How were these baths, heated, how were the hot rooms heated?
Through a system called a hypocaust again I've put
the mon-, I put the word on the monument
list for you. A hypocaust, H-Y-P, H-Y-P-O-C-A-U-S-T.
What was a hypocaust system?
A hypocaust system was a system by which they put
terracotta terracotta tubes in the floor and behind the walls.
They blew hot air into those, and they also raised up the pavement of
the floor, on a series of stacked tiles, and you can see that extremely well.
It's a very well preserved hypocaust from the Stabian Baths, placed
these tiles on stacks, stacks of tiles, let, leaving space in
between them, and put braziers between those, tin, tin you know,
metal braziers metal bowls that held hot coals and so on.
And that, from those hot coals, obviously it's slaves
who have to, you know, keep those coals hot.
But coals that were placed
in these pans that that helped also to heat the pavement that was located above.
The, this very important room, the frigidarium of the Stabian Baths,
you see it here as it looks today, a small, round space.
It has a, it would have had a pool in the
center, a round pool, radiating alcoves, a dome, a dome, that is
open to the sky, with an oculus that allows light into it.
You can see the remains of paint, stucco, and then paint,
blue and red, paint, probably some kind of marine scene included here.
But this, I can't under, underscore enough the importance of this
particular room and the future that this design has for Roman architecture.
I'd like to show you another bath at Pompeii,
the so-called Forum Baths.
The Forum Baths are interesting because they're later.
They date too, as you can see from your
monument list, to 80 B.C., so this is what the
Romans did when they came in and took over
Pompeii, and were making it into one of those mini-Romes.
Those cities in the, in the, in the in the model of Rome.
And you can see it is very, very similar to what was going on in the Stabian Baths,
in the earlier Samnite baths with the same palaestra,
we see a palaestra up at 2, the exercise court.
We don't seem to have an natatio in this particular plan.
We see the men's section over here at 3, 4, 5
and 6, and the women's section over here, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Again, the women's section off to the
side, of no arch, architectural distinction whatsoever.
The men's
over here, and you could enter the men's either through
the palaestra or from an opening over here at 1.
We see the same set of rooms that we saw at the Stabian Baths.
We see the apodyterium or dressing, undressing
and dressing room over here at 3.
The tepidarium at 5, the caldarium at 6, and the caldarium at 6 is
of the same shape as the caldarium in the Stabian Baths, a rectangular
room with an apse at the end and a, basin for cold water splashes.
And then you go back again to the frigidarium, and you
can see the frigidarium in the baths, Forum Baths of Pompeii.
The same shape as that in the Stabian Baths at
Pompeii, a round, a small round room with radiating alcoves.
I can show you views both of the tepidarium of the Forum Baths,
extremely well preserved, as you can see here.
You can also see they've used a great barrel vault for this room.
It isn't as large as it looks here, but it's a sizable room.
And this is a very good place to show you by the
way, to give you a sense of how these things were decorated.
How so many of rooms, Roman buildings today,
Roman buildings today are stripped of their original decoration.
But that decoration was often
quite beautiful and ostentatious, and we can see here
a, we can get here a sense of that.
You can see the wall has been stuccoed over, and then also in stucco these
great, flowering acanthus plants and creatures flying above,
animals, human feature, Gods and Goddesses flying above.
Paint was, you know, they use paint as well, red
and blue and white and other colors, to accentuate the design.
This gives you some sense of the flavor
of these.
And then this wonderful detail below of these Atlas figures
who are shown holding up, the vault of this particular room.
It gives you some sense of why Romans flocked to these places.
Not only because it was the only place
they could bathe themselves, but also because it
was just a wonderful place to be in, and to enjoy again the company of friends.
This is a view of what room.
In the Forum Baths?
The caldarium, excellent Neal.
The caldarium ah,over here, with its rectangular shape, and then
its apse and its cold water basin for cold water splashes.
And then look at the ceiling, how wonderful.
In that, in that, apse you see a semi-dome a, a round
hole, or an oculus in that semi-dome, to allow light into it.
So here we see them exploring oculi and semi-domes, as well as in domes.
And then the square and rectangular spaces, holes in the ceiling.
Openings in the ceilings that have been placed there also to allow light
into the system, so that you could use the room, but also to
create the kind of wonderful light effects that it does, when you have
rays of sunshine coming in on you while you are in your sauna.
This is couple of more views of, this is
couple of views of the frigidarium of the Forum Baths.
You can see the dome up above, the oculus in that dome.
You can see some of the stucco decoration still preserved.
You can see the alcoves here, the radiating
alcoves, and some of the stucco decoration here.
Sea creatures against a red background.
And this is a restored view of what the frigidarium would have
looked like with the pool in the center; a nice place to relax.
The radiating apses over here, and then the dome
with the oculus and with the light streaming in.
Again, I can't underscore enough the importance of both
of these frigidaria, for the future of Roman architecture.
The other importance of the Forum Baths is the
Forum Baths is today where you can eat and if
your there for the full day, as I recommend
you be, you're going to want to eat at some point.
And there is a cafeteria,
which doesn't look like much, but actually the food is not bad.
The Italians have a very hard time making bad pasta.
So you can always get some good pasta at the
snack bar, and you will want to make your way,
there's a few views of it, make your way to
the Forum Baths, if you're there for any length of time.
