THERMAE ANTONINIANAE (CARACALLAE)
* (Capsararius de Antoninianas (sic)
in (
CIL vi. 9232) a fifth (?) century inscription):
the thermae built by
Caracalla on the
VIA NOVA (q.v.), which he constructed parallel to and
on. the right of the via Appia, a little beyond the porta Capena. Hier.
ad Euseb. a. Abr. 2231:
Antoninus Romae thermas sui nominis aedificavit,
fixes the date of their dedication as 216 A.D. Breval, Remarks on
Several Parts of Europe, Ser. I
(1726), ii. 259, saw the letters .... ONINI
on the exterior, perhaps a fragment of the dedicatory inscription;
cf. Aur. Victor. Caesar. 21:
ad lavandum absoluto opere pulcri cultus;
quibus confectis cum Syriam circumgrederetur, anno potentiae sexto
(217 A.D.) moritur (from which Hist. Aug. Carac. 9 is probably derived);
cf. also Eutrop. 8. 20; Chron. 147.
The commencement of the building may be fixed by the fact that
the brickstamps with Geta's name not yet erased (
CIL xv. 769. 3, 4),
which have been found in use in its construction, can only belong to the
period between February 211 and February 212. A quarry mark with
the consular date 206 A.D. upon a mass of Greek statuary marble (Ann.
d. Inst. 1870, p. 193, No. 279) has nothing to do with the date of the
commencement of the thermae. A lead pipe found here (
CIL xv. 7381)
bears the names of Q. Aiacius Modestus and Q. Aiacius Censorinus, of
whom the former is probably identical with one of the quindecimviri
sacris faciundis of the ludi saeculares of 204 A.D. (
CIL vi. 32327-32329,
32332; cf. p. 3261), who was legatus of upper Germany between 209
and 211 A.D.
1
Elagabalus (Hist. Aug. Heliog. 17. 8) is said to have added porticoes
which were finished by Alexander Severus (cf. id. Alex. 25. 6); but the
truth of the statement is doubtful (SHA 1916. 7. A, 7-8), though it has
generally been taken to refer to the peribolus.
2 For a catalogue of the
works of art which the baths contained about the middle of the third
century,
3 cf. Nicole, Un Catalogue d'ceuvres d'art conserves a Rome a
l'epoque imperiale
(Geneva, 1906). Some porticoes connected with the
baths (whatever is meant) were destroyed or damaged by fire, and
repaired under Aurelian (Chron. 148:
porticus Thermarum Antoninarum
arserunt et fabricatum est).
A brick-stamp of the time of Constans or Constantius (not found
in situ) gives some evidence of activity about the middle of the fourth
century (
CIL xv. 1542. 3)
4, while we have dedicatory inscriptions upon the
bases of statues set up by the praefectus urbi to Victoria and to the
victorious emperors Valentinian and Valens towards the end of it (
CIL
vi. 794, 1170-1173).
In the fifth century the baths are named among the marvels of Rome
(Pol. Silv. 545; Olympiod. ap. Phot. p. 63a Bekk.:
αἱ δὲ ᾿Αντωνιαναὶ ... εἰς χρωίαν τῶν λουομένων καθέέδρασς εἶχον παρακαιμένας χιλίας ἑξακοσίασἐξ ναρνάρου κατεσκευασμένας ξεστοῦ. Cf.
THERMAE DIOCLETIANI), and
there is evidence of restoration under Theodoric in the sixth century
(
CIL xv. 1665. 3, 4; 1669. 7), but their use must have been rendered
impossible when the aqueducts were cut by the Goths in 537 A.D.
The ruins were less affected than those of many other buildings by
the devastations of the Middle Ages, though evidence has been found
here too of the harm wrought by the earthquake of 847 (a column in
the xystus resting on a mass of debris; see
BASILICA AEMILIA). The
name occurs in Eins. (11. 2; 13. 25) and under various forms (palatium
Antonianum, l'Antoniana, etc.) right through the Middle Ages. Discovery
and destruction went hand in hand under Paul III (LS passim; DAP
2. xv. 369). The colossal group of the Farnese Bull, and the large
statues of Hercules and Flora which were found in his pontificate, are
now all in the Museum at Naples. After the important studies of
sixteenth century architects, no great progress was made until the
publication of Blouet's Restauration des thermes d'Antonin Caracalla
(Paris 1828), which gives the results of Velo's excavations. Iwanoff
studied the ruins in 1847-49, but his results were only published in 1898,
with text by Hulsen
(Aus den Caracallathermen, Berlin 1898). Important
excavations have been made since in the main building (for a summary
up to 1897, see LR 535-543), and, in 1901 and 1911, in its subterranean
service and drainage passages, in the underground corridors which
connected it with the peribolus, and in parts of the latter (
NS 1901,
248-253;
1912, 305-325; De Angelis, Relazione dell' Ufficio Tecnico
(Rome 1903) 108-114;
YW 1912, 12; Builder, ciii. 376; Zona Monumentale di Roma
(Rome 1914) 55-63; and for works of art found,
PT 114, 156-157, 192-194, 206).
The plan of the thermae of Caracalla is derived, with modifications,
from the thermae of Trajan; they consist of a large central building
containing the baths proper, surrounded by a garden, which in turn is
enclosed by a rectangular peribolus, containing porticoes, rooms for
recreation, etc. The via Nova ran below the level of this garden, which
was in large measure artificially raised, only the south and south-east
porticoes having been cut out of the hillside. It was therefore approached
by flights of steps; between them were small rooms in two stories which
served as shops and offices. These ran along the front and the sides,
almost as far as the back of the central building, where they were
succeeded by two huge exedrae, in each of which were three main rooms--
5
an octagonal nymphaeum (?) (which has great importance in the history
of the development of the dome, providing the earliest extant examples
of spherical pendentives of windows in the drum and of half-domed
recesses under them), a rectangular room open towards the garden,
and another room, previously thought to have been a piscina, but recently
found to have been heated by hypocausts (seen on the left of Ill. 50).
Behind these rooms was an arcade following the curve of the exedra;
and in front of each exedra was a portico which gave on to the garden,
and was continued along the south-west side as well (Mem. L. 5. xvii.
527).
We have now reached the posterior angles of the peribolus; in each
of them is a staircase (not a part of the original construction) followed
by a large rectangular hall open towards the garden, which from its
internal arrangements must be a library (Ill. 52). On three sides it is
surrounded by low steps, leading up to niches, in which the manuscripts
were kept. Two capitals, with figures of Serapis and Harpocrates, now
in S. Maria in Trastevere, came from here (DAP 2. xi. 174). The
centre of the south-west side is occupied by rows of seats, with a curve
at each end. Here was obviously a stadium; but the north-east side
was left open, so that spectators in the garden could see what was going
on. Behind the seats and at a higher level were the large reservoirs
of the thermae, consisting of sixty-four vaulted chambers in two stories
and in two rows. They were supplied by a branch of the
AQUA MARCIA,
the Antoniniana Iovia (q.v.), which crossed the via Appia on the so-called
ARCH OF DRUSUS (q.v.).
The central block, to which we now turn, had four entrances: the
two central ones led into the covered halls (from which the apodyteria
or dressing-rooms were reached) at each end of the frigidarium. This,
despite all that has been said to the contrary, was probably open to
the air, like the frigidarium of the thermae of Diocletian. The famous
passage (Hist. Aug. Carac. 9. 4) as to the ' cella solearis,' which most writers
have identified with the frigidarium (while others have referred it to the
caldarium), is relegated by Domaszewski to the list of the writer's inventions (
SHA 1916, 7. A, 7;
1918, 13. A, 49). Thus solearis is an intentional corruption of soliaris, and the sentence :
nam et ex aere vel cypro
cancelli superpositi esse dicuntur, quibus cameratio tota concredita
est, is added by the author as an explanation of the word. As a matter
of fact, a cella soliaris (or cum soliis) is mentioned thrice in North Africa-
at Thuburnica, Madauros, and Thuburbo Maius (
CIL viii. 147006;
Mel.
1909, 401;
AA 1911, 277;
CRA 1917, 72)-and appears to mean a hall
in which were large basins for private hot baths. In some cases solium
is used for the room itself (
CIL viii. 897, p. 928, 948). The north-east
(external) wall was elaborately decorated with small niches surmounted
by pediments and enclosed by ranges of columns carrying architraves,
one above the other-the first case of a form of embellishment, which is
also found in the frigidarium of the thermae of Diocletian. On the
south-west it opened on to the great central hall, which has so long
been wrongly known as the tepidarium, though no arrangements for
heating it are to be found; and it has so many openings that it would
be impossible to keep up even a moderate temperature in it. This great
hall (III. 51), which measures 183 by 79 feet, was covered with an intersecting barrel vault, and was adorned with eight granite columns,
7 one
of which was still standing there until 1561-5, when it was removed to
Florence by Cosimo I, and now stands in the Piazza della Trinita (DuP 89).
The other two entrances at each end of the central block led into two
halls which gave directly on to the two palaestrae, one at each end of the
longer axis of the building. These were open courts surrounded by a
colonnade on three sides with a row of three rooms opening towards the
fourth side. On the axis of the central hall and opening out of it are
two apsidal recesses, each of which contained a large mosaic pavement
representing athletes, and dating probably from the fourth century.
They were discovered in 1824, and placed in the Lateran museum, where
they have been somewhat arbitrarily re-arranged (HF ii. p. 1, No. 1240;
Nogara, Mosaici del Vat. e del Lat. pls. i.-iv.).
Two low openings on the minor axis of the central hall lead into
a small rectangular room, probably the tepidarium, which serves as the
vestibule to the great circular caldarium in the centre of the south-west
side. Its lofty dome (in which almost for the first time amphorae were
used to lighten the vault-the earliest instance within the city is in the
haunches of some of the barrel vaults in the substructions of Septimius
Severus on the Palatine, RA 164) was 35 metres in diameter, and was
supported by eight huge pillars, two of which are still standing. These
were united by two tiers of arches. Between the pillars on each side
of the entrance hot baths have been inserted at a later date, and were
supplied by cisterns added on each side of the tepidarium. Other private
baths were accessible from the palaestrae or were situated in the upper
story. The central block was completed by four rooms on the south-west
side on each side of the caldarium, which served for meeting places,
recitations, etc.
The planning of the subterranean portion of the baths is no less
admirable than that of the superstructure. It was studied in the excavations of 1901 and 1912, but no comprehensive plan is as yet available.
An elaborate system of tiewalls was introduced to strengthen the foundations. Under the whole of the main building run passages at two levels,
the upper for service, communication being by means of shafts, the lower
for drainage. The main discharge is on the north-west side from a drain
running the whole length of the north-east front, and receiving the
water from the frigidarium, which had two outlets in the centre. Another
important passage ran beneath the main axis of the building. These
passages are approached from open courtyards, which also served as light
wells, on each side of the tepidarium (both those immediately adjacent
to it and those marked MM on Ripostelli's and Lugli's plans are referred
to).
Along the south-west side of the building run far larger and more
extensive vaulted passages which communicated with the interesting
and complicated substructures of the two exedrae of the peribolus.
In one part of them a mill was established at a later date, when the baths
lost part of their importance; in another was placed a Mithraeum, the
largest known in Rome, which gives us interesting information as to
the details of the cult (NS 1912, cit.; PT 125).
Besides the authorities already quoted, see D'Esp.
Mon. ii. 160-161;
Fr. i. 98; DuP 123-125;
Toeb. i. 100-107; ZA 280-295; RA 166-177;
HJ 189-196; ASA 100-106.