balneas habebat in opere uterque hospes, in usu neuter; sed cum vel pauxillulum bibere desisset assecularum meorum famulorumque turba compotrix, quorum cerebris hospitales creterrae nimium immersae dominabantur, vicina fonti aut fluvio raptim scrobis fodiebatur, in quam forte cum lapidum cumulus ambustus demitteretur, antro in hemisphaerii formam corylis flexibilibus intexto fossa inardescens operiebatur, sic tamen ut superiectis Cilicum velis patentia intervalla virgarum lumine excluso tenebrarentur, vaporem repulsura salientem, qui undae ferventis aspergine flammatis silicibus excuditur.
Both my entertainers had baths in course of erection; in neither case were they in working order. However, when the convivial crowd consisting of my attendants and the household servants, whose heads the hospitable bowl was wont to souse and overpower, had left off drinking, at least for the moment, a trench would be hastily dug close to the spring or the river, and a pile of heated stones poured into it. Then while the ditch was heating it was roofed over with a dome constructed of pliant hazel twigs twined into a hemispherical shape; in addition, rugs of hair-cloth were thrown over this roof, shutting out the light and darkening the open spaces between the twigs, so as to keep in the rising steam which is created by pouring boiling water on hot stones.
final_alignments\Sidonius_Letters_Book2.json