The first room on the right, as one entered the east gate, was the _loutron_, or room for washing, distinct from the regular baths. Next, in the northeast corner, was the _conisterium_, where sand was kept for sprinkling the wrestlers after they had been anointed for the struggle. West of this lay the _coryceum_, a hall for exercising with a sack of sand suspended from the roof. It seems plausible to suppose that this exercise corresponded with that more recently practised by Mr. Thomas Hyer, previously to his fight with Yankee Sullivan. A bag of sand, equal in weight to his adversary, was daily pommelled by the champion of America until he could make it swing and recoil satisfactorily. Adjoining this room were two small apartments called the _ephebeum_ and the _elaeothesium_ respectively. The former was devoted to preparatory exercise, probably by way of warming up for severer efforts; the latter was used for anointing, and was connected with the baths, which followed next in order. These were the _frigidarium_, the _caldarium_, the _sudatorium_, and the _tepidarium_, for the cold, the hot, the sweating or vapor, and the warm baths. They did not possess the magnitude and ornament of the Roman _thermae_. They were used in connection with and after exercising, and were enough for all practical purposes. Bathing was not then the business of hours every day, as it was later in the Roman Empire, when the luxurious subjects of Caracalla indulged several times in the twenty-four hours in such a variety of ablutions as would have satisfied a Sandwich-Islander. We have now arrived at a point nearly opposite our entrance at the east, and, continuing round the southwest, south, and southeast sides of the peristyle, find a large number of consecutive chambers devoted mainly to the philosophers, as lecture-rooms and auditories for their classes and followers. On the north side of the peristyle is a double portico containing the _exedrae_, or seats of the sophists, where each most cunning rhetorician delivered his opinions _ex cathedrâ_, and lay in wait for any passer whom he could insnare into an argument. The groves of the great western court were probably used by the lounger, the contemplative, and the studious, if we may judge by numerous seats and benches, at convenient intervals. On the south side of these was again a double portico; and on the north, outside the pillars, the _xystus_, or covered porch, where the athletes exercised in winter and in bad weather. The arena was twelve feet wide, and sunk a foot and a half below a marginal path of ten feet, where spectators could walk. On the north and south sides of the whole building were wings, of less width, extending nearly its entire length. That on the north contained the _stadium_, or foot-race course, which was, however, sometimes disconnected from the gymnasium. The south wing was of like dimensions, and adorned with plane-trees and walks, forming a more private retreat.