theon, and Palladio and others have amused themselves by restoring them, assuming that building to have been the entrance-hall. Nothing, however, could, I believe, be more unfounded than such an assumption, and no ruins exist sufficiently perfect to enable us to ascertain the exact site of these baths, if indeed they ever existed at all in this situation.

Nero's baths, too, are a mere heap of shapeless ruins, and those of Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan in like manner are too much ruined for their form, or even their dimensions, to be ascertained with anything like correctness. Those of Titus are more perfect, but the very discrepancies that exist between the different systems upon which their restoration has been attempted show that enough does not remain to enable the task to be accomplished in a satisfactory manner. They owe their interest more to the beautiful fresco paintings that adorn their vaults than to their architectural character. These paintings are invaluable, as being almost the only relics of the painted decoration of the most flourishing period of the Empire, and give a higher idea of Roman art than other indications would lead us to expect.

The baths of Constantine are also nearly wholly destroyed, so that out of the great Thermæ two only, those of Diocletian and of Caracalla, now remain sufficiently perfect to enable a restoration to be made of them with anything like certainty.

The great hall belonging to the baths of Diocletian is now the Church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, and has been considerably altered to suit the altered circumstances of its use; and the modern buildings attached to the church have so overlaid the older remains that it is not easy to follow out the complete plan. This is of less consequence, as both in dimensions and plan they are extreinely similar to those of Caracalla, which seem to have been among the most magnificent, as they certainly are the best preserved, of these establishments.'

The general plan of the whole enclosure of the baths of Diocletian was a square of about 1150 ft. each way, with a bold but graceful curvilinear projection on two sides, containing porticos, gymnasia, lecturerooms, and other halls for exercise of mind or body. In the rear were the reservoirs to contain the requisite supply of water, and below them the hypocaust or furnace, by which it was warmed with a degree of scientific skill we hardly give credit for to the Romans of that age. Opposite to this and facing the street was one great portico extending the whole length of the building, into which opened a range of apartments meant apparently to be used as private baths, which extend also some way up each side. In front of the hypocaust, facing the northeast, was a semicircus or theatridium, 530 ft. long, where youths performed their exercises or contended for prizes.

These parts were, however, merely the accessories of the establish

1 These baths have been carefully measured by M. Blouet, who has also published a restoration of them. This is, on the whole,

certainly the best account we have of any of these establishments.

ment surrounding the garden, in which the principal building was placed. This was a rectangle 730 ft. by 380, with a projection covered by a dome on the south-western side, which was 167 ft. in diameter externally, and 115 ft. internally. There were two small courts (AA) included in the block, but the whole of the rest appears to have been roofed over, and though, therefore, with about the same dimensions, it virtually covered far more ground, and, looking at the size and grandeur of the parts, it was a building on a far more magnificent scale than our new Houses of Parliament.

In the centre was a great hall (B), almost identical in dimensions with the central aisle of the Basilica of Maxentius already described, being 82 ft. wide by 170 in length, and roofed in the same manner by an intersecting vault in three compartments, springing from 8 great pillars. This opened into a smaller apartment at each end, of rectangular form, and then again into 2 other semicircular halls, forming a splendid suite 460 ft. in length. This central room is generally considered as the tepidarium, or warmed apartments, having 4 warm baths opening out of it. On the north-east side was the natatio, or plunge bath (c), probably tepid, a room of nearly the same dimensions and design as the central one. On the side opposite to this was the circular apartment (D), covered by the dome above mentioned, which, from its situation and the openness of its arrangements, must have contained a cold bath or baths. There are

4 other rooms on this side, which seem also to have been cold baths. None of these points have, however, yet been satisfactorily settled, nor the uses of the smaller subordinate rooms; every restorer giving them names according to his own ideas. For our purpose it suffices to know that no groups of state apartments in such dimensions, and wholly devoted to purposes of display and recreation, were ever before or since grouped together under one roof. The taste of many of the decorations would no doubt be faulty, and the architecture shows those incongruities inseparable from its state of transition; but such a collection of stately halls must have made up a whole of greater splendour than we can easily realize from their bare and weather-beaten ruins, or from anything else to which we can compare them. Even allowing for their being almost wholly of brick, and being disfigured by the bad taste inseparable from everything Roman, there is nothing in the world which for size and grandeur can compare with these imperial places of recreation.'

' St. George's Hall at Liverpool is the most exact copy in modern times of a part of these Baths. The Hall itself is a reproduction both in scale and design of the central hall of Caracalla's Baths, but improved in detail and design, having five bays instead of only three. With the two courts at each

end, it makes up a suite of apartments very similar to those found in the Roman examples. The whole building, however, is less than one-fourth of the size of the central mass of a Roman bath, and therefore gives but little idea of the magnificence of the whole.

CHAPTER V.

TRIUMPHAL ARCHES, TOMBS, AND OTHER BUILDINGS.

CONTENTS.

Pillars of Victory - Tombs
Domestic architecture

Arches at Rome; in France Arch at Trèves
Minerva Medica - Provincial tombs. Eastern tombs
Spalatro Pompeii - Bridges

Aqueducts.

TRIUMPHAL arches were among the most peculiar of the various forms of art which the Romans borrowed from those around them, and used with that strange mixture of splendour and bad taste which characterises all their works.

These were in the first instance no doubt borrowed from the Etruscans, as was also the ceremony of the triumph with which they were ultimately associated. At first they seem rather to have been used as festal entrances to the great public roads, whose construction was con

sidered as one of the most important benefits a

ruler could con

270.

Arch of Trajan at Beneventum. From a plate in Gailabaud's
Architecture.

fer on his country. There was one erected at Rimini in honour of an important restoration of the Flaminian Way by Augustus; another at Susa in Piedmont, to commemorate a similaract of the same Emperor. Trajan built one on the pier at Ancona, when he restored that harbour, and another at Beneventum, when he repaired the Via

Appia, represented in the woodcut here given (No. 270). It is one of the best preserved as well as most graceful of its class in Italy. The arch

of the Sergii at Pola in Istria seems also to have been erected for a like purpose. That of Hadrian at Athens, and another built by him at Antinoë in Egypt, were monuments merely commemorative of the benefits which he had conferred on those cities by the architectural works he had erected within their walls. By far the most important application of these gateways, in Rome at least, was to commemorate a triumph which may have passed along the road over which the arch was erected, and perhaps in some instances it may have been erected beforehand, for the triumphal procession to pass through, of which it would remain a memorial.

271. Arch of Titus at Rome. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The Arch of Titus at Rome is well known for the beauty of its detail, as well as from the extraordinary interest which it derives from having been erected to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem, and consequently representing in its bassi-rilievi the spoils of the Temple. From the annexed elevation, drawn to the usual scale, it will be seen that the building is not large, and it is not so well proportioned as that at Beneventum, represented in the last woodcut, the attic being overpoweringly high. The absence of sculpture on each side of the arch is also a defect, for the real merit of these buildings is their being used as frameworks for the exhibition of sculptural representations of the deeds they were erected to commemorate. In the later days of the Empire 2 side-arches were added for footpassengers, in addition to the carriage-way in the centre. This added much to the splendour of the edifice, and gave a greater opportunity for sculptural decoration than the single arch afforded. The Arch of Septimius Severus, represented to the same scale in woodcut No. 272, is perhaps the best specimen of the class. That of Constantine is very similar and in most respects equal to this-a merit which it owes to most of its sculptures being borrowed from earlier monuments.

More splendid than either of these is the arch at Orange. We do not know by whom it was erected, or even in what age: it is, however, certainly very late in the Roman period, and shows a strong tendency to treat the order as entirely subordinate, and to exalt the plain masses into that importance which characterises the late transitional period. Unfortunately its sculptures are so much destroyed by time and violence. that it is not easy to speak with certainty as to their age; but more might be done than has hitherto been effected to illustrate this important monument.

At Rheims there is an arch which was probably much more magnificent than this. When in a perfect state it was 110 ft. in width, and