Caldarium

vol. III p.1346

Caldarium

Cella caldaria, the warm bath in a Roman bathing complex; if there wasn’t a specific dry sweat room, it also served this purpose. On its position, see Baths vol. II p.2752ff. <20> The usual form described by Vitruvius V 10, 4 is that of a long room with a barrel vault, which extended from one side finished with a right-angle that contained a pool along its whole width (alveus, see there nr.1), to the other side through an apse (schola labri) which contained a washing basin (labrum, see there). According to Vitruvius, excluding the alveus and apse its length and width should keep to the ratio 3 : 2. In Pompeii, the male caldarium of the so-called Stabian baths has this form, <30> and the baths at the forum is similar, though its ratio is closer to 2 : 1. The female caldarium of the first complex is missing the apse and the labrum is inside the rectangular room, which has a longer ratio (around 2 : 1). The female caldarium at the forum has an entirely irregular shape. The caldarium in the newest and largest complex in Pompeii (the Central Baths) also has a different form: at each end of the rectangular room (around 15 : 8) there was an alveus; <40> instead of the labrum there was a small basin in the middle of one of the long sides. In private houses, the caldaria usually tend to follow the regular design. In the large bathing complexes in Rome during the empire (see vol. II p.2755f.), the most common layout was probably that of a long room with four rectangular niches which contained the basins, three semicircular niches (the entrance was through a fourth niche) which contained the labra: this was the case in the baths of Trajan and of Diocletian, <50> and in those of St. Barbara in Trier (Westd. Ztschr. X 1891, 268). In contrast, the caldarium in the baths of Caracalla was round. In the three complexes in the city of Rome named above, the caldarium extended from the main building to the south so that it could get lots of sun through large windows. This was also the reason for there being eight large windows facing south-east and south-west in the Central Baths in Pompeii, while the caldaria in older complexes only had a few small windows, like the baths of the elder Scipio Africanus in Liternum, Sen. ep. 86, 8. <60> On the heating of the caldarium, see vol. II p.2748. Gött. Nachr. 1896, 80 probably got the name testudo for the semi-cylindrical vessel for keeping the water in the alveus warm mentioned in vol. I p.1704 from Vitruv. V 10, 1.

[Mau.]

This article is referenced by: Baths