Without some explanation, it would be difficult to understand how an institution which was regarded with so much veneration by ancient Rome, should have totally fallen into decay in modern Rome; and that the thermæ shall have ceased to have an existence in Rome at the present day. It is clear that the games which were once played, and the exercises which were practised, within the narrow limits of the thermæ, grand though they were, have now sought a wider sphere: the paintings of their great artists have been gathered into the ecclesiastical edifices and academies; the statues and sculpture have found their way into museums, or have been applied to the decoration of modern palaces; refreshment is more conveniently obtained in the cafés and restaurants; music and singing have been transferred to the opera; recitation to the theatre; poetry and prose to the library; and dancing to the assemblies; nay, the great hall of the Bath of Agrippa is now, in all its integrity, a place of Christian worship. In a word, the thermæ has become decentralized; whether as the result of the adoption of foreign fashions, or as a matter of convenience, it may be difficult to say; but so it is, and nothing of it now remains but the bath--that temple of the ancient thermæ over which Hercules, and Hygeia, and Æsculapius presided of old, and over which (in its humbler shape) they will continue to preside to the end of time. The Baths of Titus have fortunately preserved to us a drawing, taken from its walls, which illustrates the construction and the mode of taking the bath among the Romans. Beneath the bath is shown the furnace, or _hypocaustum_, for heating the rooms, as also the water used in the latter stages of the process. Then follows a series of rooms, of which the principal are:-- 1. The APODYTERIUM, GYMNASTERIUM, or VESTIARIUM: the undressing and dressing-room. 2. The TEPIDARIUM, which is warmed to a moderate temperature, and is intended to prepare and season the body before entering the hotter apartment. 3. The CALDARIUM, or _Calidarium_, sometimes called the SUDATORIUM, and in the figure (Fig. 2), _concamerata sudatio_, was a room of higher temperature, in which the perspiratory process was accomplished. In this apartment there was commonly a recess, of a higher temperature still, which was intended for special purposes, and was named LACONICUM, in compliment to the Spartans of Laconia. 4. After the Calidarium followed a LAVATORIUM (Lavatrina, Latrina), called in the figure Balneum, in which the body was washed after the process of perspiration was complete. The mode of washing was to sit on the everted edge or lip of a large marble trough--the _labrum_--and to be rinsed with warm water poured over the body by means of a cup or small basin (_pelvis_). 5. The bather then went into the FRIGIDARIUM, where he received an affusion of cold water, and where he reclined, or sat, or walked about, until he was cool or dry.