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worshippers by bathing or washing. This last destination is countenanced, with regard to the chamber on the north-west and that on the north-east corner, by the row of stone seats, which still remains on each of the sides of the former. These seats have a gutter, or channel running along at the foot of them on the floor; and are likewise perforated with holes of a proper size, with funnels passing from them below. On these benches probably the persons to be purified placed themselves, that the water might be let out upon them from pipes; or administred in vases or ewers by the attendants, and afterwards be carried off by the passages mentioned above[1].
Nor can a provision for washing or bathing in this temple seem strange to any one, who reflects, how high a rank this mode of purification held among the religious ceremonies of almost all nations of the world. As for the Romans, with whom we are principally concerned in the present inquiry, the subsistence of this usage among them might be abundantly shewn by the testimonies of their writers; and also by the accommodations provided for it in other buildings of the same character with that before us. Some of these still remain within the neighbourhood of Pozzuolo, viz. the magnificent temple near the lake of Avernus ascribed to Apollo, which has an apartment adjoining to it indisputably intended for the purpose
- ↑ Mess. Cochin and Bellicard seem to think this room was intended for another purpose, by their calling the funnels under the holes in the seats of it, conduits des fossés d'aisance. Which of the two hypothesis's is to be preferred, I submit to the judgment of the learned; or rather, whether both of them may not be admitted, as in no-wise incompatible the one with the other.
