Here you are, as nude as an antique statue. Were you a true Roman, you would now step into an adjoining cabinet which was the anointing place (_elæthesium_), where the anointing with oil was done, and, after that, you will go and play tennis in the court, which was reached by a corridor now walled up. The blue vault was studded with golden stars. But you are not a true Roman; you have come hither simply to take a hot or a cold bath. If a cold one, pass on into the small room that opens at the end of the hall. It is the _frigidarium_. This _frigidarium_ or _natatio_ is a circular room, which strikes you at the outset by its excellent state of preservation. In the middle of it is hollowed out a spacious round basin of white marble, four yards and a half in diameter by about four feet in depth; it might serve to-day--nothing is wanting but the water, says Overbeck. An inside circular series of steps enabled the Pompeians to bathe in a sitting posture. Four niches, prepared at the places where the angles would be if the apartment were square, contained benches where the bathers rested. The walls were painted yellow and adorned with green branches. The frieze and pediment were red and decorated with white bas-reliefs. The vault, which was blue and open overhead, was in the shape of a truncated cone. It was clear, brilliant, and gay, like the antique life itself. Do you prefer a warm bath? Retrace your steps and, from the _apodyteros_, where you left your clothing, pass into the _tepidarium_. This hall, which is the richest of the bathing establishment, is paved in white mosaic with black borders, the vault richly ornamented with _stucature_ and white paintings standing forth from a red and blue background. These reliefs in stucco represent cupids, chimeras, dolphins, does pursued by lions, etc. The red walls are adorned with closets, perhaps intended for the linen of the bathers, over which jutted a cornice supported by Atlases or Telamons in baked clay covered with stucco. A pretty border frame formed of arabesques separates the cornice from the vault. A large window at the extremity flanked by two figures in stucco lighted up the tepidarium, while subterranean conduits and a large brazier of bronze retained for it that lukewarm (_tepida_) temperature which gave it the peculiar name. [Illustration: The Tepidarium, at the Baths.] This bronze brazier is still in existence, along with three benches of the same metal found in the same place; an inscription--_M. Nigidius Vaccula P.S._ (_pecuniâ sua_)--designates to us the donor who punning on his own name _Vaccula_, had caused a little cow to be carved upon the brazier; and on the feet of the benches, the hoofs of that quiet animal. The bottom of this precious heater formed a huge grating with bars of bronze, upon which bricks were laid; upon these bricks extended a layer of pumice-stones, and upon the pumice-stones the lighted coals.