Terme di Caracalla

The Baths of Caracalla, or the Antoninian Baths, were begun by Septimius Severus in 206 and inaugurated in 217 by Caracalla. Sixteen hundred persons could bathe here at the same time. There were rooms for cold, hot and warm baths, splendid ceilings, porticoes, pillared halls, gymnasiums, where the rarest marbles, the most colossal columns, and the finest statues were admired by the people; even the baths were of basalt, granite, alabaster.