Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

936 31. building and architecture
with a relief of a nereid – all of the sixth century – were recovered in the
excavations. 28
In contrast to the imperial thermae of the west, which assimilated the
Greek palaestra to the Roman bath to create a new comprehensive form, the
bath in Asia Minor simply grafted the one on to the other to create the
bath-gymnasium. Archaeologists have dated most of these to before the
fifth century. That at Ephesus, built in the second and third century, was
restored in the fifth and redecorated again after that. The bath-gymnasium
at Salamis on Cyprus, built in the second century, was repeatedly rebuilt and
restored in the fourth, fifth and sixth century, and Heraclius helped to build
an aqueduct, which led in its direction, in the seventh. Baths excavated elsewhere
in the east may be thermae with or without a palaestra. 29
At Antioch, Malalas named nine large baths of the imperial period. The
Baths of Valens were restored by Eudocia in 438, and Leo repaired those
of Trajan, Hadrian and Severus in 458. Justinian and Theodora built baths
there in 527, and Maurice apparently rebuilt a winter and a summer bath
in 588. Excavations at Antioch uncovered several large-scale baths, and
while none is easily identified with those cited in texts, Bath F (rebuilt in
537, according to an inscription) was apparently laid out symmetrically and
on a large scale. At Alexandria, what may also have been a thermae building
is a large-scale symmetrical bath, restored in the fifth and sixth century.
One thermae complex at Scythopolis (95�60 metres), built in the fifth
century and remodelled in the sixth, has a palaestra and large propylaeum
façade (four columns supporting a pediment) made of reused carved
marble (Fig. 47a,b). 30
The plans of smaller baths with or without palaestra vary widely. At
Ephesus, a bath rebuilt c. 400 had an irregular plan adjusted to the nearly trapezoidal
lot available on the congested Embolos. Lacking both palaestra and
axiality, the bath had two large adjoining halls (an apsed room and a long
gallery) to serve as vestibule and apodyterium. The bath was paved with marble
and mosaic, its walls revetted with marble, and its rooms decorated with
statues of the owner Scholasticia herself, Socrates, Menander and a dignitary
of the sixth century. 31 Asymmetrical baths built or rebuilt in the fifth and
sixth century, with chambers arranged in a row (axial or angular) or in a
ring, have been identified in Constantinople, Greece (Philippi, Thebae
Phthiotis), Asia Minor (Didyma, Priene, Samos, Perge, Side, Anemorium),
Egypt (Kom el-Dosheh), Cyrenaica (Apollonia, Cyrene, Ptolemais, Gasar
28 Rome: Ward-Perkins, Public Building 34–5; Yegül (1992) 135, 152; Constantinople: Mango (1984b)
iv.388–41; Janin (1964) 216–24; Zeuxippus excavations: Mango (1959) 37–9.
29 Yegül (1992) 250–313; Mango, M. M. (1984) Gazetteer, xix.a.1 342, 5th, 528, 618–33.
30 Antioch: Mango, M. M. (1984) Gazetteer, i.a.1 438, 458, 527, 526/8–537/8, 588; Alexandria:
Nielsen (1990) catalogue no. 280, fig. 217; Scythopolis: Tsafrir and Foerster (1997) 131–2 and n. 207.
31 Foss (1979) 70; Yegül (1992) 288, 290–1.
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