Baths of Constantine (Rome)

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Remains of the thermal baths in the 16th century

The Baths of Constantine were the last great baths to be built in ancient Rome . They may have been started by Emperor Maxentius and completed under Constantine the Great .

Construction and architecture

Little is known about the thermal baths, which were inaugurated during the reign of Constantine in July 315 AD when he was in Rome. They were built on the irregular open space between the Vicus Longus, the Alta Semita, the Clivus Salutis and the Vicus laci Fundani. As the area was hilly, the houses from the 3rd century that were already on the area were used as a substructure to obtain a level on which the thermal baths were built. Due to the available land area, the thermal baths are different from all others in Rome. For example, on both sides of the caldariumno vestibules because the available space was too narrow. The plant was oriented from north to south in order to use the sun for warming. The main entrances were in the middle of the north side and in the west, from where a flight of stairs led down from the hilltop to the Marsfeld ( Campus Martius ).

Since the main building took up all the space between the streets in the west and east, the usual peribolos were dispensed with and only the front part of the complex was surrounded by a semicircular wall, where the Palazzo della Consulta now stands. The frigidarium seems to have had its longer axis in north-south orientation instead of east-west. Behind it were the tepidarium and the caldarium , each in a round shape.

Two mentions of the thermal baths in ancient sources can be found in Aurelius Victor and Ammianus Marcellinus . The attempt at arson mentioned by him belongs to the year 367. Further damage may have occurred during the occupation of Rome by the Visigoths of the army king Alaric I in August 410. In addition, the complex was named Einsidlense in the Itinerarium in the 9th century .

The baths suffered badly from fire and earthquakes in the century after they were built and were renovated in 443 AD by the city prefect Petronius Perpenna Magnus Quadratianus, which is documented by inscriptions. At that time, the two Dioscuri statues that are now on the Piazza del Quirinale could have been placed in the thermal baths.

Rediscovery

At the beginning of the sixteenth century there were still enough remains of the walls of the complex, which enabled the architects of the time to produce floor plans and drawings, from which most of today's knowledge about the complex comes. The remains were almost completely destroyed between 1605 and 1621 during the construction of the later so-called Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi by order of Cardinal Scipione Borghese . However, some remains were rediscovered a century later. They can now be viewed near the Casino des Palazzo. Other ruins were found during the construction of Via Nazionale in 1876–1897, but were largely destroyed.

Pugilers from the Quirinal

Works of art

Several well-known works of art were found on the grounds of the thermal baths, including:

literature

  • Luigi Canina : Gli edifici di Roma antica . Volume 6. Rome 1851, pp. 220-222.
  • Heinrich Jordan : Topography of the city of Rome in antiquity. Volume 2, Berlin 1885, pp. 526-528.
  • Thermae Constantinianae. In: Samuel Ball Platner , Thomas Ashby : A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome . Oxford University Press, London 1929 ( digitized version )
  • Maria Santangelo: Il Quirinale nell'antichità classica . In: Memorie della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia. Volume 5, 1941, pp. 77-215, here pp. 203-208.
  • Lawrence Richardson: A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore 1992, ISBN 0-8018-4300-6 , pp. 390 f.
  • Silvia Velucchi: Thermae Constantinianae . In: Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae . Volume 5, 1999, ISBN 88-7140-162-X , pp. 49-51 and plates 30-32
  • Jürg Schweizer: Structure and space in Tetrarchic and Constantine times. The external aspect of Western Roman architecture in the 4th century. Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2005, ISBN 3-03910-640-6 , pp. 148-158.

Web links

Commons : Baths of Constantine  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. 1876, 102-106; see also Domus T. Avidii Quieti (b), Muciani.
  2. ↑ Aurelius Victor, Caesares 40, 26 f .: A quo etiam post circus maximus excultus mirifice ad lavandum institutum opus ceteris haud multo dispar
  3. ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus, Historia Romana 27, 3, 8: Hic praefectus exagitatus… cum collecta plebs infima domum eius prope Constantinianum lavacrum iniectis facibus incenderat et malleolis, ni vicinorum et familiarium veloci concursu ... saxis et tegulis abscessisset .
  4. ↑ Itinerarium Einsidlense 1, 10; 3, 6; 7, 11.
  5. ↑ CIL 6, 1750 and Inscriptiones Latinae selectae 5703.
  6. ↑ Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Roman Department 1898, 273–274; 1900, 309-310.
  7. ↑ In particular Serlio, Architettura iii 92, 1; Andrea Palladio , Le Terme pl. XIV; Etienne Dupérac: Vestigi dell 'antichità di Roma. 1557, plate 32; LS III 196-197; Anton van den Wyngaerde in: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. 1895, Plates VI-XIII; HJ 439, n131.
  8. ^ Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. 1895, 88; HJ 440, n133
  9. ↑ Note degli scavi di antichità 1876, p. 55. 99; 1877, pp. 204, 267; 1878, p. 233, 340.
  10. ↑ CIL VI 1148-1150; MD 1346; HF I. p411.
  11. ↑ Friedrich Matz , Friedrich von Duhn : Antike Bildwerke in Rom. 1881, No. 4110; Papers of the British School at Rome. Vol. 7, 1914, pp. 40-44; Communications from the German Archaeological Institute. Roman department. 1911, p. 149.

Coordinates: 41 ° 53 '53.9 "  N , 12 ° 29' 14.3"  E