Hadrian's Baths
In front of the baths is the gymnasium, a large rectangular courtyard with curved shorter sides, surrounded on all four sides by a portico with Corinthian cipolin columns. On the north side are two rectangular apsidal exedras, with a peristyle, while the south side of the portico faces the entrance to the baths, in front of which are some fragments of the dedicatory inscription of the baths, in which the names of the emperor Hadrian, the proconsul Valerius Priscus and his legate Popilius Celer appear. The baths of Leptis Magna are of the central-axis type, i.e. with the main rooms arranged along a single longitudinal axis, at the sides of which the other rooms are arranged symmetrically. The entrance leads to the natatio, a large outdoor pool, surrounded on three sides by a portico of Corinthian columns in pink breccia. The steps of the pool were completely covered with marble slabs, while the bottom was covered with a crude mosaic. From the natatio, one passed through four doors into a corridor surrounding the frigidarium. This hall was paved and covered with marble and had a ceiling decorated with a mosaic of glass-paste tesserae. At either end of the hall were the baths, also covered in marble. Along the walls around these baths are niches. Along the south wall of the frigidarium (to the right of the entrance to the tepidarium) fragments of an inscription are preserved that mention the restoration of the frigidarium and other parts of the baths. An opening in the centre of the south wall of the frigidarium forms the entrance to the tepidarium, originally characterised by a single central pool decorated on two sides by grey marble columns. Two other small pools were later added in what had been the south side of the corridor surrounding the frigidarium.|
