erected with imperial funds to win the public’s favor. Made of brick-
faced concrete and covered by enormous vaults springing from thick
walls up to 140 feet high, Caracalla’s baths dwarfed the typical baths of
cities and towns such as Ostia and Pompeii. The design was symmetri-
cal along a central axis, facilitating the Roman custom of taking se-
quential plunges in warm-, hot-, and cold-water baths in, respectively,
the tepidarium, caldarium,and frigidarium.The caldarium (FIG. 10-66,
no. 4) was a huge circular chamber with a concrete drum even taller
than the Pantheon’s (FIGS. 10-49to 10-51) and a dome almost as large.
Caracalla’s baths also had landscaped gardens, lecture halls, libraries,
colonnaded exercise courts (palaestras), and a giant swimming pool
(natatio). The entire complex covered an area of almost 50 acres. Ar-
chaeologists estimate that up to 1,600 bathers at a time could enjoy this
Roman equivalent of a modern health spa. A branch of one of the
city’s major aqueducts supplied water, and furnaces circulated hot air
through hollow floors and walls throughout the bathing rooms.
The Baths of Caracalla also featured stuccoed vaults, mosaic
floors (both black-and-white and polychrome), marble-faced walls,
and marble statuary. One statue on display was the 10-foot-tall copy
of Lysippos’s Herakles (FIG. 5-66), whose muscular body must have
inspired Romans to exercise vigorously. The concrete vaults of the
baths collapsed long ago, but visitors can get an excellent idea of
what the central bathing hall, the frigidarium, once looked like from
the nave (FIG. 10-67) of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in
Rome, which was once the frigidarium of the later Baths of Diocle-
tian. The Renaissance interior (remodeled in the 18th century) of
that church has, of course, many new elements foreign to a Roman
bath, including a painted altarpiece. The ancient mosaics and mar-
ble revetment are long gone, but the present-day interior with its
rich wall treatment, colossal columns with Composite capitals, im-
mense groin vaults, and clerestory lighting gives a better sense of the
character of a Roman imperial bathing complex than does any other
building in the world. It takes a powerful imagination to visualize
the original appearance of Roman concrete buildings from the woe-
ful ruins of brick-faced walls and fallen vaults at ancient sites today,
but Santa Maria degli Angeli makes the task much easier.The Soldier Emperors
The Severan dynasty ended when Severus Alexander (r. 222–235 CE)
was murdered. The next half century was one of almost continuous
civil war. One general after another was declared emperor by his
troops, only to be murdered by another general a few years or even a
few months later. (In 238 CE, two co-emperors the Senate chose were
dragged from the imperial palace and murdered in public after only
three months in office.) In these unstable times, no emperor could
begin ambitious architectural projects. The only significant building
activity in Rome during the era of the “soldier emperors” occurred
under Aurelian (r. 270–275 CE). He constructed a new defensive wall
circuit for the capital—a military necessity and a poignant commen-
tary on the decay of Roman power.TRAJAN DECIUS If architects went hungry in third-century
Rome, sculptors and engravers had much to do. The mint produced
great quantities of coins (in debased metal) so that the troops could be
paid with money stamped with the current emperor’s portrait and not
with that of his predecessor or rival. Each new ruler set up portrait
statues and busts everywhere to assert his authority. The sculpted por-
traits of the third century CEare among the most moving ever made, as
notable for their emotional content as they are for their technical vir-
tuosity. Portraits of Trajan Decius (r. 249–251), such as the marble bust
illustrated here (FIG. 10-68), show the emperor, who is best known
for persecuting Christians, as an old man with bags under his eyes and
a sad expression. In his eyes, which glance away nervously rather than
engage the viewer directly, is the anxiety of a man who knows he can
do little to restore order to an out-of-control world. The sculptor mod-
eled the marble as if it were pliant clay, compressing the sides of the
head at the level of the eyes, etching the hair and beard into the stone,
and chiseling deep lines in the forehead and around the mouth. The
portrait reveals the anguished soul of the man—and of the times.TREBONIANUS GALLUS Decius’s successor was Trebonianus
Gallus (r. 251–253 CE), another short-lived emperor. In a larger-
than-life-size bronze portrait (FIG. 10-69), Trebonianus appears in
heroic nudity, as had so many emperors and generals before him.
His physique is not, however, that of the strong but graceful Greek
athletes Augustus and his successors admired so much. Instead, his is
a wrestler’s body with massive legs and a swollen trunk. The heavyset
body dwarfs his head, with its nervous expression. In this portrait,
the Greek ideal of the keen mind in the harmoniously proportioned
body gave way to an image of brute force, an image well suited to the
age of the soldier emperors.THIRD-CENTURY SARCOPHAGI By the third century,
burial of the dead had become so widespread that even the imperial
family was practicing it in place of cremation. Sarcophagi were more
popular than ever. An unusually large sarcophagus (FIG. 10-70),
discovered in Rome in 1621 and purchased by Cardinal Ludovisi, is278 Chapter 10 THE ROMAN EMPIRE10-67Frigidarium, Baths of Diocletian, Rome, ca. 298–306 CE
(remodeled by Michelangeloas the nave of Santa Maria degli
Angeli, 1563).
The groin-vaulted nave of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in
Rome was once the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian. It gives
an idea of the lavish adornment of imperial Roman baths.10-68APhilip
the Arabian,
244–249 CE.