Hypocaust for Heating Water, Thermæ of Caracalla
From an old woodcut
A is a portico fronting the street made by Caracalla when he constructed his thermæ. B are separate bathing-rooms, either for the use of the common people, or perhaps for any person who did not wish to bathe in public. C are apodyteria attached to them. D, D and E, E, the porticos. F, F, exedra in which there were seats for the philosophers to hold their conversations. G, passages open to the air. H, H, sladra. I, I, possibly schools or academies where public lectures were delivered. J, J and K, K, rooms appropriated to the servants of the bath. In the latter are staircases for ascending to the principal reservoir. L, space occupied by walks and shrubberies. M, the arena or stadium in which the youth performed their exercises, with seats for spectators. N, N, reservoirs with upper stories; O, aqueduct which supplied the baths. P, cistern.
This external range of buildings occupies one mile in circuit.
We now come to the arrangement of the interior, for which it is very difficult to assign satisfactory destinations. Q represents the principal entrances, of which there were eight. R is the natiatio or cold water baths to which the direct entrance from the portico is by a vestibule on either side marked S, and which is surrounded by a set of chambers that serve most probably as rooms for undressing and anointing.
Those nearest to the peristyle were, perhaps, where the powder was kept which the wrestlers used in order to obtain a firmer grip upon their adversaries.
The inferior quality of the ornaments which these apartments had, and the staircases in two of them, afford evidences that they were occupied by menials. T is considered to be the tepidarium with four warm baths taken out of its four angles, and two labra on its two flanks. There are steps for descending into the baths, in one of which traces of the conduit are still manifest. It would appear that the center part of this apartment served as a tepidarium, having a cold water lavatory in four of its corners. The center part, like that also of the preceding apartment, is supported by eight immense columns.
