Baths of Constantine was a public bathing complex built on the Quirinal Hill

Quirinal Hill

The Quirinal Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian Head of State, who resides in the Quirinal Palace; by metonymy "the Quirinal" has come to stand for the Italian President.- History :It was...

 in Rome by Constantine I

Constantine I

Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...

, probably before 315.

Construction and plan

The last of Rome's bath complexes, they were constructed in the irregular space between the vicus Longus, the Alta Semita, the clivus Salutis and the vicus laci Fundani, and as this was on a side-hill, it was necessary to demolish 4th century houses then on the site (beneath which are ruins of second and third century houses) and make an artificial level over their ruins.. Because of these peculiar conditions these thermae differed in plan from all others in the city - no anterooms were provided on either side of the caldarium

Caldarium

right|thumb|230px|Caldarium from the Roman Baths at [[Bath, England]]. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor....

, for instance, since the building was too narrow. The building was oriented north-south so as to heat it using the sun, with principal entrances on the west side, with a flight of steps down from the hill's summit to the campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome...

, and on the middle of the north side.

As the main structure occupied all the space between the streets on the east and west, the ordinary peribolus was replaced by an enclosure across the front which was bounded on the north by a curved line, an area now occupied by the Palazzo della Consulta

Palazzo della Consulta

The Palazzo della Consulta is a late Baroque palace in central Rome, Italy, that now houses the Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic...

. The frigidarium

Frigidarium

A frigidarium is a large cold pool of Roman baths. It would be entered after the Caldarium and the Tepidarium, which were used to open the pores of the skin. The cold water would close the pores. There would be a small pool of cold water or sometimes a large Swimming pool...

 seems to have its longer axis north and south instead of east and west, and behind it were tepidarium and caldarium both circular in shape.

The only reference to these baths in ancient literature is in Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...

, though they are mentioned in Eins. 1.10; 3.6; 7.11.

5th century

The baths suffered greatly from fire and earthquake in the century after their construction and were restored in 443 by the city prefect Petronius Perpenna Magnus Quadratianus, at which time it is probable that the colossal statues of the Dioscuri and horses

Horse Tamers

The colossal pair of marble "Horse Tamers", often identified as Castor and Pollux, have stood since Antiquity near the site of the Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal Hill, Rome, too large to be buried or to be moved very far, though Napoleon's agents wanted to include them among the classical...

, now in the Piazza del Quirinale, were set up within them.

Rediscovery

Enough of the structure was standing at the beginning of the sixteenth century to permit of plans and drawings by the architects of that period, and these are the chief sources of our knowledge of the building. The remains were almost entirely destroyed in 1605‑1621 during the construction of the Palazzo Rospigliosi, but some traces were found a century later , and since 1870. Some of these can now be seen beneath the Palazzo's casina.

Art-works

Notable art works were found on the site of these thermae, among them

• The bronze statues of a boxer
  Boxer of Quirinal
  The bronze Boxer of Quirinal, also known as the Terme Boxer, is a Hellenistic Greek sculpture dated around 330 B.C. of a sitting boxer with Caestus, a type of leather hand-wrap known as in the collection of the National Museum of Rome...
  
   and an athlete now in the Octagonal aula of the National Roman Museum
• Two statues of Constantine, one now housed in the pronaos of the Lateran
  Lateran
  Lateran and Laterano are the shared names of several architectural projects throughout Rome. The properties were once owned by the Lateranus family of the former Roman Empire...
  
  , and the other in the Capitoline Museums
  Capitoline Museums
  The Capitoline Museums are a group of art and archeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The museums are contained in three palazzi surrounding a central trapezoidal piazza in a plan conceived by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536 and executed over...
  
   with a statue of his son Constans
  Constans
  Constans , was Roman Emperor from 337 to 350. He defeated his brother Constantine II in 340, but anger in the army over his personal life and preference for his barbarian bodyguards saw the general Magnentius rebel, resulting in Constans’ assassination in 350.-Career:Constans was the third and...
  
  
• Frescoes, in the Palazzo Rospigliosi until c.1929 and now in the Museo delle Terme - these belong to an earlier building, perhaps the Domus Claudiorum.

Sources

• For the thermae in general, see HJ 438‑441; RhM 1894, 389‑392; Jord. II.526‑528; Gilb. III.300; RE IV.962‑963; Reber 496‑500; Canina Ed. iv. pls. 220‑222; Mem. L. 5.xvii.534, 535.
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Thermae_Constantinianae.html, from Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome
  Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome
  A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome is a work by Samuel Ball Platner, completed by Thomas Ashby after Platner's death, published in 1929, that describes monuments and buildings in the city of Rome, although by and large only if they belong to the classical period...