RECEPTION TO THE BATHS (at Pompeii).[ToList]
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 labrum found in one of the imperial baths; and Baccius, a great modern authority on baths, speaks of labra made of glass.
This apartment, like the others, is well stuccoed and painted yellow; a cornice, highly enriched with stucco ornaments, is supported by fluted pilasters placed at irregular intervals. These are red, as is also the cornice and ceiling of the laconicum, which is worked in stucco with little figures of boys and animals.
The women's bath resembles very much that of the men, and differs only in being smaller and less ornamented. It is heated, as we have already mentioned, by the same fire, and supplied with water from the same boilers. Near the entrance is an inscription painted in red letters. All the rooms yet retain in perfection their vaulted roofs. In the vestibule are seats similar to those which have been described in the men's baths as appropriated to slaves or servants of the establishment. The robing-room contains a cold bath; it is painted with red and yellow pilasters alternating with one another on a blue or black ground, and has a light cornice of white stucco and a white mosaic pavement with a narrow black border. There are accommodations for ten persons to undress at the same time. The cold bath is much damaged, the wall only remaining of the alveus, which is square, the whole incrustation of marble being destroyed. From this room we pass into the tepidarium, about twenty feet square, painted yellow with red pilasters, lighted by a small window far from the ground. This apartment communicates with the warm bath, which, like the men's, is heated by flues formed in the floors and walls.
There are in this room paintings of grotesque design upon a yellow ground, but they are much damaged and scarcely visible. The pavement is of white marble laid in mosaic. The room in its general arrangement resembles the hot bath of the men; it has a labrum in the laconicum, and a hot bath contiguous to the furnace. The hollow pavement and the flues in the walls are almost entirely destroyed; and of the labrum, the foot, in the middle of which was a piece of the leaden conduit that introduced the water, alone remains. On the right of the entrance into these women's baths is a wall of stone of great thickness and in a good style of masonry.