Note (return) — Manners and Customs.

Eustace describes these Thermæ at some length:—"Repassing the Aventine Hill, we came to the baths of Antoninus Caracalla, that occupy part of its declivity, and a considerable portion of the plain between it and Mons Cæliolus and Mons Cælius. The length of the Thermæ was 1,840 feet; breadth, 1,476. At each end were two temples, one to Apollo and another to Esculapius, as the tutelary deities of a place sacred to the improvement of the mind, and the health of the body. In the principal building were, in the first place, a grand circular vestibule, with four halls on each side, for cold, tepid, warm, and steam baths;9 in the centre was an immense square for exercise, when the weather was unfavourable to it in the open air; beyond it a great hall, where one thousand six hundred seats of marble were placed for the convenience of the bathers; at each end of this hall were libraries. The stucco and paintings, though faintly indeed, are yet in many places perceptible. Pillars have been dug up, and some still remain amidst the ruins; while the Farnesian Bull and the famous Hercules, found in one of these halls announce the multiplicity and beauty of the statues which once adorned the Thermae of Caracalla."