It Would Employ Me A Whole Month To Describe The Thermae Or
Baths, The Vast Ruins Of Which Are Still To Be Seen Within The
Walls Of Rome, Like The Remains Of So Many Separate Citadels.
The
thermae Dioclesianae might be termed an august academy for the
use and instruction of the Roman people.
The pinacotheca of this
building was a complete musaeum of all the curiosities of art and
nature; and there were public schools for all the sciences. If I
may judge by my eye, however, the thermae Antonianae built by
Caracalla, were still more extensive and magnificent; they
contained cells sufficient for two thousand three hundred persons
to bathe at one time, without being seen by one another. They
were adorned with all the charms of painting, architecture, and
sculpture. The pipes for convoying the water were of silver. Many
of the lavacra were of precious marble, illuminated by lamps of
chrystal. Among the statues, were found the famous Toro, and
Hercole Farnese.
Bathing was certainly necessary to health and cleanliness in a
hot country like Italy, especially before the use of linen was
known: but these purposes would have been much better answered by
plunging into the Tyber, than by using the warm bath in the
thermae, which became altogether a point of luxury borrowed from
the effeminate Asiatics, and tended to debilitate the fibres
already too much relaxed by the heat of the climate. True it is,
they had baths of cool water for the summer:
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