endlessrarities | Some Gratuitous Roman Stuff...

I've spent so much time bad-mouthing the Romans over the past few weeks that I thought I'd devote a post to one of the Roman buildings at Pompeii which really had the 'WOW!!' factor. It's a nice piece of civic architecture, the Forum Baths which have been recently subject to restoration and which we were informed by a staff member had only recently re-opened to the public.

The structure of Roman baths remains nicely consistent throughout the Empire: you move from the changing area into a succession of cold, warm and hot baths. There were two bathing areas on either side of the furnace; one for men, and the other for women.

Here's a view of the men's warm baths (the tepidarium, for latinophiles) with its incredible plasterwork and carved caryatid type figures:-

And yes, it was enough to make this cynical anti-Romanist step back, take a deep breath, and go, "Wow. That's really something."

Some details now. Of the plasterwork, first of all:-

I'm quite partial to a bit of fancy plasterwork, but I must confess that this faded painted look beats the harsh austere Georgian and Victorian interpretation of 'Classical' styles hands down. It was probably quite garish and tasteless (to my modern eyes!) in its original form, but the weathered and ash-scoured look brings everything nicely into elegant relief.

And the pilasters:-

The cold bath (the frigidarium) wasn't as well-preserved, but it had a lovely little frieze of horsemen and charioteers galloping around the cornice at the base of the dome. And because I'm a sucker for anything horse related, here's a detail:-

And lastly, a random gryphon or winged lion type beast. Which I presume I stumbled across in the vicinity of the Forum baths, because in my list of photographs it's right next to those of the baths!

I had to include it because a) it's so lovely, and b) it's in colour!! So often, evidence for the Past survives in monochrome, giving us a totally distorted view of what the world was like then.

And of course, this lovely building makes a change from the random scruffy hypocausts (underfloor heating systems) and disembodied bits of tesserae that archaeologists usually end up stumbling over in Britain. The Bearsden Roman Baths don't exactly have a look-in compared to this...

Once again, I'm grateful to the handy volume Pompeii: Guide to the Site by Guzzo and Ambrosio (Electa Napoli, 2010). No self-respecting archaeologist who visits Pompeii should return home without it!!