DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61617#0244
POMPEII
190
the baths, we have found no separate chamber to which the
term Laconicum could properly be applied. In order to arrive
at a solution of the difficulty, we must note the successive steps
by which, as shown by an examination of the remains of the
masonry, the heating arrangements were extended and im-
proved.
At first, in the Baths as originally constructed, there were
neither hollow walls nor hollow floors. The heating was done
by means of. braziers; and there were niches or lockers in the
walls of the caldariums and tepidariums similar to those now
found in the dressing rooms, but in double rows, the upper
niches being larger, the lower smaller.
Later, a hollow floor was built in the men’s caldarium. Later
still, this room was provided with hollow walls, which were
extended to the crown of the ceilings and the lunettes, the
tepidarium being still heated with braziers.
Finally, a hollow floor and hollow walls were constructed at
the same time in the men's tepidarium, but the hot air chamber
was not carried up into the ceiling or the lunettes.
A similar transformation was gradually accomplished in the
women’s apartments ; but owing, it would seem, to a desire for
greater warmth in the tepidarium, the hot air chamber here, as
in the caldarium, was extended to the lunettes and the ceiling.
Since the method of heating by means of hollow floors only
came into vogue about 100 b.c., and since the duumvirate of
Ulins and Aninius must have occurred soon after 80 b.c., we
are probably safe in supposing that they built the hollow floors
of the two caldariums, and that the new heating arrangement
was loosely called a Laconicum. At least a partial warrant for
this interpretation is found in a passage of Dion Cassius
<LIU. xxvii. i), in which he says that Agrippa built the ‘Spar-
tan sweating bath,’ to TrvpiaTripLov to AaKcovcfcdv. Agrippa,
however, built, not a Laconicum in the narrow sense, but a com-
plete bathing establishment, and Dion, doubtless following some
earlier writer, uses the word as generally applicable to a system
of warm baths. In default of a better explanation, we must
accept a meaning equally loose for our inscription.
It is not possible to date, even approximately, the other
190
the baths, we have found no separate chamber to which the
term Laconicum could properly be applied. In order to arrive
at a solution of the difficulty, we must note the successive steps
by which, as shown by an examination of the remains of the
masonry, the heating arrangements were extended and im-
proved.
At first, in the Baths as originally constructed, there were
neither hollow walls nor hollow floors. The heating was done
by means of. braziers; and there were niches or lockers in the
walls of the caldariums and tepidariums similar to those now
found in the dressing rooms, but in double rows, the upper
niches being larger, the lower smaller.
Later, a hollow floor was built in the men’s caldarium. Later
still, this room was provided with hollow walls, which were
extended to the crown of the ceilings and the lunettes, the
tepidarium being still heated with braziers.
Finally, a hollow floor and hollow walls were constructed at
the same time in the men's tepidarium, but the hot air chamber
was not carried up into the ceiling or the lunettes.
A similar transformation was gradually accomplished in the
women’s apartments ; but owing, it would seem, to a desire for
greater warmth in the tepidarium, the hot air chamber here, as
in the caldarium, was extended to the lunettes and the ceiling.
Since the method of heating by means of hollow floors only
came into vogue about 100 b.c., and since the duumvirate of
Ulins and Aninius must have occurred soon after 80 b.c., we
are probably safe in supposing that they built the hollow floors
of the two caldariums, and that the new heating arrangement
was loosely called a Laconicum. At least a partial warrant for
this interpretation is found in a passage of Dion Cassius
<LIU. xxvii. i), in which he says that Agrippa built the ‘Spar-
tan sweating bath,’ to TrvpiaTripLov to AaKcovcfcdv. Agrippa,
however, built, not a Laconicum in the narrow sense, but a com-
plete bathing establishment, and Dion, doubtless following some
earlier writer, uses the word as generally applicable to a system
of warm baths. In default of a better explanation, we must
accept a meaning equally loose for our inscription.
It is not possible to date, even approximately, the other