POMPEIANA de William Gell (éd. de 1832)

Plate XXXIV - Women's baths

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Plate XXXIV represents the highest external portion of the thermae from the north-west angle.

On the right the vicus is seen which terminates at an entry of the Forum. On the left the last edifice is the Temple of Fortune. The door on the extreme left is that of the house of the Tragic Poet.

The two pilasters or buttresses on the right, under an arch in the thick wall of the women's baths, have between them the evident traces of a fall of water, which is conjectured to have been the outlet for the superfluity of the reservoir above.

This alley seems to have been arched over at this end, and the arch is thought to have served as a communication with other reservoirs of water of which the vestiges are visible.

No conjecture has yet reasonably accounted for the appearance of a heavy arch which, springing from the angle, appears to have been thrown over the wide street of the baths on the left, nor is there a vestige of any pier on the other side to support it.

The nearest door was that of the women's baths, before which projected a little apartment or vestibule, with a shelf for the laying up of the clean linen for the bathers, and, probably, the station of the keeper or balneator.

A white-washed tablet at this door has an inscription. The entrance, by a passage to the frigidarium, from this street, is by the last door, except one, to the right. There were other baths, both of salt and fresh water, at Pompeii ; and the Canonico Iorio gives the inscription of one of them from the Musaeum.

THERMAE
M. CRASSI. FRVGI
AQVA. MARINA. ET. BAL.
AQVA. DVLCI. IANVARIVS. L.

Hot, salt, and fresh-water baths, etc