The entrance is high, with a flight of broad
steps of which the tread is greater than the pitch,
to make them easy to ascend. On entering, one
is received into a public hall of good size, with
ample accommodations for servants and attendants.
On the left are the lounging-rooms, also of just
the right sort for a bath, attractive, brightly lighted


 

retreats, Then, beside them, a hall, larger than
need be for the purposes of a bath, but necessary
for the reception of the rich. Next, capacious
locker-rooms to undress in, on each side, with a very
high and brilliantly lighted hall between them, in
which are three swimming-pools of cold water; it
is finished in Laconian marble, and has two statues
of white marble in the ancient technique, one of
Hygieia, the other of Aesculapius.

 

On leaving this hall, you come into another
which is slightly warmed instead of meeting you
at once with fierce heat; it is oblong, and has an
apse at each side. Or “long and rounded”; i.e., elliptical. Next it, on the right, is a
very bright hall, nicely fitted up for massage,
which has on each side an entrance decorated with
Phrygian marble, and receives those who come in
from the exercising-floor. Then near this is another
hall, the most beautiful in the world, in which
one can sit or stand with comfort, linger without
danger and stroll about with profit. It also is
refulgent with Phrygian marble clear to the roof.
Next, comes the hot corridor, faced with Numidian
marble. The hall beyond it is very beautiful, full of
abundant light and aglow with colour like that of
purple hangings. The writer does not mean that the room was hung with
purple, but that the stone with which it was decorated was
purple: perhaps only that it had columns of porphyry. It contains three hot tubs.