re, which prepared the bodies of the bathers for the
more intense heat which they were to undergo in the vapor and hot
baths; and, _vice versa_, softened the transition from the hot bath to
the external air. The wall is divided into a number of niches or
compartments by Telamones, two feet high, in high relief, and
supporting a rich cornice. These are male, as Caryatides are female
statues placed to perform the office of pillars. By the Greeks they
were named Atlantes, from the well-known fable of Atlas supporting the
heavens. Here they are made of terra-cotta, or baked clay, incrusted
with the finest marble stucco. Their only covering is a girdle round
the loins; they have been painted flesh-color, with black hair and
beards; the moulding of the pedestal and the baskets on their heads
were in imitation of gold; and the pedestal itself, as well as the
wall behind them and the niches for the reception of the clothes of
the bathers, were colored to resemble red porphyry. Six of these
niches are closed up without any apparent reason.

[Illustration: RECEPTION TO THE BATHS (_at Pompeii_).]

The ceiling is worked in stucco, in low relief, with scattered figures
and ornaments of little flying genii, delicately relieved on
medallions, with foliage carved round them. The ground is painted,
sometimes red and sometimes blue. The room is lighted by a window two
feet six inches high and three feet wide, in the bronze frame of which
were found set four very beautiful panes of glass fastened by small
nuts and screws, very ingeniously contrived, with a view to remove the
glass at pleasure. In this room was found a brazier, seven feet long
and two feet six inches broad, made entirely of bronze, with the
exception of an iron lining. The two front legs are winged sphinxes,
terminating in lions' paws, the two other legs are plain, being
intended to stand against the wall. The bottom is formed with bronze
bars, on which are laid bricks supporting pumice-stones for the
reception of charcoal. There is a sort of false battlement worked on
the rim, and in the middle a cow is to be seen in high relief. Three
bronze benches also were found, alike in form and pattern. They are
one foot four inches high, one foot in width, and about six feet long,
supported by four legs, terminating in the cloven hoofs of a cow, and
ornamented at the upper ends with the heads of the same animal. Upon
the seat is inscribed, M. NIGIDIUS, VACCULA. P.S.

Varro,