The Thermæ stand between the Stadium and the Canopus. Numerous pipes and conduits for water, and also the arrangement of the various parts of the buildings, show that they have been rightly placed here. There seem to have been two distinct sets of bath-rooms, which are generally called the Terme virili and the Terme muliebri by the Italian antiquaries. The northern group of buildings is connected with the curved end of the Stadium, and contains the usual number of halls and an elliptical Laconicum. The Laconicum of the southern wing is circular, and is connected with a grand central hall similar to that in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome. [Sidenote: Canopus.] The place called Canopus lies to the south of the Thermæ, and close to a mass of buildings now utterly destroyed, but in Piranesi’s time thought to be a vestibule of the villa. The Canopus itself consists of an oblong pool of water or euripus excavated in the tufa, with a row of buildings on the west side, and a magnificent nymphæum at the southern end, containing a great number of niches for statuary, and holes for jets of water. At the back of the Nymphæum is a hall called the Sacrarium, in which it is supposed the statue of Serapis stood. A passage of Strabo explains the idea which Hadrian had in forming this canal and Nymphæum. He says that on the grand festival of Serapis, whose temple and oracle were at Canopus, 120 stadia from Alexandria, immense crowds of men and women go down to Canopus from Alexandria by boats on the canal, on the banks of which are pleasant houses of entertainment, where the worshippers stop on their way to feast and dance.[158] The long, broad pool was intended to represent the Canopic canal, and the rooms ranged along the side, the houses of refreshment. A confirmation of this is derived from the character of the statues found here which were almost all those of Egyptian deities. [Sidenote: Academy.]