In view of this explanation, we should probably recognize in the head carved on the smallest of the pilaster capitals ([Fig. 85]) a representation of Zeus Milichius, a divinity honored in many parts of Greece, especially by the farmers; Zeus the Gracious, the patron of tillers of the soil. The serious, kindly face, bearded and with long locks, was more than a mere ornament; it was the god himself looking down upon the worshipper who entered his sanctuary. As a representation of Zeus it probably exemplifies an ancient type.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE BATHS AT POMPEII.—THE STABIAN BATHS
In comparison with the great bathing establishments of Rome, the baths at Pompeii are of moderate size. They have, however, a special interest, due in part to their excellent preservation, in part to the certainty with which the purpose of the various rooms can be determined; and their remains enable us to trace the development of the public bath in a single city during a period of almost two hundred years. From this source, moreover, most of our knowledge of the arrangements of the ancient bath is derived, without which the imposing but barren remains of Rome itself would be for the most part unintelligible. It is not easy for one living under present conditions to understand how important a place the baths occupied in the life of antiquity, particularly of the Romans under the Empire; they offered, within a single enclosure, opportunities for physical care and comfort and leisurely intercourse with others, not unlike those afforded in the cities of modern Europe by the club, the café, and the promenade.
Though the Roman baths differed greatly in size and in details of arrangement, the essential parts were everywhere the same. First there was a court, palaestra, surrounded by a colonnade. This was devoted to gymnastic exercises, and connected with it in most cases was an open-air swimming tank. The dressing room, apodyterium, was usually entered from the court through a passageway or anteroom. A basin for cold baths was sometimes placed in the dressing room; in large establishments a separate apartment was set aside for this purpose, the frigidarium. To avoid too sudden a change of temperature for the bathers, a room moderately heated, tepidarium, was placed between the dressing room and the caldarium, in which hot baths were given. At one end of the caldarium was a bath basin of masonry, alveus; at the other was ordinarily a semicircular niche, schola, in which stood the labrum, a large, shallow, circular vessel resting upon a support of masonry, and supplied with lukewarm water by a pipe leading from a tank back of the furnace. The more extensive establishments, as the Central Baths at Pompeii, contained also a round room, called Laconicum from its Spartan origin, for sweating baths in dry air. In describing baths it is more convenient to use the ancient names.
In earlier times the rooms were heated by means of braziers, and in one of the Pompeian baths the tepidarium was warmed in this way to the last. A more satisfactory method was devised near the beginning of the first century B.C. by Sergius Orata, a famous epicure, whose surname is said to have been given to him because of his fondness for golden trout (auratae). He was the first to plant artificial oyster beds in the Lucrine Lake, and the experiment was so successful that he derived a large income from them; we may assume that he turned an honest penny also by his invention of the 'hanging baths,' balneae pensiles, with which his name has ever since been associated. These were built with a hollow space under the floor, the space being secured by making the floor of tiles, two feet square, supported at the corners by small brick pillars ([Fig. 88]); into this space hot air was introduced from the furnace, and as the floor became warm, the temperature of the room above was evenly modified.
This improved method of heating was not long restricted to the floors. As early as the Republican period, the hollow space was extended to the walls by means of small quadrangular flues and by the use of nipple tiles, tegulae mammatae, large rectangular tiles with conical projections, about two inches high, at each corner; these were laid on their edges, with the projections pressed against the wall, thus leaving an air space on the inside.
In bathing establishments designed for both men and women, the two caldariums were placed near together. There was a single furnace, hypocausis, where the water for the baths was warmed; from this also hot air was conveyed through broad flues under the floors of both caldariums, thence circulating through the walls. Through similar flues underneath, the warm air, already considerably cooled, was conveyed from the hollow spaces of the caldariums into those of the tepidariums. In order to maintain a draft strong enough to draw the hot air from the furnace under the floors, the air spaces of the walls had vents above, remains of which may still be seen in some baths. These vents were no doubt sufficient to keep up the draft after the rooms had once been heated; but in order to warm them at the outset a draft fire was needed,—that is, a small fire under the floor at some point a considerable distance from the furnace and near the vents, through which it would cause the escape of warm air, and so start a hot current from the furnace. The place of the draft fire has been found under two rooms of the Pompeian baths; and a similar arrangement has been noted in the case of Roman baths excavated in Germany.
The use of the baths varied according to individual taste and medical advice. In general, however, bathers availed themselves of one of three methods.
The most common form of the bath was that taken after exercise in the palaestra,—ball playing was a favorite means of exercise,—use being made of all the rooms. The bather undressed in the apodyterium, or perhaps in the tepidarium, where he was rubbed with unguents; then he took a sweat in the caldarium, following it with a warm bath. Returning to the apodyterium, he gave himself a cold bath either in this room or in the frigidarium; he then passed into the Laconicum, or, if there was no Laconicum, went back into the caldarium for a second sweat; lastly, before going out, he was thoroughly rubbed with unguents, as a safeguard against taking cold.
Some bathers omitted the warm bath. They passed through the tepidarium directly into the Laconicum or caldarium, where they had a sweat; they then took a cold bath, or had cold water poured over them, and were rubbed with unguents.