CALDA´RIUM
CALDA´RIUM
1. The hot or thermal chamber of Roman baths
（
Vitr. 5.10; Sen.
Ep. 86;
Cels. 1.4;
BALNEAE). Also
the boiler in which the water for supplying the baths was heated
(Vitruv.
l.c.); see the illustration,
BALNEAE p. 279
b. These are the only usages of the word in
classical Latin.
2. A portable cooking-stove.
In this sense the word
caldarium occurs only
in late authors, though the thing itself is well known through numerous
specimens found at Pompeii, and now in the Naples Museum. The classical
term for it is probably
focus. In Seneca's
time, Roman epicurism brought these stoves into the dining-room
(
cenatio), that the dishes might be
served to perfection ( “tumultus coquorum est ipsos cum obsoniis
focos transferentium . . . cenam culina prosequitur,” Sen.
Ep. 78.23).
The caldarium here figured (
Mus. Borbon. xii. pl. 46) has
been described by Rich, who, however,
 |
|
Caldarium. ( Museo Borbonico, xii. pl.
46.)
|
with less probability, calls it an
authepsa. The sides, which are hollow, contained water,
and a small cock projects from one of them (seen in the engraving), by
which it was drawn. off; the four towers at the angles are provided with
moveable lids; the centre received the lighted charcoal, and cooking
vessels might be placed on it or suspended over it. Another contrivance
already figured (see the second cut under AUTHEPSA) seems to combine the two purposes of supplying hot water
and keeping dishes hot. It has the cylinder with a place in the centre
for a charcoal fire, which is the characteristic of an
authepsa ; and it is also furnished with a
shallow oblong tray, into which the hot water from the cylinder was
drawn by a cock, and on which dishes may have been placed.
These
caldaria might be shaped like a
milestone (as in a specimen figured
Mus. Borbon. iv. pl.
59, also by Saglio) or in more eccentric designs ( “dracones et
miliaria et complures formas,” Sen.
Nat.
Quaest. 3.24.2). The same passage describes boiler-tubes,
not unlike those of a modern steam-engine. These contrivances show great
skill in the economy of fuel and the conveniences of life. Pollux
(10.66) gives a long list of vessels for heating water, but little by
which we can identify the different shapes.
[
W.W]
