There is some reason to suppose that the completion and dedication of the baths preceded the destruction of the city but a short time, from the inscription being found perfect on the wall of the baths, for it was the custom to write these notices in the most public places, and after a very short season they were covered over by others, as one billsticker defaces the labors of his predecessors. This is abundantly evident even in the present ruined state of the town, especially at the corners of the principal streets, where it is easy to discover one inscription painted over another.
But to return to the Baths. They occupy almost an entire block, forming an irregular quadrangle; the northern front, facing to the Street of the Baths, being about 162 feet in length, the southern front about 93 feet, and the average depth about 174 feet. They are divided into three separate and distinct compartments, one of which was appropriated to the fireplaces and to the servants of the establishment; the other two were occupied each by a set of baths, contiguous to each other, similar and adapted to the same purposes, and supplied with heat and water from the same furnace and from the same reservoir. It is conjectured that the most spacious of them was for the use of the men, the lesser for that of the women. The apartments and passages are paved with white marble in mosaic. It appears, from Varro and Vitruvius, that baths for men and women were originally united, as well for convenience as economy of fuel, but were separated afterwards for the preservation of morals, and had no communication except that from the furnaces. We shall call these the _old_ Baths by way of distinction, and because they were first discovered; but in reality, the more recently discovered Stabian Baths may probably be the more ancient.
It should be observed here that the old Pompeian _thermæ_ are adapted solely to the original purposes of a bath, namely, a place for bathing and washing. They can not therefore for a moment be compared to the baths constructed at Rome during the period of the empire, of which such magnificent remains may still be seen at the baths of Diocletian, and especially at those of Caracalla. In these vast establishments the bath formed only a part of the entertainment provided. There were also spacious porticoes for walking and conversing, halls and courts for athletic games and gladiatorial combats, apartments for the lectures and recitations of philosophers, rhetoricians and poets. In short, they formed a sort of vast public club, in which almost every species of amusement was provided. In the more recently discovered baths, called the Thermæ Stabianæ, there is indeed a large quadrangular court, or palæstra, which may have served for gymnastic exercises, and among others for the game of ball, as appears from some large balls of stone having been found in it. Yet even this larger establishment makes but a very slight approach to the magnificence and luxury of a Roman bath.