Letters

This distinction was kept up during the early and virtuous times of the Romans: but when vice and debauchery prevailed, promiscuous bathing was practiced without shame or punishment, until at last the custom became so scandalous that a particular law was enacted against it, with the penalty of divorce and loss of fortune.

The furnace room (hypocaustum)

The hypocaustum was a large furnace in which the fire was kept that gave warmth to the water and bathing rooms. Over the hypocaustum were placed three different large vaulted vessels, called miliaria See Seneca, Cato, and Palladius, who all mention the miliaria., The water-heaters (miliaria) perhaps from their size, as containing such an immense quantity of water—"millions of quarts."

These vessels were situated in such a manner that the water was communicated through them by winding tubes; and they were distinguished by the same names with the three principal bathing apartments: vas frigidarium, vas tepidarium, and vas calidarium.

The first received the cold water from the common reservoir, which was communicated to the next by the serpentine tubes; and that again was communicated to the last and inferior, (vas calidarium), by tubes which were yet more serpentine, so that the water might, in a longer circulation round the calidarium, receive greater degrees of heat. By these means, whatever quantity was discharged from the vas calidarium was immediately supplied from the tepidarium, and this from the vas frigidarium, which was filled by the common reservoir. Thus, without any expense of labor, they were kept constantly full. There were several brass tubes which conveyed these waters to various apartments; and there were also subterranean passages formed most artfully with brick, in which long channels, like flues, were hollowed: