diminished.