Chapter IX: Amusements; Baths (2)

§350. These schools had also to serve as barracks for the gladiators between engagements, that is, practically as houses of detention. It was from the school of Lentulus at Capua that Spartacus had escaped, and the Romans needed no second lesson of the sort. The general arrangement of these barracks may be understood from the ruins of one uncovered at Pompeii, though in this case the buildings had been originally planned for another purpose, and the rearrangement may not be ideal in all respects. A central court, or exercise ground (Figs. 155, 156) is surrounded by a wide colonnade, and this in turn by rows of buildings two stories in height, the general arrangement being not unlike that of the peristyle of a house (§202). The dimensions of the court are nearly 120 by 150 feet. The buildings are cut up into rooms, nearly all small (about twelve feet square), disconnected and opening upon the court, those in the first story being reached from the colonnade, those in the second from a gallery to which ran several stairways. These small rooms are supposed to be the sleeping-rooms of the gladiators, each accommodating two persons. There are seventy-one of them (marked _7_ on the plan), affording room for 142 men. The uses of the larger rooms are purely conjectural. The entrance is supposed to have been at _3_, with a room, _15_, for the watchman or sentinel. At _9_ was an _exedra_, where the gladiators may have waited in full panoply for their turns in the exercise ground, _1_. The guard-room, _8_, is identified by the remains of stocks, in which the refractory were fastened for punishment or safe-keeping. They permitted the culprits to lie on their backs or sit in a very uncomfortable position. At _6_ was the armory or property room, if we may judge from articles found in it. Near it in the corner was a staircase leading to the gallery before the rooms of the second story. The large room, _16_, was the mess-room, with the kitchen, _12_, opening into it. The stairway, _13_, gives access to the rooms above kitchen and mess-room, possibly the apartments of the trainers and their helpers.

§351. Places of Exhibition.--During the Republic the combats of gladiators took place sometimes at the grave or in the circus, but regularly in the forum. None of these places was well adapted to the purpose, the grave the least of all. The circus had seats enough, but the _spīna_ was in the way (§335) and the arena too vast to give all the spectators a satisfactory view of a struggle that was confined practically to a single spot. In the forum, on the other hand, the seats could be arranged very conveniently; they would run parallel with the sides, would be curved around the corners, and would inclose only sufficient space to afford room for the combatants. The inconvenience here was due to the fact that the seats had to be erected before each performance and removed after it, a delay to business if they were constructed carefully and a menace to life if they were put up hastily. These considerations finally led the Romans, as they had led the Campanians half a century before, to provide permanent seats for the _mūnera_, arranged as they had been in the forum, but in a place where they would not interfere with public or private business. To these places for shows of gladiators came in the course of time to be exclusively applied the word _amphitheātrum_, which had been previously given in its correct general sense to any place, the circus for example, in which the seats ran all the way around, as opposed to the theater in which the rows of seats were broken by the stage.

§352. Amphitheaters at Rome.--Just when the first amphitheaters, in the special sense of the word, were erected at Rome can not be determined with certainty. The elder Pliny (†79 A.D.) tells us that in the year 55 B.C. Caius Scribonius Curio built two wooden theaters back to back, the stages being, therefore, at opposite ends, and gave in them simultaneous theatrical performances in the morning. Then, while the spectators remained in their seats, the two theaters were turned by machinery and brought together face to face, the stages were removed, and in the space they had occupied shows of gladiators were given in the afternoon before the united crowds. This story is all too evidently invented to account for the perfected amphitheater of Pliny's time, which he must have interpreted to mean "a double theater." We are also told that Caesar erected a wooden amphitheater in 46 B.C., but we have no detailed description of it, and no reason to think that it was anything more than a temporary affair. In the year 29 B.C., however, an amphitheater was built by Statilius Taurus, partially at least of stone, that lasted until the great conflagration in the reign of Nero (64 A.D.). Nero himself had previously erected one of wood in the Campus. Finally, just before the end of the first century of our era, was completed the _amphitheātrum Flāvium_, later known as the _colossēum_ or _colisēum_, which was large enough and durable enough to make forever unnecessary the erection of other similar structures in the city.

§353. The Amphitheater at Pompeii.--The essential features of an amphitheater may be most easily understood from the ruins of the one at Pompeii, erected about 75 B.C., almost half a century before the first permanent structure of the sort at Rome (§352), and the earliest known to us from either literary or monumental sources. The exterior is shown in Fig. 157 (see also Overbeck, pp. 176-180; Mau-Kelsey, pp. 206-212) and a section in Fig. 159. It will be seen at once that the arena and most of the seats lie in a great hollow excavated for the purpose, thus making sufficient for the exterior a low wall of hardly more than ten to thirteen feet in height. Even this wall was necessary on only two sides, as the amphitheater was built in the southeast corner of the city and its south and east sides were bounded by the city walls. The shape is elliptical, the major axis being 444 feet, the minor 342. The arena occupies the middle space. It was encircled by thirty-five rows of seats arranged in three divisions, the lowest (_īnfima_ or _īma cavea_) having five rows, the second (_media cavea_) twelve, and the highest (_summa cavea_) eighteen. A broad terrace ran around the amphitheater at the height of the topmost row of seats. Access to this terrace was given from without by the double stairway on the west, shown in Fig. 157, and by single stairways next the city walls on the east and south (_10_ in Fig. 160). Between the terrace and the top seats was a gallery, or row of boxes, each about four feet square, probably for women. Beneath the boxes persons could pass from the terrace to the seats. The amphitheater had seating capacity for about 20,000 people.

§354. The arena is shown in Fig. 158, its plan in Fig. 160. It was an ellipse with axes of 228 and 121 feet. Around it ran a wall a little more than six feet high, on a level with the top of which were the lowest seats. For the protection of the spectators when wild animals were shown, a grating of iron bars was put up on the top of the arena wall. Access to the arena and to the seats of the _cavea īma_ and the _cavea media_ was given by the two underground passageways, _1_ and _2_ in Fig. 160, of which _2_ turns at right angles on account of the city wall on the south. From the arena ran also a third passage, _5_, low and narrow, leading to the _porta Libitinēnsis_, through which the bodies of the dead were dragged with ropes and hooks. Near the mouths of these passages were small chambers or dens, marked _4_, _4_, _6_, the purposes of which are not known. The floor of the arena was covered with sand, as in the circus (§332), but in this case to soak up the blood as well as to give a firm footing to the gladiators.

§355. Of the part of this amphitheater set aside for the spectators the _cavea īma_ only was supported upon artificial foundations. All the other seats were constructed in sections as means were obtained for the purpose, the people in the meantime finding places for themselves on the sloping banks as in the early theaters (§325). The _cavea īma_ was strictly not supplied with seats all the way around, a considerable section on the east and west sides being arranged with four low, broad ledges of stone, rising one above the other, on which the members of the city council could place the seats of honor (_bisellia_, Fig. 161) to which their rank entitled them. In the middle of the section on the east the lowest ledge is made of double width for some ten feet; this was the place set apart for the giver of the games and his friends. In the _cavea media_ and the _cavea summa_ the seats were of stone resting on the bank of earth. It is probable that all the places in the lowest section were reserved for people of distinction, that seats in the middle section were sold to the well-to-do, and that admission was free to the less desirable seats of the highest section.

§356. The Coliseum.--The Flavian amphitheater (§352) is the best known of all the buildings of ancient Rome, because to a larger extent than others it has survived to the present day. For our purpose it is not necessary to give its history or to describe its architecture; it will be sufficient to compare its essential parts with those of its modest prototype in Pompeii. The latter was built in the outskirts of the city, in a corner in fact of the city walls (§353); the coliseum lay almost in the center of Rome, the most generally accessible of all the public buildings. The interior of the Pompeian structure was reached through two passages and by three stairways only, while eighty numbered entrances made it easy for the Roman multitudes to find their appropriate places in the coliseum. Much of the earlier amphitheater was underground; all of the corresponding parts of the coliseum were above the level of the street, the walls rising to a height of nearly 160 feet. This gave opportunity for the same architectural magnificence that had distinguished the Roman theater from that of the Greeks (§326). The general effect is shown in Fig. 162, an exterior view of the ruins as they exist to-day.

§357. The interior is shown in Fig. 163. The form is an ellipse with axes of 620 and 513 feet, the building covering nearly six acres of ground. The arena is also an ellipse, its axes measuring 287 and 180 feet. The width of the space appropriated for the spectators is, therefore, 166½ feet all around the arena. It will be noticed, too, that subterranean chambers were constructed under the whole building, including the arena. These furnished room for the regiments of gladiators, the dens of wild beasts, the machinery for the transformation scenes that Gibbon has described in his twelfth chapter, and above all for the vast number of water and drainage pipes that made it possible to turn the arena into a lake at a moment's notice and as quickly to get rid of the water. The wall that surrounded the arena was fifteen feet high with the side faced with rollers and defended like the one at Pompeii with a grating or network of metal above it. The top of the wall was level with the floor of the lowest range of seats, called the _podium_ as in the circus (§337), and this had room for two or at the most three rows of marble thrones. These were for the use of the emperor and the imperial family, the giver of the games, the magistrates, senators, Vestal virgins, ambassadors of foreign states, and other persons of consequence.

§358. The arrangement of the seats with the method of reaching them is shown in the sectional plan, Fig. 164. The seats were arranged in three tiers (_maeniāna_, §337) one above the other, separated by broad passageways and rising more steeply the farther they were from the arena, and were crowned by an open gallery. In the plan the _podium_ is marked A. Twelve feet above it begins the first _maeniānum_, B, with fourteen rows of seats reserved for members of the equestrian order. Then came a broad _praecīnctiō_ (§327) and after it the second _maeniānum_, C, intended for ordinary citizens. Back of this was a wall of considerable height and above it the third _maeniānum_, D, supplied with rough wooden benches for the lowest classes, foreigners, slaves, and the like. The row of pillars along the front of this section made the distant view all the worse. Above this was an open gallery, E, in which women found an unwelcome place. No other seats were open to them unless they were of sufficient distinction to claim a place upon the _podium_. At the very top of the outside wall was a terrace, F, in which were fixed masts to support the awnings that gave protection against the sun. The seating capacity of the coliseum is said to have been 80,000, and it had standing room for 20,000 more.

§359. Styles of Fighting.--Gladiators fought usually in pairs, man against man, but sometimes in masses (_gregātim_, _catervātim_). In early times they were actually soldiers, captives taken in war (§347), and fought naturally with the weapons and equipment to which they were accustomed. When the professionally trained gladiators came in, they were given the old names, and were called Samnites, Thracians, etc., according to their arms and tactics. In much later times victories over distant peoples were celebrated with combats in which the weapons and methods of war of the conquered were shown to the people of Rome; thus, after the conquest of Britain _essedāriī_ exhibited in the arena the tactics of chariot fighting which Caesar had described generations before in his Commentaries. It was natural enough, too, for the people to want to see different arms and different tactics tried against each other, and so the Samnite was matched against the Thracian, the heavy armed against the light armed. This became under the Empire the favorite style of combat. Finally when people had tired of the regular shows, novelties were introduced that seem to us grotesque; men fought blindfold (_andabatae_), armed with two swords (_dimachaerī_), with the lasso (_laqueatōrēs_), with a heavy net (_rētiāriī_), and there were battles of dwarfs and of dwarfs with women. Of these the _rētiārius_ became immensely popular. He carried a huge net in which he tried to entangle his opponent, always a _secūtor_ (see below), despatching him with a dagger if the throw was successful. If unsuccessful he took to flight while preparing his net for another throw, of if he had lost his net tried to keep his opponent off with a heavy three-pronged spear (_fuscina_), his only weapon beside the dagger (Fig. 165).

§360. Weapons and Armor.--The armor and weapons used in these combats are known from pieces found in various places, some of which are shown in Fig. 152, §345, and from paintings and sculpture, but we are not always able to assign them to definite classes of gladiators. The oldest class was that of the Samnites (Fig. 151, §344). They had belts, thick sleeves on the right arm (_manica_), helmets with visors, shown in Fig. 154, §348, greaves on the left leg, short swords, and the long shield (_scūtum_). Under the Empire the name Samnite was gradually lost and gladiators with equivalent equipment were called _hoplomachī_ (heavy armed), when matched against the lighter armed Thracians, and _secūtōrēs_, when they fought with the _rētiāriī_. The Thracians (Fig. 166) had much the same equipment as the Samnites, the mark of distinction being the small shield (_parma_) in place of the _scūtum_ and, to make up the difference, greaves on both legs. They carried a curved sword. The Gauls were heavy armed, but we do not know how they were distinguished from the Samnites. In later times they were called _murmillōnēs_, from an ornament on their helmets shaped like a fish (_mormyr_). The rētiāriī had no defensive armor except a leather protection for the shoulder, shown in Fig. 165. Of course the same man might appear by turns as Samnite, Thracian, etc., if he was skilled in the use of the various weapons; see the inscription in §363.

§361. Announcement of the Shows.--The games were advertised in advance by means of notices painted on the walls of public and private houses, and even on the tombstones that lined the approaches to the towns and cities. Some are worded in very general terms, announcing merely the name of the giver of the games with the date:

A • SVETTI • CERTI
AEDILIS • FAMILIA • GLADIATORIA • PUGNAB • POMPEIS
PR • K • JVNIAS • VENATIO • ET • VELA • ERUNT[4]

[Footnote 4: "On the last day of May the gladiators of the Aedile Aulus Suettius Certus will fight at Pompeii. There will also be a hunt and the awnings will be used."]

Others promise in addition to the awnings that the dust will be kept down in the arena by sprinkling. Sometimes when the troop was particularly good the names of the gladiators were announced in pairs as they would be matched together, with details as to their equipment, the school in which each had been trained, the number of his previous battles, etc. To such a notice on one of the walls in Pompeii some one added after the show the result of each combat. The following is a specimen only of this announcement:

MVNUS • N... • IV • III
PRID • IDUS • IDIBUS • MAIS
T M O T
_v._ PUGNAX • NER • III _v._ CYCNVS • IVL • VIII
_p._ MVRRANVS • NER • III _m._ ATTICVS • IVL • XIV[5]

[Footnote 5: "The games of N... from the 12th to the 15th of May. The Thracian Pugnax, of the gladiatorial school of Nero, who has fought three times will be matched against the _murmillō_ Murranus, of the same school and the same number of fights. The _hoplomachus_ Cycnus, from the school of Julius Caesar, who has fought eight times will be matched with the Thracian Atticus of the same school and of fourteen fights."]

The letters in italics before the names of the gladiators were added after the exhibition by some interested spectator, and stand for _vīcit_, _periit_, and _missus_ ("beaten, but spared"). Other announcements added to such particulars as those given above the statement that other pairs than those mentioned would fight each day, this being meant to excite the curiosity and interest of the people.

§362. The Fight Itself.--The day before the exhibition a banquet (_cēna lībera_) was given to the gladiators and they received visits from their friends and admirers. The games took place in the afternoon. After the _ēditor mūneris_ had taken his place (§355), the gladiators marched in procession around the arena, pausing before him to give the famous greeting: _moritūrī tē salūtant_. All then retired from the arena to return in pairs according to the published programme. The show began with a series of sham combats, the _prōlūsiō_, with blunt weapons. When the people had had enough of this the trumpets gave the signal for the real exhibition to begin. Those reluctant to fight were driven into the arena with whips or hot iron bars. If one of the combatants was clearly overpowered without being actually killed, he might appeal for mercy by holding up his finger to the _ēditor_. It was customary to refer the plea to the people, who waved cloths or napkins to show that they wished it to be granted, or pointed their thumbs downward as a signal for death. The gladiator who was refused release (_missiō_) received the death blow from his opponent without resistance. Combats where all must fight to the death were said to be _sine missiōne_, but these were forbidden by Augustus. The body of the dead man was dragged away through the _porta Libitinēnsis_, sand was sprinkled or raked over the blood, and the contests were continued until all had fought.

[6]

[Footnote 6: _Lepidus Mummēiānī s(ervus). Spectāvit m(ense) Iuniō, C. Sentiō Cōnsule._]

D • M • ET • MEMORIAE
AETERNAE • HYLATIS
DYMACHAERO • SIVE
ASSIDARIO • P • VII • RV • I
ERMAIS • CONIVX
CONIVGI • KARISSIMO
P • C • ET • S • AS • D[7]

[Footnote 7: Inscription on tomb of a gladiator. "To the Gods Manes and the lasting memory of Hylas, a dimachaerus or essedarius of seven victories and head trainer. His wife Ermais erected this monument to her beloved husband and dedicated it, reserving the usual rights."]

§363. The Rewards.--Before making his first public appearance the gladiator was technically called a _tīrō_. After his first victory he received a token of wood or ivory (Fig. 168), which had upon it his name and that of his master or trainer, a date, and the letters SP, SPECT, SPECTAT, or SPECTAVIT, meaning perhaps _populus spectāvit_. When after many victories he had proved himself to be the best of his class, or second best, in his _familia_, he received the title of _prīmus_, or _secundus_, _pālus_. When he had won his freedom he was given a wooden sword (_rudis_). From this the titles _prīma rudis_ and _secunda rudis_ seem to have been given to those who were afterwards employed as training masters (_doctōrēs_, §349) in the schools. The rewards given to famous gladiators by their masters and backers took the form of valuable prizes and gifts of money. These may not have been so generous as those given to the _aurīgae_ (§341), but they were enough to enable them to live in luxury the rest of their lives. The class of men, however, who followed this profession probably found their most acceptable reward in the immediate and lasting notoriety that their strength and courage brought them. That they did not shrink from the _īnfamia_ that the profession entailed is shown by the fact that they did not try to hide their connection with the amphitheater. On the contrary, their gravestones record their classes and the number of their victories, and have often cut upon them their likenesses with the _rudis_ in their hands.

§364. Other Shows in the Amphitheater.--Of other games that were sometimes given in the amphitheaters something has been said in connection with the circus (§343). The most important were the _vēnātiōnēs_, hunts of wild beasts. These were sometimes killed by men trained to hunt them, sometimes made to kill each other. As the amphitheater was primarily intended for the butchery of men, the _vēnātiōnēs_ given in it gradually but surely took the form of man-hunts. The victims were condemned criminals, some of them guilty of crimes that deserved death, some of them sentenced on trumped up charges, some of them (and among these were women and children) condemned "to the lions" for political or religious convictions. Sometimes they were supplied with weapons, sometimes they were exposed unarmed, even fettered or bound to stakes, sometimes the ingenuity of their executioners found additional torments for them by making them play the parts of the sufferers in the tragedies of mythology. The arena was well adapted, too, for the maneuvering of boats, when it had been flooded with water (§357), and naval battles (_naumachiae_) were often fought within the coliseum as desperate and as bloody as some of those that have given a new turn to the history of the world. The earliest exhibitions of this sort were given in artificial lakes, also called _naumachiae_. The first of these was dug by Caesar, for a single exhibition, in 46 B.C. Augustus had a permanent basin constructed in 2 B.C., measuring 1,800 by 1,200 feet, and four others at least were built by later emperors.

§365. The Daily Bath.--To the Roman of early times the bath had stood for health and decency only. He washed every day his arms and legs, for the ordinary costume left them exposed (§239), his body once a week. He bathed at home, using a very primitive sort of wash-room, situated near the kitchen (§203) in order that the water heated on the kitchen stove might be carried into it with the least possible inconvenience. By the last century of the Republic all this had changed, though the steps in the change can not now be followed. The bath had become a part of the daily life as momentous as the _cēna_ itself, which it regularly preceded. It was taken, too, by preference in one of the public bathing establishments which were by this time operated on a large scale in all parts of Rome and also in the smaller towns of Italy and even in the provinces. These offered all sorts of baths, plain, plunge, douche, with massage (Turkish), and besides in many cases features borrowed from the Greek gymnasia, exercise grounds, courts for various games, reading and conversation rooms, libraries, gymnastic apparatus, everything in fact that our athletic clubs now provide for their members. The accessories had become really of more importance than the bathing itself and justify the description of the bath under the head of amusements. In places where there were no public baths, or where they were at an inconvenient distance, the wealthy fitted up bathing places in their houses, but no matter how elaborate they were the private baths were merely a makeshift at best.

§366. Essentials for the Bath.--The ruins of the public and private baths found all over the Roman world, together with a dissertation by Vitruvius, and countless allusions in literature, make very clear the general construction and arrangement of the bath, but show that the widest freedom was allowed in matters of detail. For the luxurious bath of classical times four things were thought necessary: a warm ante-room, a hot bath, a cold bath, and the rubbing and anointing with oil. All these might have been had in a single room, as all but the last are furnished in every modern bathroom, but as a matter of fact we find at least three rooms set apart for the bath in very modest private houses and often five or six, while in the public establishments this number may be multiplied several times. In the better equipped houses were provided: (1) A room for undressing and dressing (_apodytērium_), usually unheated, but furnished with benches and often with lockers for the clothes; (2) the warm ante-room (_tepidārium_), in which the bather waited long enough for the perspiration to start, in order to guard against the danger of passing too suddenly into the high temperature of the next room; (3) the hot room (_caldārium_) for the hot bath; (4) the cold room (_frīgidārium_) for the cold bath; (5) the _ūnctōrium_, the room for the rubbing and anointing with oil that finished the bath, from which the bather returned into the _apodytērium_ for his clothes.

§367. In the more modest houses space was saved by using a room for several purposes. The separate _apodytērium_ might be dispensed with, the bather undressing and dressing in either the _frīgidārium_ or _tepidārium_ according to the weather; or the _ūnctōrium_ might be saved by using the _tepidārium_ for this purpose as well as for its own. In this way the suite of five rooms might be reduced to four or three. On the other hand, private houses had sometimes an additional hot room without water (_lacōnicum_), used for a sweat bath, and a public bathhouse would be almost sure to have an exercise ground (_palaestra_), with a pool at one side (_piscīna_) for a cold plunge and a room adjacent (_dēstrictārium_) in which the sweat and dirt of exercise were scraped off with the _strigilis_ (Fig. 171) before and after the bath. It must not be supposed that all bathers went the round of all the rooms in the order given above, though that was common enough. Some would dispense with the hot bath altogether, taking instead a sweat in the _lacōnicum_, or failing that, in the _caldārium_, removing the perspiration with the strigil, following this with a cold bath (perhaps merely a shower or douche) in the _frīgidārium_ and the rubbing with linen cloths and anointing with oil. Young men who deserted the campus and the Tiber (§317) for the _palaestra_ and the bath would content themselves with removing the effects of their exercise with the scraper, taking a plunge in the open pool, and then a second scraping and the oil. Much would depend on the time and the tastes of individuals, and physicians laid down strict rules for their patients to follow.

§368. Heating the Bath.--The arrangement of the rooms, were they many or few, depended upon the method of heating. This in early times must have been by stoves placed in the rooms as needed, but by the end of the Republic the furnace had come into use, heating the rooms as well as the water with a single fire. The hot air from the furnace was not conducted into the rooms directly, as it is with us, but was made to circulate under the floors and through spaces between the walls, the temperature of the room depending upon its proximity to the furnace. The _lacōnicum_, if there was one, was put directly over the furnace, next to it came the _caldārium_ and then the _tepidārium_, while the _frīgidārium_ and the _apodytērium_ having no need of heat were at the greatest distance from the fire and without connection with it. If there were two sets of baths in the same building, as there sometimes were for the accommodation of both men and women at the same time, the two _caldāria_ were put on opposite sides of the furnace (see the plan in §376) and the other rooms were connected with them in the regular order, the two entrances being at the greatest distance apart. The method of conducting the air under the floors is shown in Fig. 172. There were really two floors, the first being even with the top of the firepot, the second (_suspēnsūra_) with the top of the furnace. Between them was a space of about two feet into which the hot air passed. On the top of the furnace, just above the level, therefore, of the second floor, were two kettles for heating the water. One was placed well back, where the fire was not so hot, and contained water that was kept merely warm; the other was placed directly over the fire and the water in it, received from the former, was easily kept intensely hot. Near them was a third kettle containing cold water. From these three kettles the water was piped as needed to the various rooms. The arrangement will be easily understood after a study of the plans in §§376, 378.

§369. The Caldarium.--The hot water bath was taken in the _caldārium_ (_cella caldāria_), which served also as a sweat bath when there was no _lacōnicum_. It was a rectangular room and in the public baths was longer than wide (Vitruvius says the proportion should be 3:2) with one end rounded off like an apse or bay window. At the other end stood the large hot water tank (_alveus_), in which the bath was taken by a number of persons at a time. The _alveus_ (Fig. 173) was built up two steps from the floor of the room, its length equal to the width of the room and its breadth at the top not less than six feet. At the bottom it was not nearly so wide, the back sloping inward, so that the bathers could recline against it, and the front having a long broad step, for convenience of descent into it, upon which, too, the bathers sat. The water was received hot from the furnace, and was kept hot by a metal heater (_testūdō_), opening into the _alveus_ and extending beneath the floor into the hot air chamber. Near the top of the tank was an overflow pipe, and in the bottom was an escape pipe which allowed the water to be emptied on the floor of the _caldārium_, to be used for scrubbing it. In the apse-like end of the room was a tank or large basin of metal (_lābrum_, _solium_), which seems to have contained cool water for the douche. In private baths the room was usually rectangular and then the _lābrum_ was placed in a corner. For the accommodation of those using the room for the sweat bath only, there were benches along the wall. The air in the _caldārium_ would, of course, be very moist, while that of the _lacōnicum_ would be perfectly dry, so that the effect would not be precisely the same.

§370. The Frigidarium and Unctorium.--The _frīgidārium_ (_cella frīgidāria_) contained merely the cold plunge bath, unless it was made to do duty for the _apodytērium_, when there would be lockers on the wall for the clothes (at least in a public bath) and benches for the slaves who watched them. Persons who found the bath too cold would resort instead to the open swimming pool in the _palaestra_, which would be warmed by the sun. In one of the public baths at Pompeii a cold bath seems to have been introduced into the _tepidārium_, for the benefit, probably, of invalids who found even the _palaestra_ too cool for comfort. The final process, that of scraping, rubbing, and oiling, was exceedingly important. The bather was often treated twice, before the warm bath and after the cold bath; the first might be omitted, but the second never. The special room, _ūnctōrium_, was furnished with benches and couches. The scrapers and oils were brought by the bathers, usually carried along with the towels for the bath by a slave (_capsārius_). The bather might scrape (_dēstringere_) and oil (_deungere_) himself, or he might receive a regular massage at the hands of a trained slave. It is probable that in the large baths expert operators could be hired, but we have no direct testimony on the subject. When there was no special _ūnctōrium_ the _tepidārium_ or _apodytērium_ was made to do instead.

§371. A Private Bathhouse.--In Fig. 174 is shown the plan of a private bath in Caerwent, Monmouthshire, England, the ruins of which were discovered in the year 1855. It dates from about the time of Constantine (306-333), and small though it is gives a clear notion of the arrangement of the rooms. The entrance _A_ leads into the _frīgidārium B_, 10'6" x 6'6" in size, with a bath _C_, 10'6" x 3'3". Off this is the _apodytērium D_, 10'6" x 13'3", which has the apse-like end that the _caldārium_ ought to have. Next is the _tepidārium E_, 12' x 12', which contrary to all the rules is the largest instead of the smallest of the four main rooms. Then comes the _caldārium F_, 12' x 7'6", with its _alveus G_, 6' x 3' x 2', but with no sign of its _lābrum_ left, perhaps because the basin was too small to require any special foundation. Finally comes the rare _lacōnicum H_, 8' x 4', built over one end of the furnace _I_, which was in the basement room _KK_. The hot air passed as indicated by the arrows, escaping through openings near the roof in the outside wall of the _apodytērium_. It should be noticed that there was no direct passage from the _caldārium_ to the _frīgidārium_, no special entrance to the _lacōnicum_, and that the _tepidārium_ must have served as the _ūnctōrium_. The dimensions of the bath as a whole are 31 x 34 feet.

§372. The Public Baths.--To the simpler bathhouse of the earlier times as well as to the bath itself was given the name _balneum_ (_balineum_), used often in the plural, _balnea_, by the dactylic poets for metrical convenience. The more complex establishments of later times were called _balneae_, and to the very largest with features derived from the Greek gymnasia (§365) the name _thermae_ was finally given. These words, however, were loosely used and often interchanged in practice. Public baths are first heard of after the second Punic war. They increased in number rapidly, 170 at least being operated in Rome in the year 33 B.C., and later there were more than 800. With equal rapidity they spread through Italy and the provinces, all the towns and many villages even having at least one. They were public only in the sense of being open to all citizens who could pay the modest fee demanded for their use. Free baths there were none, except when some magistrate or public-spirited citizen or candidate for office arranged to relieve the people of the fees for a definite time by meeting the charges himself. So Agrippa in the year 33 B.C. kept open free of charge 170 establishments at Rome. The rich sometimes provided free baths for the people in their wills, but always for a limited time.

§373. Management.--The first public baths were opened by individuals for speculative purposes. Others were built by wealthy men as gifts to their native towns, as such men give hospitals and libraries now, the administration being lodged with the town authorities who kept the buildings in repair and the baths open with the fees collected. Others were built by the towns out of public funds, and others still as monuments by the later emperors. However started, the management was practically the same for all. They were leased for a definite time and for a fixed sum to a manager (_conductor_) who paid his expenses and made his profits out of the fees which he collected. The fee (_balneāticum_) was hardly more than nominal. The regular price at Rome for men seems to have been a _quadrāns_, less than a cent, the bather furnishing his own towels, oil, etc., as we have seen (§370). Women paid more, perhaps twice as much, while children up to a certain age, unknown to us, paid nothing. Prices varied, of course, in different places. It is likely that higher prices were charged in some baths than in others in the same city, either because they were more luxuriously equipped or to make them more exclusive and fashionable than the rest, but we have no positive knowledge that this was done.

§374. Hours Opened.--The bath was regularly taken between the _merīdiātiō_ and _cēna_, the hour varying, therefore, within narrow limits in different seasons and for different classes (§310). In general it may be said to have been taken about the eighth hour, and at this hour all the _conductōrēs_ were bound by their contracts to have the baths open and all things in readiness. As a matter of fact many people preferred to bathe before the _prandium_ (§302), and some at least of the baths in the larger places must have been open then. All were regularly kept open until sunset, but in the smaller towns, where public baths were fewer, it is probable that they were kept open later; at least the lamps found in large numbers in the Pompeian baths seem to point at evening hours. It may be taken for granted that the managers would keep the doors open as long as was profitable for them.

§375. Accommodations for Women.--Women of respectability bathed in the public baths, as they bathe in public places now, but with women only, enjoying the opportunity to meet their friends as much as did the men. In the large cities there were separate baths devoted to their exclusive use. In the larger towns separate rooms were set apart for them in the baths intended generally for men. Such a combination is shown in the next paragraph and the arrangement has been explained in §368. In the very small places the bath was opened to men and women at different hours. Late in the Empire we read of men and women bathing together, but this was true of women only who had no claim to respectability at all.

§376. Thermae.--In Fig. 175 is shown a plan of the so-called Stabian baths at Pompeii, which gives a correct idea of the smaller _thermae_ and serves at the same time to illustrate the combination of baths for men and women under the same roof. In the plan the unnumbered rooms opening upon the surrounding streets were used for shops and stores independent of the baths, those opening within were for the use of the attendants or for purposes that can not now be determined. The main entrance (_1_), on the south, opened upon the _palaestra_ (_2_), surrounded on three sides by colonnades and on the west by a bowling alley (_3_), where large stone balls were found. Behind the bowling alley was the _piscīna_ (_6_) open to the sun, with a room on either side (_5_, _7_) for douche baths and a _dēstrictārium_ (_4_) for the use of the athletes. There were two side entrances (_8_, _11_) at the northwest, with the porter's room (_12_) and manager's office (_10_) within convenient reach. The room (_9_) at the head of the bowling alley was for the use of the players and may be compared with the similar room for the use of the gladiators marked _9_ in Fig. 156 (§350). Behind the office was the _latrīna_ (_14_).

§377. On the east are the baths proper, the men's to the south. There were two _apodytēria_ (_24_, _25_) for the men, each with a separate waiting-room for the slaves (_26_, _27_) with a door to the street. Then come in order the _frīgidārium_ (_22_), the _tepidārium_ (_23_), and the _caldārium_ (_21_). The _tepidārium_, contrary to custom, had a cold bath as explained in §370. The main entrance to the women's bath was at the northeast (_17_), but there was also an entrance from the northwest through the long corridor (_15_), both opening into the _apodytērium_ (_16_). This contained in one corner a cold bath, there being no separate _frīgidārium_ in the baths for women. Then come in the regular position the _tepidārium_ (_18_) and _caldārium_ (_19_). The furnace (_20_) was between the two _caldāria_, and the position of the three kettles (§368) which furnished the water is clearly shown. It should be noticed that there was no _lacōnicum_. It is possible that one of the waiting-rooms for men (_24_) may have been used as an _ūnctōrium_. The ruins show that the rooms were most artistically decorated and there can be no doubt that they were luxuriously furnished. The colonnades and the large waiting-rooms gave ample space for the lounge after the bath, which the Roman prized so highly.

§378. Baths of Diocletian.--The irregularity of plan and the waste of space in the Pompeian _thermae_ just described are due to the fact that it was rebuilt at various times with all sorts of alterations and additions. Nothing can be more symmetrical than the _thermae_ of the later emperors, as a type of which is shown in Fig. 176 the plan of the Baths of Diocletian, dedicated in 305 A.D. They lay on the east side of the city and were the largest and with the exception of those of Caracalla the most magnificent of the Roman baths. The plan shows the arrangement of the main rooms, all in the line of the minor axis of the building; the uncovered _piscīna_ (1), the _apodytērium_ and _frīgidārium_ (2), combined as in the women's baths at Pompeii, the _tepidārium_ (3), and the _caldārium_ (4) projecting beyond the other rooms for the sake of the sunshine. The uses of the surrounding halls and courts can not now be determined, but it is clear from the plan that nothing was omitted known to the luxury of the time. An idea of the magnificence of the central room may be had from Fig. 169 (§365), showing the corresponding room in the Baths of Caracalla.