History of Sanitation

56 HISTORY OF SANITATION the same period free of expense, and at another time for a whole year to the women as well as the men. From thence it is fair to infer that the quadrant paid for admission to the balnea was not exacted at the thermae, which as being the works of the emperors, would naturally be opened with im- perial generosity to all, and without any charge, otherwise the whole city would have thronged to the establishment bequeathed to them by Agrippa; and in confirmation of this opinion it might be remarked that the old establish- ments, which were probably erected by private enterprises, were termed Meritorial. Most, if not all, of the other regulations previously detailed as relating to the economy of the baths, apply equally to the thermae; but it is in these establishments especially that the dissolute conduct of the emperors and other luxurious indulgence of the people in general, as detailed in the compositions of the satirists and later writers, must be considered to refer. Although considerable remains of the Roman thermæ are still visible, yet, from the very ruinous state in which they are found, we are far from being able to arrive at the same accurate knowledge of their component parts and the usages to which they were applied, as has been done with respect to the balnea; or, indeed, to discover a satisfactory mode of reconciling their constructive details with the description left us by Vitruvious and Lucian. All, indeed, is doubt and guesswork. Each of the learned men who have pretended to give an account of their contents differ- ing in all the essential particulars from one another; and yet the general similarity of the ground plan of the three which still remain cannot fail to strike even a superficial observer; so great indeed that it is impossible not to per- ceive at once that they were all constructed upon a similar plan. Not, however, to discuss the subject without enabling the reader to form something like a general idea of these enormous edifices, which from their extent and magnifi- cence have been likened to provinces, a ground plan of the thermæ of Caracalla is annexed, which are the best