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.

 
When you have bathed, you need not go back
through the same rooms, but can go directly to the
cold room through a slightly warmed apartment.
Everywhere there is copious illumination and full
indoor daylight. Furthermore, the height of each



 

room is just, and the breadth proportionate to
the length; and everywhere great beauty and loveliness prevail, for in the words of noble Pindar, Olymp. 6, 3. Pindar’s ἀρχομένου (the beginning of your
work) is out of place in this context. 
“Your work should have a glorious countenance.”
This is probably due in the main to the light,
‘the brightness and the windows. Hippias, being
truly wise, built the room for cold baths to northward, though it does not lack a southern exposure;
whereas he faced south, east, and west the rooms
that require abundant heat.

 

Why should I go on
and tell you of the exercising-floors and of the cloakrooms, which have quick and direct communication
with the hall containing the basin, so as to be convenient and to do away with all risk?
Let no one suppose that I have taken an insignificant achievement as my theme, and purpose to ennoble it by my eloquence. It requires more than a
little wisdom, in my opinion, to invent new manifestations of beauty in commonplace things, as did
our marvellous Hippias in producing this work. It
has all the good points of a bath—usefulness, convenience, light, good proportions, fitness to its site,
and the fact that it can be used without risk. Moreover, it is beautified with all other marks of thoughtfulness—with two toilets, many exits; and two
devices for telling time, a water-clock that bellows
like a bull, and a sundial.
For a man who has seen all this not to render the
work its meed of praise is not only foolish but



 

ungrateful, even malignant, it seems to me. I for
my part have done what I could to do justice both
to the work and to the man who planned and
built it. If Heaven ever grants you the privilege
of bathing there, I know that I shall have many
who will join me in my words of praise.