re block,
forming an irregular quadrangle; the northern front, facing to the
Street of the Baths, being about 162 feet in length, the southern
front about 93 feet, and the average depth about 174 feet. They are
divided into three separate and distinct compartments, one of which
was appropriated to the fireplaces and to the servants of the
establishment; the other two were occupied each by a set of baths,
contiguous to each other, similar and adapted to the same purposes,
and supplied with heat and water from the same furnace and from the
same reservoir. It is conjectured that the most spacious of them was
for the use of the men, the lesser for that of the women. The
apartments and passages are paved with white marble in mosaic. It
appears, from Varro and Vitruvius, that baths for men and women were
originally united, as well for convenience as economy of fuel, but
were separated afterwards for the preservation of morals, and had no
communication except that from the furnaces. We shall call these the
_old_ Baths by way of distinction, and because they were first
discovered; but in reality, the more recently discovered Stabian Baths
may probably be the more ancient.

It should be observed here that the old Pompeian _thermae_ are adapted
solely to the original purposes of a bath, namely, a place for bathing
and washing. They can not therefore for a moment be compared to the
baths constructed at Rome during the period of the empire, of which
such magnificent remains may still be seen at the baths of Diocletian,
and especially at those of Caracalla. In these vast establishments the
bath formed only a part of the entertainment provided. There were also
spacious porticoes for walking and conversing, halls and courts for
athletic games and gladiatorial combats, apartments for the lectures
and recitations of philosophers, rhetoricians and poets. In short,
they formed a sort of vast public club, in which almost every species
of amusement was provided. In the more recently discovered baths,
called the Thermae Stabianae, there is indeed a large quadrangular
court, or palaestra, which may have served for gymnastic exercises, and
among others for the game of ball, as appears from some large balls of
stone having been found in it. Yet even this larger establishment
makes but a very slight approach to the magnificence and luxury of a
Roman bath.

The tepidarium, or warm chamber, was so called from a warm, but soft
and mild temperatu