Dougga - Baths of Licinius

The Baths of Licinius, or Winter Baths in Dougga, were built about 260 and rebuilt in the fourth century. So far as the sloping site permitted they were laid out on the usual symmetrical plan. On the north side was the almost exactly square entrance hall, surrounded by a colonnade of twelve columns supporting a "tube vault" of the kind found at Bulla Regia. The walls were faced with marble and the floor was decorated with a mosaic. A small vestibule led into the richly decorated frigidarium (cold room) in the center of the complex. Diametrically opposite the entrance hall was the palaestra, also surrounded by a colonnade. From the frigidarium the bather entered the tepidarium (warm bath) to the north and beyond this the caldarium (hot bath), heated by an under-floor hypocaust. Other rooms included a latrine and the sudatorium (sweat bath).