This paper addresses the myth of the Strand Lane cold bath’s Roman origins: it explains how this dream of Rome first emerged in the 1830s and became consolidated in the 1840s, and documents the means by which it was propagated, and the extent to which it was debated, between then and the 1890s. It is suggested that the origins of the idea were heavily indebted to popular awareness of the baths of Pompeii, spread both by archaeological publication and by Bulwer-Lytton’s Last Days and its offshoots; that the consolidation was the work of Charles Knight and Charles Dickens; and that the vigorous survival of the mirage for the remainder of the century was down in part to the absence of any other large-scale standing Roman structure in the capital, and in part to the lack of any plausible alternative story of the bath’s real origins. The auxiliary myth of the ‘Essex’ bath is also discussed, and the whole argument illuminates not only the history of the monument itself, but also Victorian engagement with the Roman past and the historical fabric of London more generally.

中文翻译：

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维多利亚时代伦敦的一个“霓虹砖砌体的精美标本”：STRAND Lane冷浴如何变成罗马人

本文探讨了Strand Lane冷水浴场起源于罗马的神话：它解释了罗马的这一梦想如何在1830年代首次出现并在1840年代得以巩固，并记录了它的传播方式以及传播的程度。在那时和1890年代之间进行了辩论。有人认为，这个想法的起源在很大程度上应归功于人们对庞贝浴场的认识，这在考古出版物和布尔沃·李顿的《最后的日子》及其分支中都得到了广泛传播。合并是查尔斯·奈特和查尔斯·狄更斯的工作；而且海市rage楼的幸存下来部分归因于首都没有任何其他大型的罗马古建筑，也部分归因于缺乏关于浴场真正起源的任何合理的替代故事。