but more or less trespassing on the width of the opening of these
recesses, and notched into the original pilasters.
None of the piers, or pilasters, at present exist to a height
exceeding 6ft. to 7ft. The base is a rude form of the Attic base;
and we have found several fragments of the capital, or impost, of the
smaller pilasters, from, which the arches sprang, but I have not been
so fortunate as to recognise any of the larger capitals, and but few
fragments of the cornices, and but one piece that I can identify as
the frieze 1ft. 6in. deep by 2ft. 4in. long, on which are 5 incised
letters 6¼in. long S SIL. The _schola_ was then arched in north and
south, and the bath spanned by an arch. The vaulting that spanned the
side arcades, and the centre (where the abutment was not sufficient
for arches formed in the ordinary way of tiles or stone), were built
of brick boxes, open at the sides, and wedge-shaped, 1ft. long, 4¾in.
thick, and 7¾in. wide at the wider end, set in the usual mortar, a
greater or less number of rings of these boxes being used according to
the span. These arches were made out by an extra quantity of concrete
on the under side for decoration, and on the upper in the case of the
great arch, so as to form a roof, the well-known roll and flat Italian
tiles being embedded in the mortar. Many and large fragments of
this roof were found lying on the deposit that had partially filled
the ruins previous to the fall of the roof, and are still carefully
preserved. A large fragment, 18ft. long by about 3ft. wide, and 1ft.
9in. thick, that has slipped down, as it were, from the western end,
in the position in which it was discovered, was formed of solid tiles,
with an arch of tiles 1ft. 8in. long,[21] the roof having sufficient
abutment on this side for a solid construction.[22] This arch gives
the form of the window that lighted the bath on the western end.
[Footnote 21: The arches in the adjoining apartment west of this were
built of a sort of a tufa.]
[Footnote 22: On the falling of the roof one of the piers was thrust
out of the perpendicular, the upper half toppling over, and the lower
would have again returned to its original position had a stone not
fallen into the vertical joint, catching the pilaster as a wedge.
The pier is still fixed out of the perpendicular by the stone in the
joint.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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