Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

194 BALNEAE. BALNEAE.
ample remains still exist; and even as late as Con- is to these establishments especially that the dissostantine, besides several which were constructed lute conduct of the emperors, and other luxurious
by private individuals, P. Victor enumerates six- indulgences of the people in general, detailed in
teen, and Panvinus (Urb. Roem. Descript. p. 106) the compositions of the satirists and later writers,
has added four more. must be considered to refer.
Previously to the erection of these establishments Although considerable remains of the Roman
for the use of the population, it was customary for thermae are still visible, yet, from the very ruinthose who sought the favour of the people to give ous state in which they are found, we are far from
them a day's bathing free of expense. Thus, ac- being able to arrive at the same accurate knowcording to Dion Cassius (xxxvii. p. 143), Faus- ledge of their component parts, and the usages to
tus, the son of Sulla, furnished warm baths and which they were applied, as has been done with
oil gratis to the people for one day; and Augustus respect to the balneae; or indeed to discover a
on one occasion furnished warm baths and barbers satisfactory mode of reconciling their constructive
to the people for the same period free of expense details with the description which Vitruvius has
(Id. liv. p. 755), and at another time for a whole left of the baths appertaining to a Greek palaestra,
year to the women as well as the men. (Id. xlix. or to the description given by Lucian of the baths
p. 600.) Hence it is fair to infer that the quadrans of Hippias. All, indeed, is doubt and guess-work;
paid for admission into the balneae was not exacted the learned men who have pretended to give an
at the tlSermrae, which, as being the works of the account of their contents differing in almost all the
emperors, would naturally be opened with imperial essential particulars fromn one another. And yet
generosity to all, and without any charge, other- the great similarity in the ground-plan of the three
wise the whole city would have thronged to the which still remain cannot fail to convince even a
establishment bequeathed to them by Agrippa; superficial observer that they were all constructed
and in confirmation of this opinion it may be re- upon a similar plan. Not, however, to dismiss
marked that the old establishments, which were the subject without enabling our readers to form
probably erected by private enterprise (comp. Plin. something like a general idea of these enormous
H. N. ix. 54. s. 79), were termed nzeritoriae. (Plin. edifices, which, for their extent and magnificence,
Ep. ii. 17.) Most, if not all, of the other regula- have been likened to provinces-(in snoduas provintions previously detailed as relating to the economy ciarumr exstsuctae, Amm. Marc. xvi. 6)-a groundof the baths, apply equally to the thermae; but it plan is annexed of the Thermae of Caracalla, which.e....' P
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