Carthage - Baths of Antoninus Pius

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a result of a structural defect, and thereafter were used for centuries as a quarry of building stone. As a result all that remains is the walls of the basement story, which owing to the nearness of the baths to the coast had particularly deep foundations, and a stretch of masonry on the west side extending up both storys. On the ground floor - and not, as was the normal arrangement, in the basement - were the heating and water supply systems, together with rest rooms and rooms for the staff of the baths. The baths proper were on the upper floors, with a grand staircase (of which nothing remains) leading down from them to the sea.

The ground-plan of the baths was strictly symmetrical; one wing may have been used by men, the other by women. Eight colossal columns of gray granite (each 1.60m/5.25ft in diameter, weighing 50 tons, with Corinthian capitals of white marble, 1.8m/6ft high and weighing over 4 tons) supported the vaulting of the central chamber, the frigidarium, which was 50m/165ft long by 20m/65ft wide. One of the eight columns has been restored and re-erected.

A visit to the baths followed a fairly regular sequence. After undressing in the apodyterium the bather had the choice between the warm pool and physical exercise in the palaestra or the covered gymnasium. Then he could warm himself in the warm room (tepidarium), attend to his personal hygiene in the destrictarium, have a good sweat in the laconicum, followed by a hot bath in the caldarium, cool down gradually in the tepidarium and finally have a cold bath in one of the four basins in the frigidarium, the central feature of the whole establishment.

On the seaward side of the baths was a sunbathing terrace with an open-air swimming pool (natatio), on the landward side two semicircular communal latrines.