AT THE BATHS.
Nothing can give one a more striking conception of Roman life under the
Empire than the size, number, and magnificence of the public baths.
Those of Caracalla are a typical example. They covered an area of
fifteen hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the surrounding
grounds being a mile in circumference. They formed a perfect wilderness
of stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the very mouldering
remains of which strike one with astonishment. Of this very structure,
the poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus Unbound," remarks:
"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths
of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous
blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon
its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Piers of
sold masonry soar aloft like towers, on the summit of which good-sized
trees are growing. Climbing one of those massive towers, the present
writer enjoyed a glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the
crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure
all around, and of the far spreading and desolate Campagna.
The great hypocausts, or subterranean furnaces, can be still examined,
as also the caleducts in the walls for hot air, and the metal pipes for
hot and cold water. The baths were supplied by an aqueduct constructed
for that purpose, the arches of which may be seen bestriding the
Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from the city. There were hot,
and cold, and tepid baths, _caldaria_, or sweating chambers,
_frigidaria_, or cooling rooms, _unctoria_, or anointing rooms, and many
others sufficient to accommodate sixteen hundred bathers at once. There
were also a vast gymnasium for exercise, a _stadium_, or race-course,
and a _pinacotheca_, or art gallery. Here were found the famous Farnese
Bull, the largest group of ancient statuary extant, and many _chefs
d'oeuvre_ of classic sculpture and mosaics.
The Baths of Diocletian, built by the labours of the Christians during
the last great persecution, one authority says, were twice as large, and
could accommodate eighteen thousand bathers in a day, but that seems
incredible. One of its great halls, a hundred yards by thirty in area,
and thirty yards high, was converted by Michael Angelo into a church. Of
the remainder, part is used as a monastery, part as barracks, and part
as an orphanage, a poor-house, and an asylum for the blind, and much is
in ruins. At Pompeii is a public bath in perfect preservation, with the
niches for the clothing, soaps, and unguents of the bathers, and even
the _strigils_, or bronze instruments for scraping the skin--the same
after eighteen hundred years as though used but yesterday. By these
means we are able to reconstruct the outward circumstances of that old
Roman life, almost as though we had shared its busy movement.
As Ligurius Rufus drew aside the heavy matting of the doorway of the
Thermæ, of Caracalla, which then, as now, kept out the summer heat from
the buildings of Rome, a busy scene burst upon his view. A great hall,
lighted by openings in the roof, was filled with gay groups of patrician
Romans, sauntering, chatting, laughing, exchanging news, betting on the
next races, and settling bets on the last. As the modern clubman goes to
his club to see the papers and learn the current gossip, so all the
idlers in Rome came to the baths as to a social exchange, to learn the
latest bit of court scandal or public news.
"Ho, Calphurnius!" said Rufus, to the now sobered son of the city
Prefect; "what's in the wind to-day? You know all the mischief that's
going."
"Sorry I cannot maintain my reputation then. Things are dull as an old
_strigil_. Oh, by the way," and he beckoned them into a recess behind a
porphyry pillar, "there is going to be a precious row up at the palace.
I tell you in confidence. The old vixen, Fausta, has got a new spite
against the Empress Valeria, whom all the people of the palace love. The
termagant is not fit to carry water for her bath. She has found some
mare's nest of a Christian plot,--by the way you are mixed up in it,
friend Isidorus. I would advise you to have a care. In the fight of
Pagan against Christian, I fear Valeria will get the worst of it, _dii
avertant_."
"The palace walls are not glass," laughed Isidorus, "nor have you a
Dionysius' ear. How know you all this?"
"As if the Roman Prefect did not know what goes on, that he thinks worth
knowing, in every house in Rome! He has eyes and ears in his pay
everywhere; and when honest Juba, or Tubal, come with their secret
intelligence, they are not above accepting double pay and letting me
into the secret, too. Besides that crafty old vulture Furca was closeted
with the Prefect for an hour by the clepshydra, and you always smell
carrion when he is hovering round."
"What is it all about?" asked Rufus. "I am sure Valeria is as much
beloved by the people as the old termagant Fausta is hated."
"There's the rub--a bit of spiteful jealousy," answered Calphurnius.
"But when that old basilisk hates, she will find a way to sting."
"But what have I to do with the quarrels of the palace?" asked Isidorus,
a little anxiously, for he knew not how far he might be compromised by
the commission he had executed, of which he had felt not a little proud.
"You know best yourself," answered Calphurnius with a laugh. "If you
have done a service to Valeria or the Christians, you have made an enemy
of Fausta and the Pagans."
"Is this what you spoke of last night, and promised to explain to-day?"
asked the Greek.
"Yes, I suppose so. I have no very distinct recollection of what I said.
I had been supping with Rufus here, and some other roystering blades,
and the Folernian was uncommonly good. Come, _amicus meus_," he went on
turning to Ligurius, "don't you want revenge for those sesterces you
lost last night?"
"I don't mind if I do punish you a little," yawned the young soldier.
"It will kill the time for awhile, at all events."
[Illustration]