The Life in Ancient Times: Discoveries of Pompeii, Ancient Greece, Babylon & Assyria. T. L. Haines
(venatio) between wild beasts, or between beasts and men, a cruel sport, to which the Romans were passionately addicted; athletic games (athletæ), sprinkling of perfumes (sparsiones), and it was further engaged that an awning should be raised over the amphitheatre. The convenience of such a covering will be evident, no less as a protection against sun than rain under an Italian sky: the merit of the promise, which may seem but a trifle, will be understood by considering the difficulty of stretching a covering over the immense area of an ancient amphitheatre. We may observe, by the way, that representations of hunting and of combats between wild beasts are common subjects of the paintings of Pompeii. A combat between a lion and a horse, and another, between a bear and a bull, have been found depicted in the amphitheatre. The velarium, or awning, is advertised in all the inscriptions yet found which give notice of public games. Athletæ and sparsiones appear in no other. We learn from Seneca that the perfumes were disseminated by being mixed with boiling water, and then placed in the centre of the amphitheatre, so that the scents rose with the steam, and soon became diffused throughout the building.
There is some reason to suppose that the completion and dedication of the baths preceded the destruction of the city but a short time, from the inscription being found perfect on the wall of the baths, for it was the custom to write these notices in the most public places, and after a very short season they were covered over by others, as one billsticker defaces the labors of his predecessors. This is abundantly evident even in the present ruined state of the town, especially at the corners of the principal streets, where it is easy to discover one inscription painted over another.
But to return to the Baths. They occupy almost an entire block, forming an irregular quadrangle; the northern front, facing to the Street of the Baths, being about 162 feet in length, the southern front about 93 feet, and the average depth about 174 feet. They are divided into three separate and distinct compartments, one of which was appropriated to the fireplaces and to the servants of the establishment; the other two were occupied each by a set of baths, contiguous to each other, similar and adapted to the same purposes, and supplied with heat and water from the same furnace and from the same reservoir. It is conjectured that the most spacious of them was for the use of the men, the lesser for that of the women. The apartments and passages are paved with white marble in mosaic. It appears, from Varro and Vitruvius, that baths for men and women were originally united, as well for convenience as economy of fuel, but were separated afterwards for the preservation of morals, and had no communication except that from the furnaces. We shall call these the old Baths by way of distinction, and because they were first discovered; but in reality, the more recently discovered Stabian Baths may probably be the more ancient.
It should be observed here that the old Pompeian thermæ are adapted solely to the original purposes of a bath, namely, a place for bathing and washing. They can not therefore for a moment be compared to the baths constructed at Rome during the period of the empire, of which such magnificent remains may still be seen at the baths of Diocletian, and especially at those of Caracalla. In these vast establishments the bath formed only a part of the entertainment provided. There were also spacious porticoes for walking and conversing, halls and courts for athletic games and gladiatorial combats, apartments for the lectures and recitations of philosophers, rhetoricians and poets. In short, they formed a sort of vast public club, in which almost every species of amusement was provided. In the more recently discovered baths, called the Thermæ Stabianæ, there is indeed a large quadrangular court, or palæstra, which may have served for gymnastic exercises, and among others for the game of ball, as appears from some large balls of stone having been found in it. Yet even this larger establishment makes but a very slight approach to the magnificence and luxury of a Roman bath.
The tepidarium, or warm chamber, was so called from a warm, but soft and mild temperature, which prepared the bodies of the bathers for the more intense heat which they were to undergo in the vapor and hot baths; and, vice versa, softened the transition from the hot bath to the external air. The wall is divided into a number of niches or compartments by Telamones, two feet high, in high relief, and supporting a rich cornice. These are male, as Caryatides are female statues placed to perform the office of pillars. By the Greeks they were named Atlantes, from the well-known fable of Atlas supporting the heavens. Here they are made of terra-cotta, or baked clay, incrusted with the finest marble stucco. Their only covering is a girdle round the loins; they have been painted flesh-color, with black hair and beards; the moulding of the pedestal and the baskets on their heads were in imitation of gold; and the pedestal itself, as well as the wall behind them and the niches for the reception of the clothes of the bathers, were colored to resemble red porphyry. Six of these niches are closed up without any apparent reason.
RECEPTION TO THE BATHS (at Pompeii).
The ceiling is worked in stucco, in low relief, with scattered figures and ornaments of little flying genii, delicately relieved on medallions, with foliage carved round them. The ground is painted, sometimes red and sometimes blue. The room is lighted by a window two feet six inches high and three feet wide, in the bronze frame of which were found set four very beautiful panes of glass fastened by small nuts and screws, very ingeniously contrived, with a view to remove the glass at pleasure. In this room was found a brazier, seven feet long and two feet six inches broad, made entirely of bronze, with the exception of an iron lining. The two front legs are winged sphinxes, terminating in lions' paws, the two other legs are plain, being intended to stand against the wall. The bottom is formed with bronze bars, on which are laid bricks supporting pumice-stones for the reception of charcoal. There is a sort of false battlement worked on the rim, and in the middle a cow is to be seen in high relief. Three bronze benches also were found, alike in form and pattern. They are one foot four inches high, one foot in width, and about six feet long, supported by four legs, terminating in the cloven hoofs of a cow, and ornamented at the upper ends with the heads of the same animal. Upon the seat is inscribed, M. NIGIDIUS, VACCULA. P.S.
Varro, in his book upon rural affairs, tells us that many of the surnames of the Roman families had their origin in pastoral life, and especially are derived from the animals to whose breeding they paid most attention. As, for instance, the Porcii took their name from their occupation as swine-herds; the Ovini from their care of sheep; the Caprilli, of goats; the Equarii, of horses; the Tauri, of bulls, etc. We may conclude, therefore, that the family of this Marcus Vaccula were originally cow-keepers, and that the figures of cows so plentifully impressed on all the articles which he presented to the baths are a sort of canting arms, to borrow an expression from heraldry, as in Rome the family Toria caused a bull to be stamped on their money.
A doorway led from the tepidarium into the caldarium, or vapor-bath. It had on one side the laconicum, containing the vase called labrum. On the opposite side of the room was the hot bath called lavacrum. Here it is necessary to refer to the words of Vitruvius as explanatory of the structure of the apartments (cap. xi. lib. v.): "Here should be placed the vaulted sweating-room, twice the length of its width, which should have at each extremity, on one end the laconicum, made as described above, on the other end the hot bath." This apartment is exactly as described, twice the length of its width, exclusively of the laconicum at one end and the hot bath at the other. The pavement and walls of the whole were hollowed to admit the heat.
The labrum was a great basin or round vase of white marble, rather more than five feet in diameter, into which the hot water bubbled up through a pipe in its centre, and served for the partial ablutions of those who took the vapor-bath. It was raised about three feet six inches above the level of the pavement, on a round base built of small pieces of stone or lava, stuccoed and colored red, five feet six inches in diameter, and has within it a bronze inscription, which runs thus:
CNÆO. MELISSÆO. CNÆL FILIO. APRO. MARCO. STAIO. MARCI. FILIO. RUFO. DUUMVIRIS. ITERUM. IURE. DICUNDO. LABRUM. EX DECURIONUM DECRETO. EX. PECUNIA. PUBLICA. FACIENDUM. CURARUNT CONSTAT. HS. D.C.C.L.
Relating that "Cnæus Melissæus Aper, son of Cnæus Aper. Marcus Staius Rufus, son of M. Rufus, duumvirs of justice for the second time, caused the labrum to be made at the public expense, by order of the Decurions. It cost 5,250 sesterces" (about $200). There is in the Vatican a magnificent porphyry