The position of this latter and its shape would seem to indicate that it was a laconicum or hot-air room, but the state of the ruins is at present such as to preclude any positive assertion as to its purpose.
Its shape corresponds very closely with the description given by Vitruvius of the Laconicum or Sudatio attached to all Roman Thermae.
The Laconicum of the southern wing is circular, and is connected with a grand central hall similar to that in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome.
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.
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.
The walls of thelaconicum were plastered with marble stucco and polished, and the conical roof covered with plaster and painted blue with gold stars.
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 Giambella.
Doors led into the Laconicum from both the tepidarium and the caldarium.
They passed through the tepidarium directly into the Laconicum or caldarium, where they had a sweat; they then took a cold bath, or had cold water poured over them, and were rubbed with unguents.
This apartment is exactly as described, twice the length of its width, exclusively of the laconicum at one end and the hot bath at the other.
The small dome inscribed laconicum directly over the furnace, and having the clypeus over it, will be observed in the corner of the chamber named concamerata sudatio.
It is known that the temperature of the laconicum was regulated by drawing up or down a metallic plate or clypeus.
Roman or Turkish baths ever were, for it is doubtful whether in any case the air of the laconicum was free from vapour.
In the largest baths the laconicum was probably a separate chamber, a circular domical room with recesses in the sides, and a large opening in the top; but there is no well-preserved specimen, unless that at Pisa may be so regarded.
In the first method the fresh air is introduced into a chamber containing a coil of steam-pipes, and passes thence into the laconicum by a shaft or conduit, as in the case of air heated by a stove.
Between the combined tepidarium and lavatorium and the laconicum is a glazed partition with a doorway, fitted with a curtain if necessary.
In any bath where hot air is supplied, if the bather will hold his linen "check" across the top of the doorway between the rooms he will find that the air is flowing from the laconicum to the shampooing room.
In the laconicum are two felt-covered wooden benches, as at Fig.
The little laconicum is best covered with a flat vault, the soffit being of glazed bricks, and the springing being brought down below the main ceiling level.
So much of the iron flue as is in the laconicum must be coated with asbestos or some composition, or the heating will not be wholly by firebrick.
Owing to the expansion by heat, a relatively greater volume of air enters the laconicum than the cold intake.
Under the laconicum is the stokery and furnace chamber, fitted with a small convoluted stove, a hot-air shaft leading to the bath room.
At the end of the laconicum they enter flues, which I have shown as running side by side with the smoke flues.
The main thing to be studied in this provision of a large volume of air is that the cold inlet be ample, and the passage from this intake to the point where the air is debouched into the laconicum equally roomy and unobstructed.
Adjoining is the laconicum with a firebrick furnace, after the nature of that of which I have before given full detailed drawings.
The force of the fire in burning it compels it to give out soot into the Laconicum through the vents, and the soot sticks to the walls and the curved vaulting.
The Laconicum and other sweating baths must adjoin the tepid room, and their height to the bottom of the curved dome should be equal to their width.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "laconicum" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
