Everything about Laconicum totally explained
Laconicum (for example
Spartan,
sc. balneum, bath), the dry sweating room of the
Roman thermae, contiguous to the
caldarium or hot room. The name was given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans admitted. The
laconicum was usually a circular room with niches in the axes of the diagonals and was covered by a conical roof with a circular opening at the top, according to
Vitruvius (v.10), from which a brazen shield is suspended by chains, capable of being so lowered and raised as to regulate the temperature. The walls of the
laconicum were plastered with
marble stucco and polished, and the conical roof covered with plaster and painted blue with gold stars. Sometimes, as in the old baths at
Pompeii, the
laconicum was provided in an apse at one end of the
caldarium, but as a rule it was a separate room raised to a higher temperature and had no bath in it. In addition to the
hypocaust under the floor, the wall was lined with
flue tiles. The largest
laconicum, about 75 ft. in diameter, was that built by
Agrippa in his
thermae on the south side of the
Pantheon, and is referred to by
Cassius (liii.23), who states that, in addition to other works, he constructed the hot bath chamber which he called the
Laconicum Gymnasium. All traces of this building are lost; but in the additions made to the
thermae of Agrippa by
Septimius Severus another
laconicum was built farther south, portions of which still exist in the so-called
Arco di Ciambella.
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