Arco della Ciambella: The Baths of Agrippa
Why is it significant?
Find the great curved wall of brick and concrete squeezed between the houses of this narrow lane, a slice of a giant circle with modern windows punched into it and drainpipes running down its face. Romans have called it la ciambella, the doughnut, for centuries, and the street took its name.
Key Facts
| Place | Arco della Ciambella: The Baths of Agrippa |
|---|---|
| Address | Via dell'Arco della Ciambella, 00186 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.89710, 12.47660 |
| Part of Walk | Emperors Underfoot: Augustus and the Buried Campus Martius of Rome |
| Generated | Generated |
Find the great curved wall of brick and concrete squeezed between the houses of this narrow lane, a slice of a giant circle with modern windows punched into it and drainpipes running down its face. Romans have called it la ciambella, the doughnut, for centuries, and the street took its name.
It is a fragment of a huge round hall from the Baths of Agrippa, the first great public baths of Rome. Marcus Agrippa was Augustus's oldest friend, the admiral who actually won the battle of Actium for him in 31 BC, and later his son-in-law. While Augustus collected titles, Agrippa built: aqueducts, porticoes, gardens, and the first temple on the site of the Pantheon, whose porch still carries his name, even though Hadrian rebuilt the whole thing more than a century later.
To feed his baths, Agrippa built a whole new aqueduct, the Aqua Virgo, opened in 19 BC. Astonishingly, it still flows: it is the same water that pours out of the Trevi Fountain today. Around the baths he laid out gardens, an artificial lake called the Stagnum, and a canal that carried the water on to the Tiber. When he died in 12 BC, he left the baths to the Roman people, free of charge.
The lake had a wilder afterlife. The historian Tacitus describes a party given for Nero on the Stagnum of Agrippa in 64 AD: a banquet on a great raft, towed by boats decorated with gold and ivory, and pavilions along the banks full of noble ladies... of whom Tacitus does not approve at all. Shortly afterwards, the Great Fire broke out and burned much of the city.
Augustus liked to boast that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Stand in front of this battered wall and remember who did a great deal of the work... and that most of it now lies several metres below your shoes. Follow the lane east, along the back of the Pantheon, into a small square where an elephant is waiting for you.