Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Gymnasium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

GYMNASIUM (γυμνάσιον). A public building in which the youth of Greece were instructed in one of the principal branches of their education, designed for the development of their physical powers by the practice of gymnastic exercises. Almost every town in Greece had an institution of this kind, and Athens possessed three, the Lyceum, Cynosarges, and the Academia; all of which were constructed upon a scale of great splendour, and furnished with every kind of convenience; — covered and open apartments, colonnades, shady walks, baths, and other contrivances conducive to the health or comfort of the large concourse resorting thither as performers and spectators, or for the enjoyment of literary and scientific conversation. Vitruvius devotes an entire chapter of his work (v. 11.) to a description of the manner in which they were disposed; and remains of several Gymnasia have been discovered at Ephesus, Hierapolis, and Alexandria in Troas; all, however, too much dilapidated to afford an undoubted model, corresponding minutely with all his details, or which might be produced as an authority sufficiently perfect to clear up the many obscurities still apparent in his account. Yet enough is left of them to show that all the three edifices were constructed upon one and the same general principle, only varied in the details and such local distribution of the parts, as the nature of the site or taste of the architect would naturally induce; — a principle, however, which is the very reverse of that adopted by the commentators on Vitruvius, in the conjectural plans which they have invented to illustrate his text; for all of them, without exception, commit the remarkable error of placing the various apartments round the extreme sides of the building, with the corridors within them, surrounding a large open area, forming the greater part of the ground-plot, which thus remains unoccupied; whereas in all the three examples above mentioned, the main body of the building is situated in the centre of the plan, upon the very site which the conjectural designs leave unoccupied. And this arrangement is precisely similar to that adopted for the Roman Thermae, of which the remains are more complete, and which were undoubtedly constructed after the model of the Greek Gymnasia; as will be at once apparent by comparing the plan s. THERMAE with the one here annexed (Gymnasium/1.1), which represents a survey from the Gymnasium at Ephesus, the most perfect of the three. The dark tint shows the actual remains; the lighter one, the restorations, which, although partially conjectural, will be perceived, upon a close inspection, to be in a great measure authorised by the corresponding parts in existence. With regard to the names and uses assigned to each portion of the plan, they have been made to accord, as near as can be, with the words of Vitruvius, which is satisfactorily accomplished in all the more important particulars; sufficiently, at least, to give the reader a clear and accurate notion of the number and variety of parts essentially required in a Greek Gymnasium, and of the manner in which they were usually distributed.

A A A. Three single corridors (porticus simplices) round three sides of the central pile of building, fitted with seats and chairs, and adorned with exedrae for philosophers and others to retire and converse in. The two divisions observable at the bottom angles of the corridors, each of which is constructed with a semicircular absis, appear, from their form and position, to have been exedrae constructed in the three corridors (in tribus porticibus), as Vitruvius directs. B. A double corridor facing the south (porticus duplex ad meridianas regiones conversa), so constructed, that the inside walk might afford shelter from the rain, when driven inwards by windy weather. These four corridors taken together constitute what Vitruvius calls the peristyle (peristylium), which, though forming a peripteral portico round the cluster of rooms comprised in the central pile, is still a true peristylium in respect to the outer parts of the edifice within which it is situated. (Compare PERIPTEROS and PERISTYLIUM.) C. Ephebeum; a large hall furnished with seats, intended as the exercising-room of the ephebi, and opening on to the centre of the double corridor (in duplici porticu, in medio). D. Coryceum, on the right hand of the last apartment (sub dextro). E. Conisterium, the next adjoining (deinde proxime). F. Frigida lavatio; the cold-water bath, beyond the conisterium, and after the turn in the building. Vitruvius places it exactly in the angle (in versura); so that his design provided for three rooms on each side of the ephebeum instead of two, as in the present example; but the proximate situation is the same in both. G. Elaeothesium; the first apartment on the left hand of the youths' exercising-hall (ad sinistram ephebei). H. Frigidarium; a chamber of low temperature adjoining the oiling-room, situated precisely as Vitruvius directs it should be, and as it is shown to be in the painting from the Thermae of Titus introduced s. ELAEOTHESIUM. Beyond this, in the plan of Vitruvius, was a third division, forming the angle which corresponded with the frigida lavatio on the opposite side, and which was occupied by the passage which conducted to the mouth of the furnace (iter ad propnigeum), but which in our example is shown at the letter N. I. The next room is probably a Tepidarium, though not mentioned by Vitruvius; but its contiguity to the thermal chamber resembles the disposition of that apartment in the baths of Pompeii. K. Concamerata sudatio; the vaulted sudatory, which has its warm-water bath (calda lavatio, L) at one extremity, and the Laconicum (M) at the other. The apartment on the opposite side, which is placed in the same contiguity to the furnace (O), and is constructed of similar shape and dimensions, was probably another sudatory, with its warm bath (P), and Laconicum (Q), having a separate entrance from the Ephebeum and adjacent apartments. The use of the three rooms yet unappropriated (R R R) is quite conjectural; but the larger and central one seems, from its size and locality, to be well adapted for the game of ball, for which a room was provided in every gymnasium, and consequently to be the Sphaeristerium; the two angular ones would serve for some other of the many games to which the Greeks were devoted. The parts thus far described comprise the whole of the covered apartments which Vitruvius appears to designate collectively the palaestra. On the outside of these were disposed three more corridors (extra autem porticus tres), one (S) a double one facing the north, which received the company from the peristyle (una ex peristylio exeuntibus, quae spectaverit ad septentrionem, perficiatur duplex); and two others (TT) called xysti (ξυστοὶ) by the Greeks, with exercising grounds in front of them (stadiatae), furnished with an elevated path all round, to preserve the spectators from contact with the oiled bodies of those engaged at their exercises. Between these and the double corridor facing the south (B) were laid out a number of open walks (hypaethrae ambulationes, παραδρομίδες), planted with trees, and having open spaces (stationes) left at intervals, and laid with pavements for the convenience of exercise. Beyond this was the stadium (W), provided with seats to accommodate the large concourse of spectators that usually assembled to view the exercises of the athletae.

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  Gymnasium/1.1