and Frenchmen display in German watering-places. People there threw off all cares and put aside every kind of work, whence the Roman nobles repaired to such places every spring. This, however, required a large fortune, for those who had to maintain themselves by their own industry could not afford to go to Baiae and stay there for a month. For this reason, Augustus and Agrippa, whose object was to keep the great body of the population in comfort and good humour, built artificial baths as a place in the capital itself, where the people, without travelling to Baiae, might have similar enjoyments; just as at present mineral waters may be enjoyed at a great distance from the springs. To these places, then, every one who wished it, could go and take a bath; they contained sulphureous baths, vapour-baths, etc., and people might lounge there without the fatigue of a journey. The most magnificent buildings, most luxuriously furnished, were erected for this purpose: besides the bath-rooms, there were others, in which all kinds of amusements were provided, such as places for the games of the time, for games at ball, drafts, and the like, nay, even a library existed there, as at present newspapers are kept in the Cafés. They were accordingly, in reality, institutions to while away leisure hours in ease and comfort, and were peculiarly fitted to extinguish the mutinous spirit of the people, and to tame them by the enjoyments of life. These thermae became extremely popular, whence one emperor after another contributed one to the number already existing to prevent people being obliged to go to a distant part of the city, and to provide each quarter with its own. The thermae of Agrippa were outside the city, near the Campus Martius and the Pantheon, for he would not disturb any part of the city with his new institution: he took care, by irrigation, that everything was green in the Campus Martius during the summer, and near to the Pantheon he ordered avenues of trees to be planted. The thermae of Titus bear this name unjustly; the earlier antiquarians, even as late as the fifteenth century, called them thermae of Trajan; they existed in the Carinae and were of quite a monstrous extent. In the middle ages the building was called Curia Vecchia. The thermae of Caius and Lucius Caesar in the eastern part of the city are now quite foolishly called _templum Minervae Medicae_. The building which now bears this name, was nothing else than a large portico belonging to the Thermae. There also existed thermae of Nero, Titus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Alexander Severus (near those of Agrippa), Decius, Diocletian, and Constantine, so that we can scarcely understand how all these colossal buildings had room within the circumference of Rome. In these thermae some of the choicest specimens of ancient art have been discovered; they contained excellent galleries of paintings, and the most beautiful statues were set up there in the most suitable places.