BA´LNEAE
BA´LNEAE Balineae, Balneum, Balineum, Thermae (ἀσάμινθος, βαλανεῖον, λοετρόν, λουτρόν).
GREEK BATHS.
Bathing was a practice familiar to the Greeks of both sexes from the earliest times, both in fresh water and salt, and in the natural warm springs, as well as vessels artificially heated. Thus Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, king of Phaeacia, goes out with her attendants to wash her clothes; and after the task is done, she bathes herself in the river. (Od. 6.58, 65.) Ulysses, who is conducted to the same spot, strips and takes a bath, whilst Nausicaa and her servants stand aside. (Od. 6.210-224.) Europa also bathes in the river Anaurus (Mosch. Id. 2.31), and Helen and her companions in the Eurotas (Theocr. Id. 7.22). Warm springs were also resorted to for the purpose of bathing. The Ἡράκλεια λουτρὰ shown by Hephaestus or Athena to Hercules are celebrated by the poets. Pindar speaks of the hot baths of the nymphs--θερμὰ Νυμφᾶν λουτρὰ (Olymp. 12.27), and Homer (Hom. Il. 22.149) celebrates one of the streams of the Scamander for its warm temperature. Bathing in rivers or the sea (ψυχρολουτεῖν) was always common for the young (cf. Caryst. Perg. ap. Ath. 1.24 c). Not to know how to read and to swim were proverbial marks of the ignoramus (Paroem. ed. Gaisf., D. 6.56). A plunge in the Eurotas always sufficed for the Lacedaemonians (Schol. on Thuc. 2.36). There appears to have been a swimming bath (κολυμβήθρα) at Athens in the time of Plato (Rep. 453 D).The artificial warm bath was taken in a vessel called ἀσάμινθος by Homer, and ἔμβασις by Athenaeus (1.25 c, e). It was no doubt of wood or marble, as the epithet εὔχεστος is applied to it (Od. 4.48), and in the case of Menelaus' Egyptian presents (Od. 4.128） it was of silver. It would appear from the description of the bath administered to Ulysses in the palace of Circe, that this vessel did not contain water itself, but was only used for the bather to sit in while the warm water was poured over him, which was heated in a large caldron or tripod, under which the fire was placed, and when sufficiently warmed was taken out in other vesselsand poured over the head and shoulders of the person who sat in the ἀσάμινθος. (Od. 10.359-365.) The bath was usually thus administered by a handmaiden (Il. 14.6; Od. 4.49, 6.210), or even a daughter (Od. 3.464), or the mistress of the house (Od 4.252; 5.263; 10.450): unless we hold with Mr. Gladstone (Studies on Homer, 3.513-516) that the maidens gave the men in each case the means of washing themselves; for which he compares such expressions as “feeding the poor,” and refers especially to Od. 6.210, 218-220, compared with 7.296. Where cleanliness merely was the object sought, cold bathing was adopted, which was considered as most bracing to the nerves (Athen. l.c.); but after violent bodily exertion or fatigue warm water was made use of, in order to refresh the [p. 1.267]body and relax the over-tension of the muscles. (Id. ib.; comp. Hom. Il. 10.576; Od. 4.48, et alibi.) Hesiod (Op. 754) protests against men elaborately cleaning (φαιδρύνεσθαι) their bodies with female baths, i. e. those of high temperature--which shows that this luxury had begun in his day; and in Homer's time constant indulgence in the warm bath was considered as a mark of luxury and effeminacy (Od. 8.249).
The use of the warm bath was preceded by bathing in cold water. (Il. x. 576). The later custom of plunging into cold water after the warm bath mentioned by Aristeides (vol. i. Orat. 2, Sacr. Serm. p. 515), who wrote in the second century of our era, was no doubt borrowed from the Romans. [See p. 268.]
After bathing, both sexes anointed themselves with oil, in order that the skin might not be left harsh and rough, especially after warm water. (Od. 6.96; Athen. l.c.; Plin. Nat. 13. § § 4-17; see also Il. 14.172, 23.186.) The use of precious unguents (μύρα) was unknown at that early period. In the Heroic ages, as well as later times, refreshments were usually taken after the bath. (Od. 6.97.)
At Athens the frequent use of the public baths was regarded by strict
moralists in the time of Socrates and Demosthenes as a mark of luxury
and effeminacy: thus it is a sign of demoralization on the part of a
ship's crew. (Demosth. c. Polycl. p. 1217.35.)
Accordingly Phocion was said to have never bathed in a public bath
(ἐν βαλανείῳ δημοσιεύοντι,
Plut. Phoc. 4), and Socrates to have made
use of it very seldom (Plato, Symp. p. 174 A). It was,
however, only the warm baths (βαλανεῖα,
called by Homer θερμὰ λουτρά) to which
objection was made, and which in ancient times were not allowed to be
built within the city (Athen.
1.18 b): for the Greeks did not at all approve of people being
dirty (ἀπαράτιλτος, αὐχμηρός,
ῥυπαρός); but cleanliness, they thought, should be attained
by cold water. The estimation in which such baths were held is expressed
in the following lines of Hermippus (ap. Athen. l.c.):-- “
Μὰ τὸν Δἴ, οὐ μέντοι μεθύειν τὸν ἄνδρα χρή
τὸν ἀγαθὸν, οὺδὲ θερμολουτεῖν, ἃ σὺ ποιεῖς.
”
In the Clouds of Aristophanes the δίκαιος λόγος warns the young man to abstain from the baths (βαλανείων ἀπέχεσθαι, 50.991), which passage, compared with ll. 1045-54, shows that warm baths are intended by the word βαλανεῖα. Plato (Leg. vi. p. 761 C) would confine the use of warm baths to old men. (Cf. Plut. de San. tuend. 17; Symp. 8.) But the frequent and open mention of baths in the time subsequent to the Peloponnesian War (e. g. in Theophrastus, Thphr. Char. 4, 8, 9, 19, 27) shows that they were an every-day feature of Greek life.
The baths (βαλανεῖα) were either public (δημόσια, δημοσιεύοντα) or private (ἴδια, ἰδιωτικά). The former were the property of the state, but the latter were built by private individuals. Such private baths are mentioned by Plutarch (Plut. Demetr. 24) and Isaeus (Or. 5 [Dicaeog.], § § 22-24), who speaks of one which was sold for 3000 drachmae (Or. 6 [Philoct.], § 33). Baths of this kind were probably mostly intended for the exclusive use of the persons to whom they belonged. (Xen. Rep. Ath. 2.1. 0) There appears to have been a small, almost nominal, charge for the use of the public baths (cf. Aristoph. Cl. 853). Thus in the inscription of Andania (1.107) the price is fixed at 2 chalki = 1/4 obol. At Phaselis it was probably not much higher; though something more seems to have been demanded from strangers (Ath. 8.351 f). In the time of Lucian, who calls the fee ἐπίλουτρον (Lexiph. 2), it was two obols.
We know very little of the baths of the Athenians during the republican period; for the account of Lucian in his Hippias relates to baths constructed after the Roman model. On ancient vases, on which persons are represented bathing, we seldom find anything corresponding to a modern bath in which persons can stand or sit; but there is always a round or oval basin (λουτήρ or λουτήριον), resting on a stand (ὑπόστατον). by the side of which those who are bathing are represented standing undressed and washing themselves, as is seen in the following woodcut taken from Sir W. Hamilton's
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| Public Basin for Men. (From a Greek Vase.) |
The next woodcut is also taken from the same work (i. pl. 59), and represents two women
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| Basin for Women. (From a Greek Vase.) |
But besides the λουτῆρες and λουτήρια there were also vessels for bathing, large enough for persons to sit in, which, as stated above, are called ἀσάμινθοι by Homer and πύελοι or μάκτραι by the later Greeks (Schol. ad Aristoph. Kn. 1055; Hesych. sub voce Πύελος: Pollux, 7.166, 168). The λουτὴρ thus, as we shall see, corresponded to the Roman labrum; the πύελος to the solium or alveus.
In the baths there was also a kind of sudorific or vapour bath called πυρία or πυριατήριον, which is mentioned as early as the time of Herodotus (4.75). (Compare Pollux, 7.168; Athen. 5.207 f, xii. p. 519 e; Plut. Cim. 1.) Becker (Charikles, Scene viii. note 23) holds that in Greece generally, as at Sybaris (Athen. 12.519), the bathers sat in separate tub-like compartments; but Marquardt (Privatleben, p. 282) and Göll (Charikles, 3.105) show, by a comparison of Timarchus (ap. Athen. 11.501 e) and Alciphr. Ep. 1.23, with Vitruvius, 5.11. 5, that this χηρὸς θόλος (Alexand. Aphrod. Probl. 1.41) was the same as the concarerata sudatio or laconicum of the Romans, for which see below, p. 277. This seems to have been not simply or even principally a Spartan usage (for warm baths were very rarely allowed at Sparta; see Plut. Lyc. 16), but common to the Greek race (Ἑλληνικὴ πυρίη, Hdt. 4.75), and not, as in early Rome, a luxury or form of medical treatment. Among the chambers of the Greek bathing establishment was the ἀλειπτήριον, Lat. unctorium (Alexis, ap. Poll. 7.166; Theophr. de Sudore, 28). Lucian (Hipp. p. 73) speaks of the ἀποδυτήριον with its ἱματιοφυλακοῦντες (capsarii); but as they seem to be unknown to Aristotle (Probl. 29.14), they were probably introduced from Rome. Hence Aristotle tells us that those who stole clothes from the baths (ἱματιοκλέπται or λωποδύται, D. L. 6.52; Athen. 3.97 e) were punishable with death. (Cf. Demosth. c. Conon. p. 1256.1; c. Timocr. p. 736.114.) As the baths most frequently adjoined the gymnasia and palaestra (cf., for example, the baths at Anticyra, Paus. 10.36, 9), one of the rooms of these latter buildings served the purpose of undressing-room (Xen. Rep. Ath. 2.1. 0). About these rooms the τριβαλλοὶ used to loaf, looking out for an invitation. We hear of wrestling (Theophr. Char. 27) and playing the cottabos (D. L. 6.46), besides a great deal of conversation going on in the baths. To sing there was considered the part of a boor (Theophr. Char. 4).
Either the bath or simple anointing of the body generally formed part of the business of dressing for dinner (Xen. Symp. 1, 7). Hence we find the bath spoken of as ὁδὸς ἐπὶ τροφὴν (or τρυφήν), Artemid. Oneir. 61. It was generally taken shortly before the δεῖπνον or principal meal of the day. Epictetus (Diss. 1.1, 29) and Alciphr. (Ep. 3.60) mention noon as the hour; while voluptuaries bathed repeatedly (Menander, ap. Ath. 4.166; Simonides, ap. Aelian, Ael. NA 16.24). It was the practice to take first a warm or vapour, and afterwards a cold bath (Plut. de primo frig. 10; Paus. 2.34.2), though in the time of Homer the cold bath appears to have been taken first and the warm afterwards. The cold water was usually poured on the back or shoulders of the bathers by the βαλανεὺς or his assistants, who are called παραχύται. (Plat. Rep. i. p. 344 D; Lucian, Demosth. Encom. p. 503; Plut. de Invid. 6, Apophth. Lac. 49.) The vessel from which the water was poured was called ὑδρία: there is mention also of the ἀρύταινα, which must have been much smaller. (Aristoph. Kn. 1091, 1094; Theophr. Char. 9.) In the first of the cuts on p. 267 a παραχύτης is represented with one of these vessels in his hands. Roulez (Choix de Vases peints du Musée de Leyde, pl. 19.1) gives us a vase painting of a bath in a palaestra where two shower baths descend on men from spouts shaped like panthers' heads, and Panofka (Bilder antiken Lebens, pl.
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| Shower Baths for Women. (From a Greek Vase.) |
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| Swimming Bath for Women. (From a Greek Vase.) |
These two last-mentioned paintings would incline us to the conclusion that bathing establishments for women existed among the Greeks, whether belonging to the state or maintained by private enterprise, and Göll reads the inscription on the women's λουτὴρ in Tischbein, 4.40, as δημόσια, while we are told that Phryne did not use the public baths (Athen. 13.590), and we learn from Varro (L. L. 9.68) that the earliest Greek balneum in Rome contained a department for women.
The persons who bathed probably brought with them strigils, oil, and towels, or had them carried by a slave (ληκυθοφόρος, Poll. 3.154; χυστρολήκυθος, Hesych.). The strigil, which was called by the Greeks στλεγγίς or χύστρα, [p. 1.269]was usually made of iron, but sometimes also of other materials. (Plut. Inst. Lac. 32; Aelian, Ael. VH 12.29; Aristoph. Thes. 556.) One of the figures in the cut on p. 267 is represented with a strigil in his hand; several strigils are figured on p. 279. Pollux says (10.181), “The cloth which is worn by women round their loins when taking the bath, or by the men who bathe them, is called ὤαλουτρίς.” The Greeks also used different materials for cleansing or washing themselves in the bath, to which the general name of ῥύμμα was given, and which were supplied by the βαλανεύς. (Aristoph. Lys. 377.) This ῥύμμα usually consisted of a lye made of lime or wood-ashes (κονία), of nitrum, and of fuller's earth (γῆ κιμωλία, Aristoph. Frogs 710 and Schol.; Plat. Rep. iv. p. 430 A).
Among the Greeks a person was always bathed at birth, marriage, and after death [FUNUS]; whence it is said of the Dardanians, an Illyrian people, that they bathe only thrice in their lives,--at birth, marriage, and after death. (Nicol. Damasc. ap. Stob. Flor. 5.51.) The water in which the bride was bathed (λουτρὸν νυμφικόν, Aristoph. Lys. 378) at Athens, was taken from the fountain of Kallirrhoë, which was called from the time of Peisistratus Ἐννεάκρουνος. (Thuc. 2.15.) Compare Pollux, 3.43 Harpocrat. s. v. Λουτροφόρος, who says that the water was fetched by a boy, who was the nearest relation, and that this boy was called λουτροφόρος. He also states that water was fetched in the same way to bathe the bodies of those who had died unmarried, and that on the monuments of such a boy was represented holding a water-vessel (ὑδρία). Pollux (l.c.), however, states that it was a female who fetched the water on such occasions, and Demosthenes (c. Leochar. p. 1089.30; compare p. 1086.18) speaks of ἡ λουτροφόρος on the monument of a person who had died unmarried. In remains of ancient art we find girls represented as λουτροφόροι, but never boys. (Brönsted, Brief Description of thirty-two ancient Greek Vases, pl. 27; cf. Becker-Göll, Charikles, 3.364-6.)
The natural warm springs (θερμὰ or Ἡράκλεια λουτρά) were not only esteemed as sacred to Heracles, but also considered highly medicinal (Aristot. Probl. 24.19). The hot springs of Aedepsus in Euboea were famed for their healing properties, as also was a cold spring which flowed for a time (Athen. 3.73). In later times it became a great resort for pleasure as well as health, especially in the spring (Plut. Symp. 4.4; Frat. Amor. 17). Many other springs are mentioned by Pausanias (e. g. 6.22, 4; 7.5, 5; 8.41, 4).
The best account of the Greek baths is given by Becker-Göll, Charikles, vol. i. p. 199; iii. pp. 98-113.
Roman Baths.
The words balneae, balineae, balneum, balineum, thermae, are all commonly translated by our general term bath or baths; but in the writings of the earlier and better authors they are used with discrimination. Balneum or balineum, which is derived from the Greek βαλανεῖον (Varr. L. L. 9.68), signifies, in its primary sense, a bath or bathing-vessel, such as most persons of any consequence amongst the Romans possessed in their own houses (Cic. Att. 2.3), and hence the chamber which contained the bath (Cic. Fam. 14.2. 0), which is also the proper translation of the word balnearium. The diminutive balneolum is adopted by Seneca (Ep. 86.3) to designate the bath-room of Scipio, in the villa at Liternum, and is expressly used to characterise the modesty of republican manners as compared with the luxury of his own times. But when the baths of private individuals became more sumptuous, and comprised many rooms, instead of the one small chamber described by Seneca, the plural balnea or balinea was adopted, which still, in correct language, had reference only to the baths of private persons. Thus Cicero terms the baths at the villa of his brother Quintus (ad Q. Frat. 3.1.1) balnearia. Balneae and balineae, which according to Varro (L. L. 8.25, 9.41; Charisius, 1.12) have no singular number,1 were the public baths. Thus Cicero (pro Cael. 25, 62) speaks of balneas Senias, balneas publicas, and in vestibulo balnearum (ib. 26), and Aulus Gellius (3.1, 10.3) of balneas Sitias. But this accuracy of diction is neglected by many of the subsequent writers, and even in the time of the republic balneum? was used for a public bath (C. I. L. 1263); but particularly by the poets, amongst whom balnea is not uncommonly used in the plural number to signify the public baths, since the word balneae could not be introduced in an hexameter verse. Pliny also, in the same sentence, makes use of the neuter plural balnea for a public, and of balneum for a private bath. (Ep. 2.17.26.) Thermae (θέρμαι, hot springs) meant properly warm springs, or baths of warm water; but came to be applied to those magnificent edifices which grew up under the empire, in place of the simple balneae of the republic, and which comprised within their range of buildings all the appurtenances belonging to the Greek gymnasia, as well as a regular establishment appropriated for bathing. (Juv. Sat. 7.233.) Writers, however, use these terms without distinction. Thus the baths erected by Claudius Etruscus, the freedman of the Emperor Claudius, are styled by Statius (Stat. Silv. 1.5, 13) balnea, and by Martial (6.42） Etrusci thermulae.The Romans, in the earlier periods of their history, used the bath but seldom, and only for health and cleanliness, not as a luxury. Thus we learn from Seneca (Ep. 86.12) that the ancient Romans washed their legs and arms daily, and bathed their whole body once a week. (Cf. Cat. ap. Non. 108, s. v. Ephippium; Colum. R. R. 1.6.20.) The room set apart for this purpose was called lavatrina or latrina, and was placed near the kitchen, so that warm water might be easily procured. (Varr. L. L. 5.118; 9.68.)
It is not recorded at what precise period the use of the warm bath was
first introduced amongst the Romans; but we learn from Seneca (l.c.) that Scipio had a warm bath in his villa
at Liternum; which, however, was of the simplest kind, consisting of a
single chamber, just sufficient for the necessary purposes, and without
any pretensions to luxury. It was “small [p. 1.270]and dark,” he says ( § 3), “after the manner
of the ancients.” Seneca also describes the public baths of
former times as obscura et gregali tectorio
inducta; and while their arrangements were of the simplest
kind, aediles of noble birth did not disdain to look after them
personally ( § 9). These were baths of warm water; but the practice of heating an apartment with warm air
by a hollow underneath the floor, so as to produce a hot-air bath, is
stated by Valerius Maximus (9.1.1) and by Pliny (Plin. Nat. 9.168) to have been invented
by Sergius Orata, who lived in the age of L. Crassus, the orator, before
the Marsic war. The expression used by Valerius Maximus is balnea pensilia, and by Pliny balineas pensiles, which is differently explained by different
commentators; but a glance at the plan, inserted on p. 278, will be
sufficient in order to comprehend the manner in which the flooring of
the chambers was suspended over the hollow cells
of the hypocaust, called by Vitruvius suspensura
caldariorum (5.11), so as to leave no doubt as to the
precise meaning of the invention, which is more fully exemplified in the
following passage of Ausonius (Mosell. 337):-- “
Quid (memorem) quae sulfurea substructa crepidine fumant
Balnea, ferventi cum Mulciber haustus operto
Volvit anhelatas tectoria per cava flammas,
Inclusum glomerans aestu exspirante vaporem?
”
In the time of Cicero, though young people used in summer to bathe in the
Tiber (Cael. 15, 36), yet the use of baths, both public
and private, of warm water and hot air, had become general (ad Q.
Frat. 3.1); and we learn from one of his orations that there
were already baths (balneas Senias) at Rome
which were open to the public upon payment of a small sum (pro
Cael. 25, 61). Besides public baths, others were built by
private speculators, who either worked them themselves or leased them
out. Sometimes even the state leased out the public baths under certain
conditions (e. g. see the Lex Metalli Vipascensis in Eph.
Epigr. iii. p. 166, which makes stipulations with the conductor balinei touching certain people to be
admitted free, hours of opening and shutting, height of water,
&c.). The lessee or worker of a bath (balneator) appears to have stood very low in social
estimation (Juv. 7.4; Dig.
3, 2, 4, 2). Examples of private baths in Cicero's time are
the balneae Pallacinae (Rosc. Am. 7, 18),
and the balneae Seniae already mentioned.
Martial in his time says (ii 14, 11): “Nec Fortunati spernit nec
balnea Fausti
Nec Grylli tenebras Aeoliumque Lupi.”
“The Baths of Daphne,” owned by Phoebus (Schol. on Juv. 7.233), is a name like “The Aeolium” of Lupus. Jordan has collected a vast number of the names of the baths from the Regionarii, and they appear to be nearly all called after the possessor, though we find one of Mercurius and one of Diana (Forma Urbis Romae, p. 43). There were baths, of course, in the country, and they professed to be quite up to city style: e. g. an inscription has “In praediis Aureliae Faustinianae balineus. Lavatur more urbico, et omnis humanitas praestatur” (Marini, Atti de' Fratelli Arvali, p. 532, where a similar profession of a balneator is to be found, “omnia commoda praestantur” ). A signboard, in Orelli 4326, of the Thermae of M. Crassus, offers salt and fresh water baths. These baths, which were worked by private individuals, appear to have been called balnea meritoria (Plin. Ep. 2.17, 26), and money was often invested in them (Dig. 7,4, 12). Agrippa added 170 baths to those which existed already in Rome. In the time of Constantine there were no less than 856 (Jordan, l.c.) in the city; and the Regionarii actually reckon 952 (Becker-Göll, Gallus, 3.140).
In the earlier ages of Roman history a much greater delicacy was observed with respect to bathing, even amongst the men, than was usual among the Greeks; for, according to Valerius Maximus (2.1.7), it was deemed indecent for a father to bathe in company with his own son after he had attained the age of puberty, or a son-in-law with his father-in-law. (Comp. Cic. de Off. 1.3. 5, § 129; de Orat. 2.55, 224; Plut. Cat. maj. 20.) But virtue passed away as wealth increased; and when the thermae came into use, not only did the men bathe together in numbers, but even men and women stripped and bathed promiscuously in the same bath. It is true, however, that the public establishments generally contained separate baths for both sexes adjoining each other (Vitr. 5.10; Varr. L. L. 9.68), as will be seen to have been the case at the baths of Pompeii. Aulus Gellius (10.3） relates a story of a consul's wife who took a whim to bathe at Teanum (Teano), a small provincial town of Campania, in the men's baths (balneis virilibus); probably, because in a small town, the female department, like that at Pompeii, was more confined and less convenient than that assigned to the men; and an order was consequently given to the Quaestor, M. Marius, to turn the men out. In the Lex Metalli Vipascensis the women have the use of the bath from daybreak till the seventh hour; the men from the eighth hour till the second hour of the night. If at Rome there were separate establishments for the women, men at any rate appear to have been able to get into them, and they were a possible place for assignations ( “celent furtivos balnea tuta viros,” Ov. Ars Am. 3.639);--a passage which further shows that there were small private chambers with baths in them, such as we find in the Stabian baths at Pompeii (marked e in Overbeck's plan, Fig. 123, p. 193; cf. p. 206). But whether the men and women were allowed to use each other's chambers indiscriminately, or some of the public establishments had only one common set of baths for both, the custom prevailed under the empire of men and women bathing indiscriminately together. (Plin. Nat. 33.153.) This custom was forbidden by Hadrian (Spart. Hadr. 100.18), and by M. Aurelius Antoninus (Capitolin. Anton. 100.23); and Alexander Severus prohibited any baths, common to both sexes (balnea mixta), from being opened in Rome (Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 100.24). Although the practice was not adopted by women of respectability ( “Signum est adulterae lavari cum viris,” Quint. Inst. 5.9.14), yet this legislation was not permanently effective, and even the censures of the Fathers of the Christian Church and the canons of Councils did not avail to [p. 1.271]suppress it. (Clem. Alex. Paed. 3.5, p. 272; Cypr. de Virg. Habitu, p. 179; Const. Apost. 1.6 and 9; Council of Laodicea (A.D. 320), Can. 30, renewed by Council of Constantinople (A.D. 692), ap. Mansi.) Justinian (Cod. 5.15, 11.2) recognises it as a ground of divorce, si forte uxor ita luxuriosa est, ut commune lavacrum cum viris libidinis causa habere audcat.
When the public baths (balneae) were first instituted, they were only for the lower orders, who alone bathed in public; the people of wealth, as well as those who formed the equestrian and senatorian orders, used private baths in their own houses. But as early even as the time of Julius Caesar we find no less a personage than the mother of Augustus making use of the public establishments (Suet. Aug. 94); and in process of time even the emperors themselves bathed in public with the meanest of the people. (Spart. Hadr. 100.17.)
The baths were opened at sunrise, and closed at sunset (Lampr. Alex. Sev. 24). The many lamps found in the baths at Pompeii were used for lighting the rooms and the dark passages, according to Nissen, Pomp. Stud. 135, and do not necessarily imply night-bathing. But, in the time of Alexander Severus, it would appear that the baths were kept open after nightfall. (Lampr. Alex. Sev. l.c.) The allusion in Juvenal (balnea nocte subit, Sat. 6.419) probably refers to private baths.
The price of a bath (balneaticum) was a quadrans, the smallest piece of coined money, from the age of Cicero downwards (Cic. pro Cael. 26, 62; Hor. Sat. 1.3, 137; Juv. Sat. 6.447), which was paid to the keeper of the bath (balneator); and hence it is termed by Cicero, in the oration just cited, quadrantaria permutatio, and by Seneca (Ep. 86.9) res quadrantaria. Children below a certain age were admitted free. (Juv. Sat. 2.152.)
The passage of Juvenal (6.447), which has been quoted to show that women paid no fee, should be taken to imply that they paid a higher price than men. So by the Lex Metalli Vipascensis, which has been already referred to, the men pay half an as, the women an as. (Cf. D. C. 49.43.) Faustus Sulla gave the people the use of the baths and oil on the day of his father's funeral (D. C. 37.51), and Augustus on his return from Germany gave them baths and barbers for a day (ib. 54.25). Agrippa opened the baths gratuitously to both men and women for a year (ib. 49.43), and afterwards gave the people his thermae ὥστε προῖκα αὐτοὺς λοῦσθαι (ib. 54.29). Such munificence was repeated by emperors and also by private individuals (Dig. 32, 35, 3; Henzen, 3325, 3326, 6962).
Strangers, also, and foreigners were admitted to some of the baths, if not to all, without payment, as we learn from an inscription found at Rome, and quoted by Pitiscus (Lex Antiq.):
L. OCTAVIO. L. F. CAM.
RUFO. TRIB. MIL ........
QUI LAVATIONEM GRATUITAM MUNICIPIBUS
INCOLIS
HOSPITIBUS ET ADVENTORIBUS.
Compare the inscription at Naples (C. I. L. 5.376). We also find free bathing given to an individual and his family as a reward of merit: thus a soldier gets that privilege at Nemausus (Orelli, 3579).
The baths were closed when any serious public misfortune happened, just as we should close our theatres (Fabr. Descr. Urb. Rom., 100.18); and Suetonius says that the Emperor Caligula made it a capital offence to indulge in the luxury of bathing upon any religious holiday (ib.). They were originally placed under the superintendence of the aediles, whose business it was to keep them in repair, and to see that they were kept clean and of a proper temperature (ib.; Sen. Ep. 86). In the provinces the same duty seems to have devolved upon the quaestor, as may be inferred from the passage already quoted from Aulus Gellius (10.3).
The time usually assigned by the Romans for taking the bath was the eighth hour, or shortly afterwards. (Mart. 10.48, 11.52.) Before that time none but invalids were allowed to bathe in public. (Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 24.) Vitruvius reckons the hours best adapted for bathing to be from mid-day until about sunset (5.10). Spurinna took his bath at the ninth hour in summer, and at the eighth in winter (Plin. Ep. 3.1, 8); and Martial speaks of taking a bath, when business had been pressing, at the tenth hour, and even later (3.36 10.70).
When the water was ready, and the baths prepared, notice was given by the sound of a bell--aes thermarum. (Mart. 14.163.) One of these bells, with the inscription FIRMI BALNEATORIS, was found in the Thermae Diocletianae, in the year 1548, and came into the possession of the learned Fulvius Ursinus. (Append. ad Ciaccon. de Triclin.) A sun-dial was found in the new baths at Pompeii, and Lucian (Hipp. 8) places in the baths a sun-dial and a water-clock with apparently some method of striking the hours attached.
Whilst the bath was used for health merely or cleanliness, a single one was considered sufficient at a time, and that only when requisite. But the luxuries of the empire knew no such bounds, and the daily bath was sometimes repeated as many as seven and eight times in succession--the number which the Emperor Commodus indulged himself with. (Lamprid. Comm. 11.) Gordian bathed four or five times a day in summer, and twice in winter; the Emperor Gallienus six or seven times in summer, and twice or thrice in winter. (Capitolin. Gord. 6; Trebell. Poll. Gall. 100.17.) Commodus also took his meals in the bath (Lamprid. l.c.); a custom which was not confined to a dissolute emperor alone. (Cf. Mart. 12.19.)
It was the usual and constant habit of the Romans to take the bath after exercise, and previously to their principal meal (cena); but the debauchees of the empire bathed after eating as well as before, in order to promote digestion, and so to acquire a new appetite for fresh delicacies. Nero is related to have indulged in this practice. (Suet. Nero 27; comp. Juv. Sat. 1.142.) This practice of carrying off the effects of gluttony by artificial means of inducing perspiration, which had taken the place of the hard labour and exercise of sterner times, was severely condemned, and sometimes proved fatal. (Columella, i. praef. § 15; Juv. 1.143; Pers. 3.93; Sen. Ep. 15, 3; 86, 10; and especially Plin. Nat. 14.139, and 29.26, where he mentions as one, [p. 1.272]of the causes of the ruined morals of the nation, balineae ardentes quibus persuasere in corporibus cibos coqui.）
Here at the outset a word must be said on the notorious illustration of a Roman bath given below. It is said to have been found in and to represent the Thermae of Titus at Rome. Long ago, however, Canina suspected its authenticity. He could not, he said, find it in the baths, nor was there any trustworthy evidence of its having been discovered previously; and further its exceedingly close following of Vitruvius made it look very like anillustration of that author. The fact is that the picture was drawn by Giovanni Antonio Rusconi, an architect, in 1553, to serve as a plan to help the description of Roman baths as given by Johannes Antonius Siccus Cremensis, De balneis compendium ex Hippocrate et Galeno. In the preface to this treatise the picture is merely called a “figura antiqui balinei.” J. Rhodius in his edition of Scribonius Largus (1655) says (p. 103), “balnearum formam Ioannis Antonii Sicci Cremensis diligentia vulgatam inspicere iuvabit,” It first appears as claiming to be a picture of the Baths of Titus in a work called Raccolta di statue antiche e moderne data in luce da de Rossi illustrata di P. A. Maffei (1704), who was an officer of the Papal guard and quite different from F. S. Maffei the scholar. From this work it got into Montfaucon, Ant. expl. 3.2, pl. 122, and hence unfortunately obtained general acceptance. Its unauthenticity is now accepted by nearly all scholars, by Marquardt, Saglio, Overbeck, Göll, Guhl and Koner, &c. For a full account of the history of this drawing, the reader is referred to Marquardt, Privatleben der Römer, pp. 270-1, from whom its history as given above is taken.
The picture indicates in its way the chief rooms of a Roman bath. There was the elaeothesium, where the oil was kept, and where the bathers were frequently anointed. Next the frigidarium or cold room, which generally had a cold bath in it, and which frequently served as an undressing room (apodyterium), though large establishments had a separate apartment for undressing in. Beside the frigidarium was the warm room (tepidarium), which led into the hot
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| Roman Baths. (Nominally from the Thermae of Titus, but a modern representation of Roman baths.) |
The Romans did not content themselves with a single bath of hot or cold water; but they went through a course of baths in succession, in which the agency of air as well as water was applied. It is difficult to ascertain the precise order in which the course was usually taken, if indeed there was any general practice beyond the whim of the individual. Under medical treatment, the succession would, of course, be regulated by the nature of the disease for which a cure was sought, and would vary also according to the different practice of different physicians. It is certain, however, that it was a general practice to close the pores, and brace the body after the excessive perspiration of the vapour bath, either by anointing or by pouring cold water over the head, or by plunging at once into the piscina, or into a river. (Auson. Mosell. 341.) Musa, the physician of Augustus, is said to have introduced this practice (Plin. Nat. 25.77; cf. Hor. Ep. 1.15, 4), which became quite the fashion, in consequence of the benefit which the emperor derived from it, though Dio Cass. (53.30) accuses Musa of having artfully caused the death of Marcellus by an improper application of the same treatment. In other cases it was considered conducive to health to pour warm water over the head before the vapour bath, and cold water immediately after it; and at other times, warm, tepid, and cold water baths were taken in succession.
The two physicians Galen and Celsus differ in some respects as to the order in which the baths should be taken; the former recommending [p. 1.273]first the hot air of the laconicum (ἀέρι θερμῷ), next the bath of warm water (ὕδωρ θερμόν), afterwards the cold, and finally to be well rubbed (Galen, de Methodo Medendi, 10.10, pp. 708, 709, ed. Kühn); whilst the latter recommends his patients first to sweat for a short time in the tepid chamber (tepidarium), without undressing; then to proceed into the thermal chamber (calidarium), and after having gone through a regular course of perspiration there, not to descend into the warm bath (solium), but to pour a quantity of warm water over the head, then tepid, and finally cold; afterwards to be scraped with the strigil (perfricari), and finally rubbed dry and anointed. (Cels. de Med. 1.4.) Such, in all probability, was the usual habit of the Romans when the bath was resorted to as a daily source of pleasure, and not for any particular medical treatment; the more so, as it resembles in many respects the system of bathing still in practice amongst the Orientals, who, as Sir W. Gell remarks, “succeeded by conquest to the luxuries of the enervated Greeks and Romans.” (Gell's Pompeii, vol. i. p. 86, ed. 1832.)
Having thus detailed from classical authorities the general habits of the Romans in connexion with their system of bathing, it now remains to examine and explain the internal arrangements of the structures which contained their baths; which will serve as a practical commentary upon all that has been said. Indeed there are more ample and better materials for acquiring a thorough insight into Roman manners in this one particular, than for any other of the usages connected with their domestic habits. The principal ancient authorities are Vitruvius (5.10), Lucian (Ἱππίας ἢ βαλανεῖον, a detailed description of a set of baths erected by an architect named Hippias), Pliny the Younger, in the two letters describing his villas (2.17, 5.6), Statius (Balneum Etrusci, Silv. 1.5), Martial
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Plan of the Roman Baths at Badenweiler.
Plan of the Roman Baths at Badenweiler. EXPLANATION.
a. Forecourt, atrium. b. Central hall, vestibulum. c. Undressing-room, apodyterium. d. Anointing-room, unctorium. e. Stokehole, praefurnium. f. Cold bath, frigidarium. g. Douche baths. h. Warm bath, tepidarium. i. Private baths, solia. k. Passages for communication. l. Hot baths, caldaria. m. Hot-air bath, laconicum. n. Reservoirs for cold and perhaps warm ablution. o. Coal or wood store-rooms. p. Closets? q. Attendants' rooms. r. Underground exit drains. s. Leaden exit pipe. t. Exit pipe. u. Altar of Diana abnoba.
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(6.42, and other epigrams), Seneca (Epist. 51, 56, 86), and Sidonius Apollinaris (Epist. 2.2).
But it would be almost hopeless to attempt to arrange the information obtained from these writers, were it not for the help afforded us by the extensive ruins of ancient baths,--such as the Thermae of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian; the Thermae of Pompeii excavated in 1854-8, and numerous public and private baths throughout the whole extent of the Roman empire, the most important of which are referred to in the list of authorities at the end of this article; but above all the public baths (balneae) of Pompeii, which were excavated in 1824-5. Before elucidating the Roman system of bathing by means of a detailed description of these baths, we give ground-plans of baths attached to private houses, and first of the baths of “the house of Livia” on the Palatine, which exhibits great simplicity when compared with private baths at Pompeii, which must have been built before A.D. 79. They consist of two rooms about 16 ft. square, one of which contains a stove. The cut given above is a ground-plan of the Roman baths at Badenweiler; and though less elaborate than the baths attached to some Pompeian private houses, it is interesting from its compactness and the arrangement of the women's and men's baths. A full account of them is given by Dr. Heinrich Leibnitz, Die römischen Bäder bei Badenweiler, Leipzig, 1860.
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| Bath in house of Livia. (From Daremberg and Saglio.) |
The balneae adjoining the Forum at Pompeii, generally called the old baths, were found to be a complete set, constructed in all their important parts upon [p. 1.274]rules very similar to those laid down by Vitruvius, and in such good preservation that many of the chambers were complete, even to the ceilings. The woodcut below represents the ground-plan of these baths, which are nearly surrounded on three sides by houses and shops, thus forming what the Romans termed an insula.
The whole building, which comprises a double set of baths, has six different entrances from the street, one of which, A, gives admission to the smaller set only, which are supposed to have been appropriated to the women, and five others to the male department; of which two, B and C, communicate directly with the furnaces, and the other three, D, E, F, with the bathing apartments, of which F, the nearest to the forum, was the principal one; the other two, D and E, being on different sides of the building, served for the convenience of those who lived on the north and east sides of the city. To have a variety of entrances (ἐξόδοις πολλαῖς τεθυρωμένον) is one of the qualities enumerated by Lucian as necessary to a well-constructed set of baths (Hippias, 8). Passing through the principal entrance, F, which is removed from the street by a narrow footway surrounding the insula (the outer kerb of which is marked upon the plan by the thin line drawn round it), and after descending three steps, the bather finds upon his left hand a small chamber (1), which contained a convenience (latrina), and proceeds into a covered portico (2), which ran round three sides of an open court--atrium (3), which was 68 feet long and 53 feet broad; and these together formed the vestibule of the baths--vestibulum balnearum (Cic. pro Cael. 26), in which the servants belonging to the establishment,
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| Plan of the Old Baths at Pompeii. |
To return into the chamber itself--it is vaulted and spacious, with stone seats along two sides of the wall (b, b), and a step for the feet below, slightly raised from the floor (pulvinus et gradus, Vitr. 5.10). Holes can still be seen in the walls, which might have served for pegs on which the garments were hung when taken off. It was lighted by a window closed with glass, and ornamented with stucco mouldings and painted yellow. A sectional drawing of this interior is given in Sir W. Gell's Pompeii. There are no less than six doors to this chamber: one led to the entrance E, another to the entrance D, a third to the small room (11), a fourth to the furnaces, a fifth to the tepid apartment, and the sixth opened upon the frigidarium, the room which had the cold bath (10), named indifferently by the ancient authors, natatio, natatorium, piscina,2 baptisterium, puteus, λουτρόν. The bath, which is coated with white marble, is 13 feet 8 inches in diameter, and about 3 feet 9 inches deep, and has two marble steps to facilitate the descent into it, and a seat surrounding it at the depth of 10 inches from the bottom. It is probable that many persons contented themselves with the cold bath only, instead of going through the severe course of perspiration in the warm apartments; and it is said that at one period cold baths were in such request that scarcely any others were used. (Gell's Pompeii, l.c.) There is a platform or ambulatory (schola, Vitr. 5.10) round the bath, also of marble, and four niches of the same material disposed at regular intervals round the walls, with seats. The ceiling is vaulted, and the chamber lighted by an opening towards the south-west. A drawing of this room is given on p. 279. The annexed woodcut represents a frigidarium with its cold bath (puteus, Plin. Ep. 5.6.25)
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| Frigidarium of a Formian villa. |
In the cold bath of Pompeii the water ran into the basin through a spout of bronze, and was carried off again through a conduit on the opposite side. It was also furnished with a waste-pipe under the margin to prevent it from running over. No. 11 is a small chamber on the opposite side of the frigidarium, which might have served for keeping unguents or strigiles, or for the capsarius; and from the side of the [p. 1.276]frigidarium, the bather, who intended to go through the process of warm bathing and sudation, entered into (12) the tepidarium.
This tepidarium, 33 feet long by 18 feet broad, did not contain water either at Pompeii or at the baths of Hippias, but was merely heated with warm air of an agreeable temperature in order to prepare the body for the great heat of the vapour and warm baths, and, upon returning, to obviate the danger of a too sudden transition to the open air. In the baths at Pompeii this chamber served likewise as an apodyterium for those who took the warm bath; for which purpose the fittings up are evidently adapted, the walls being divided into a number of separate compartments or recesses for receiving the garments when taken off, by a series of figures of the kind called Atlantes or Telamones, which project from the walls, and support a rich cornice above them. One of these divisions, with the Telamosnes, is represented in the article ATLANTES Three bronze benches were also found in the room, which was heated as well by its contiguity to the hypocausts of the adjoining chamber, as by a brazier of bronze
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| Brazier of the Old Baths at Pompeii. |
（foculus), in which the charcoal ashes were still remaining when the excavation was made. Sitting and perspiring beside such a brazier was called ad flammam sudare (Suet. Aug. 82). A representation of it is given in the above woodcut. Its whole length was 7 feet, and
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| Tepidarium of Old Baths of Pompeii. (From Gell.) |
The tepidarium is generally the most highly ornamented room in baths. It was merely a room to sit in and be anointed in. The water-bath which appears in the Stabian baths at Pompeii is quite an exception (see Becker-Göll, Gallus, 3.132-4). In the old baths at Pompeii the floor is mosaic, the arched ceiling adorned with stucco and painting on a coloured ground, the walls red. The light is from a window at the south side, below which is a niche for a lamp. An illustration of the room taken from Gell, plate 29, is given above.
In addition to this service there can be little doubt that this apartment was used as a depository for unguents and a room for anointing (ἀλειπτήριον, unctorium, elaeothesium), the proper place for which is represented by Lucian (l.c.) as adjoining to the tepidarium, and by Pliny (Plin. Ep. 2.17.11) as adjoining to the hypocaust; and for which purpose some of the niches between the Telamones seem to be peculiarly adapted. In the larger establishments a separate chamber was allotted to these purposes; but as there is no other spot within the circuit of the Pompeian baths which could be applied in the same manner, we may safely conclude that the inhabitants of this city were anointed in the tepidarium (cf. Celsus, 1.4); which service was performed by slaves called unctores and aliptae. [ALIPTAE] Anointing sometimes took place before going into the hot bath (Celsus, l.c.), sometimes after the cold bath, just before putting on the clothes, in order to stop perspiration (Galen, 10.479). In some baths we find a special room, the destrictarium or unctorium, [p. 1.277]used for anointing (Plin. Ep. 2.17.11). For this purpose the common people used oil, sometimes scented; but the more wealthy classes indulged in the greatest extravagance with regard to their perfumes and unguents. These they either procured from the elaeothesium of the baths, or brought with them in small glass bottles (ampullae oleariae), hundreds of which have been discovered in different excavations made in various parts of Italy. [AMPULLA] The fifteenth book of Athenaeus contains an ample treatise upon the numerous kinds of ointments used by the Romans; which subject is also fully treated by Pliny (H. N. xiii.).
Caligula is mentioned by Suetonius (Suet. Cal. 37) as having invented a new luxury in the use of the bath, by perfuming the water, whether hot or cold, by an infusion of precious odours, or, as Pliny states (H. N. 13.22), by anointing the walls with valuable unguents; a practice, he adds, which was adopted by one of the slaves of Nero, that the luxury might not be confined to royalty (ne principale videatur hoc bonum).
From this apartment, a door which closed by its own weight, to prevent the admission of cooler air, opened into No. 13, the caldarium, 53 feet long, 17 1/2 feet broad. Its mosaic floor was suspended over the hypocaust. The wall was not lined with flues, but was hollow, forming as it were one large flue for the heated air. This was effected by a lining of bricks with projections (tegulae mammatae) of about four inches, strongly connected with the outer wall by cramps of iron. The room has at its south side the quadrangular alveus. (Auct. ad Her. 4.10; Cic. Cael. 28, 67) or solium (Lucr. 6.800 ; Cat. Agr. 10, 4; Cels. 1.3 and 4; Liv. 44.6; Suet. Aug. 82) or calida piscina (Plin. Ep. 2.17.11; Suet. Nero 27); and at the north side, which ended in a dome-roofed semicircle, a round labrum (Cic. Fam. 14.2. 0; Vitr. 5.10, 4), like the Greek basin figured on p. 267. Into the alveus, called in Greek πύελος or θερμὴ δεξαμενή (Galen, 10.473, 536), or κολυμβήθρα θερμοῦ ὕδατος (D. C. 55.7), the bather descended from the platform (schola; cf. Petron. 92) by a step to which ascent was made from the floor of the caldarium by two steps. The alveus was 16 1/2 feet long, 5 1/4 broad, and 2 deep. Ten people could be in it together. Sometimes the alveus was sunk below the level of the room, sometimes raised above it. Both occur in the baths at Badenweiler. The labrum at the other end is a circular tub made of marble, 7 1/2 feet in diameter, 8 inches deep, raised 3 1/4 feet from the ground on a solid support of lava. It has an inscription round it (Orelli, 3277), which declares that it cost HS. 5250. It was used for holding cold water, for pouring over the head before the bather quitted the hot room. In the splendid baths of Etruscus there was a constant stream of water from silver pipes into a silver labrum, whence the water, in wonder at its beauty, says the poet (Stat. Silv. 1.5, 48), was loth to depart. Elsewhere we hear of baths having silver alvei or solia (Plin. H. N. xxxiii, § 152). Owing to the great heat of the caldarium, there was not much ornamentation in this room at Pompeii, and no painting. Any ornamentation there was, was in the dome over the labrum. There are four windows, arranged with no regard to symmetry. Below the opening in the dome is a hollow for the lamp. The woodcut taken from Gell (plate 31) represents the end of the room which contained the labrum.
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| Caldarium of Old Baths at Pompeii. (From Gell.) |
Strictly speaking, there was no laconicum (assa, Cic. Q. Fr. 3.1, 2; sudatorium, Senec. Ep. 51.6 ξηρὸν βαλανεῖον, Galen, 6.228) in the old baths at Pompeii. When a laconicum did occur, it was quite separate from the caldarium, and raised to a higher temperature. It was merely a sweating-room, and had no bath. It was a circular apartment with a dome-shaped ceiling; ξηρὸς θόλος it is called by Alexander of Aphrodisias. The diameter of such a room, Vitruvius says (5.10), should be equal to the height as far as the beginning of the dome; and in the middle of the dome there should be an opening which could be closed or opened partially or entirely by a brass cover or shield (clipeus), worked by chains from below (cf. Timarchus, ap. Athen. p. 501 f, who calls the cover ὀμφαλός). The term laconicum appears to have arisen in Italy; for the Greeks, as we saw, called such a sweating bath Ἑλληνικὴ πυρίη (Hdt. 4.75). According to Dio Cassius (53.27), “Agrippa first introduced the Laconian sweating-bath; for the gymnasium is a Laconian institution, and the Spartans seemed especially in former times to have stripped and anointed themselves with oil” (cf. Thuc. 1.6). The first statement cannot be accurate, as we hear of a laconicum as early as 70 B.C. in an inscription from the Stabian baths at Pompeii (C. I. L. 1.1251), and at Cicero's villa at Puteoli in 55 B.C. (Cic. Att. 4.1. 0). But it is quite possible that the hot room got the name of laconicum from the notoriety of the Laconian practice of anointing, which would of course be most conveniently done in a room [p. 1.278]of fairly high temperature. When the name originated, the highest temperature used was nothing very considerable; but as the use of baths increased, the heat of the hottest rooms increased also (cf. Senec. Ep. 86, 10), and the name laconicum appears to have continued to be applied to the hottest rooms, though the anointing was no longer performed there, but in the milder temperature of the tepidarium. There is no laconicum proper, as has been said, in the old baths at Pompeii; but as the hottest room is the caldarium, we may if we like, with Nissen (op. cit. 156), apply that term to this latter apartment, but we must apply it to the whole room, and not merely to the niche for the labrum. The view that the laconicum was a little arched oven in the caldarium which was in direct communication with the hypocaust, and which had an aperture with a moveable covering (clipeus), through which the heat of the caldarium could be regulated--this view, which is derived from the supposed plan of the Baths of Titus, vanishes by the proved unauthenticity of that illustration.
Here a word must be said on the suspensurae, or hanging floors above the hypocaustun. (Vitr. 5.10; Plin. Ep. 2.17.23; Stat. Silv. 1.5, 59; Dig. 17, 1, 16.) On this subject we cannot do better than quote the words of Mr. Middleton (Ancient Rome, p. 334), who thus explains the system of heating used in the Thermae of Caracalla at Rome: “Vitruvius's description of the hypocausts or hollow floors used for heating the hot rooms (calidaria) agrees closely with many existing examples. The lower floor was to be laid with 2 feet tiles (tegulae bipedales) over a bed of concrete: on this, all over the area of the room, rows of short pillars (pilae) were built to
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Method of heating the Baths in the Thermae of Caracalla.
(From Middleton.)
AA. Concrete wall faced with brick. B. Lower part of wall with no brick facing. CC. Suspensura, or upper floor of hypocaust, supported by pillars. DD. Another floor, with support only at the edges. EE. Marble flooring. FF. Marble plinth and wall lining. GG. Under-floor of hypocaust, paved with large tiles. HH. Horizontal and vertical sections of the fine tiles, which line the walls of the Caldarium. aa. Iron holdfasts. JJ. Socket-jointed flue-pipe of Tepidarium. K. Rain-water pipe. LL. Vaults of crypt, made of pumice-stone concrete.
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After having gone through the regular course of perspiration, the Romans made use of instruments called strigiles (or strigles, Juv. Sat. 3.263), to scrape off the perspiration, much in the same way as we are accustomed to scrape the sweat off a horse with a piece of iron hoop, after he has run a heat, or comes in from violent exercise. The strigil was also used by the Greeks, who called it stlengis (στλεγγίς, Plat. Hipp, Min. 368 C) or xystra (Luc. Lexiph. 5); and the Greek instrumentis represented in the annexed cut. These instruments, some specimens of which are also represented in the cut on p. 279, and many of which have been discovered amongst the ruins of the various baths of antiquity, were made of bone, bronze, iron, and silver; all corresponding in form with the epithet of Martial, “curvo distringere ferro” (Epig. xiv.
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| Strigil. (From a Statue in the Vatican.) |
51). The poorer classes were obliged to scrape themselves, but the more wealthy took their slaves to the baths for the purpose; a fact which is elucidated by a curious story related by Spartianus (Hadrian. 100.17). [p. 1.279]
The strigil was by no means a blunt instrument, consequently its edge was softened by the application of oil, which was dropped upon it from a small vessel called guttus,3 which had a
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| Strigils. (Found in Roman baths.) |
The common people were supplied with these necessaries in the baths,--omnia commoda praestantur,
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| Strign and Guttus. (From a Relief at Athens.) |
After the operation of scraping and rubbing dry, they retired into, or remained in, the tepidarium until they thought it prudent to encounter the open air. But it does not appear to have been customary to bathe in the water, when there was any, either of the tepidarium or frigidarium; the temperature only of the atmosphere in these two chambers being of consequence to break the sudden change from the extreme of heat to cold.
Returning now back into the frigidarium (8), which, according to the directions of Vitruvius (5.11), has a passage (14) communicating with the mouth of the furnace (e), which is also seen under the boilers in the cut opposite, called praefurnium (Vitr. 5.10), or propnigeum (Plin. Ep. 2.17.11); and passing down that passage, we reach the chamber (15) into which the praefurnium projects, and which has also an entrance from the street at B. It was appropriated to the use of those who had charge of the fires (fornacatores). There are two staircases in it; one of which leads to the roof of the baths, and the other to the coppers which contained the water. Of these there were three: one of which contained the hot water--caldarium (sc. vas, or ahenum); the second the tepid--tepidarium; and the last the cold--frigidarium. The
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| Frigidarium of the Old Baths at Pompeii. (From Gell.) |
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| Boiler, miliarium. (From Pompeii.) |
It was already considerably heated from its contiguity to the furnace and the hypocaust below it, so that it supplied the deficiency of the former without materially diminishing its temperature; and the vacuum in this last [p. 1.280]was again filled up from the farthest removed, which contained the cold water received directly from the square reservoir seen behind them,--a principle which has at length been introduced into the modern bathing establishments, where its efficacy, both in saving time and expense, is fully acknowledged. The boilers themselves no longer remain, but the impressions which they have left in the mortar in which they were imbedded are clearly visible, and enable us to ascertain their respective positions and dimensions, the first of which, the caldarium, is represented in the above cut. Such coppers or boilers appear to have been called miliaria, from similarity of shape to a milestone (Pallad. 5.8, 1.40).
Behind the coppers there is another corridor (16), leading into the court or atrium (17) appropriated to the servants of the bath, and which has also the convenience of an immediate communication with the street by the door at C.
We now proceed to the adjoining set of baths, which were assigned to the women. The entrance is by the door A, which conducts into a small vestibule (18), and thence into the apodyterium (19), which, like the one in the men's bath, has a seat (pulvinsus, gradus) on either side built up against the wall. This opens upon a cold bath (20), answering to the natatio of the other set, but of much smaller dimensions, and probably similar to the one denominated by Pliny (l.c.) puteus. There are four steps on the inside to descend into it. Opposite to the door of entrance into the apodyterium is another doorway which leads to the tepidarium (21), which also communicates with the thermal chamber (22), on one side of which is a warm bath in a square recess, and at, the further extremity the labrum. The floor of this chamber is suspended, and its walls perforated for flues, like the corresponding one in the men's baths. It is to be specially noticed that the tepidarium in the women's baths had no brazier, but had a hanging or suspended floor. Suspending the floor of a tepidarium was a proceeding subsequent apparently to Vitruvius's time ; so that this, among many other reasons which are enumerated by Nissen (op. cit. chap. v.), proves that the women's baths were a subsequent addition.
True, the comparative smallness and inferiority of the fittings--up in this suite of baths has induced some Italian antiquaries to throw a doubt upon the fact of their being assigned to the women; and amongst these the Abbate Iorio (Plan de Pompeii) ingeniously suggests that they were an old set of baths, to which the larger ones were subsequently added when they became too small for the increasing wealth and population of the city. But their greater carelessness of structure is an actual proof of later date in a building at Pompeii (see Nissen, l.c.). And the story, already quoted, of the consul's wife who turned the men out of their baths at Teanum for her convenience, seems sufficiently to negative such a supposition; and to prove that the inhabitants of ancient Italy, if not more selfish, were certainly less gallant than their successors. In addition to this, Vitruvius expressly enjoins that the baths of the men and women, though separate, should be contiguous to each other, in order that they might be supplied from the same boilers and hypocaust (5.10); directions which are here fulfilled to the letter, as a glance at the plan will demonstrate.
Besides the public baths at Pompeii, there are several very interesting baths of two or three chambers in private houses, which reproduce in a smaller scale many of the peculiarities of the larger baths. Such are to be found in the villa of M. Nonius (Overbeck, op. cit. 247-8), Casa del Fauno (310), the three-storied house (323), the Villa Suburbana (326), and especially the Casa del Laberinto (305).
Notwithstanding the ample account which has been given of the plans and usages respecting baths in general, something yet remains to be said about that particular class denominated Thermae; of which establishments the baths in fact constituted only a small part. The thermae, properly speaking, were a Roman adaptation of the Greek gymnasium [GYMNASIUM], or palaestra, as described by Vitruvius (5.11): both of which contained a system of baths in conjunction with conveniences for athletic games and youthful sports; exedrae in which the rhetoricians declaimed, poets recited, and philosophers lectured; as well as porticoes and vestibules for the idle, and libraries for the learned. They were decorated with the finest objects of art, both in painting and sculpture, covered with precious marbles, and adorned with fountains and shaded walks and plantations, like the groves of the Academy. It may be said that they began and ended with the empire, for it was not until the time of Augustus that these magnificent structures were commenced. M. Agrippa is the first who afforded these luxuries to his countrymen, by bequeathing to them the thermae and gardens which he had erected in the Campus Martius. (D. C. 54.29; Plin. H. N 36.189.) Recent excavations (1882) have brought to light magnificent remains of these baths, but a careful examination goes far to disprove the belief long entertained that the Pantheon was originally designed to be a part of Agrippa's thermae, probably a colossal laconicum. But it was originally a separate structure; and though the thermae extended to it subsequently, yet no passage was ever broken through. Besides, the Pantheon has no trace of a hypocaust. It was consecrated as a temple to Mars, Venus, and other ancestors of the Gens Julia, probably immediately after its completion in 27 B.C.: see D. C. 63.27. (Middleton, Rome, p. 337.) It appears from a passage in Sidonius Apollinaris (Carm. 23.495), that the whole of these buildings, together with the adjacent Thermae Neronianae, remained entire in the year 466 A.D. The example set by Agrippa was followed by Nero, and afterwards by Titus; the ruins of whose thermae are still visible, covering a vast extent, partly under ground and partly above the Esquiline Hill.4 Thermae were also erected by Trajan, Caracalla, Diocletian, and Constantine: besides several which were constructed by private individuals, P. Victor enumerates sixteen, and Panvinius (Urb. Rom. Descript. p. 106) has added four more. There are still ample remains of the thermae of Caracalla and Diocletian. [p. 1.281]
Although the custom of seeking the favour of the people by grants of free bathing might lead to the surmise that no fee was exacted from bathers in the imperial thermae, yet it is certain that we find in the literature descriptive of life at Rome constant references to the charge of a quadrans, and none to free bathing. Most, if not all, of the other regulations previously detailed as relating to the economy of the baths, apply equally to the thermae; but it is to these establishments especially that the dissolute conduct of the emperors, and other luxurious indulgences of the people in general, detailed in the compositions of the satirists and later writers, must be considered to refer.
Although considerable remains of the Roman thermae are still visible, yet, from the very ruinous state in which they are found, we are far from being able to arrive at the same accurate knowledge of their component parts, and the usages to which they were applied, as has been done with respect to the balneae; or indeed to discover a satisfactory mode of reconciling their constructive details with the description which Vitruvius has left of the baths appertaining to a Greek palaestra, or to the description given by
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| Plan of the Thermae of Caracalla. |
Lucian of the baths of Hippias. All, indeed, is doubt and guess-work the learned men who have pretended to give an account of their contents differing in almost all the essential particulars from one another. And yet the great similarity in the ground-plan of the three which still remain--namely, those of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian--cannot fail to convince even a superficial observer that they were all constructed upon a similar plan. Not, however, to dismiss the subject without enabling our readers to form something like a general idea of these enormous edifices, which, for their extent and magnificence, have been likened to provinces--(in modum provinciarum exstructae, Amm. Marc. 16.6)--a ground-plan is given of the thermae of Caracalla, which are the best preserved amongst those remaining, and which were perhaps more splendid than all the rest, though those of Diocletian were more extensive. Those apartments of which the use is ascertained, even with the appearance of probability, are alone marked and explained. But for most of these explanations there cannot be claimed more than a bare probability. The dark parts represent the remains still visible; the open lines are restorations.
A, Portico fronting the street made by Caracalla when he constructed his thermae.--B and C, small chambers--D, D, and E, E, the [p. 1.282]porticoes. (Vitr. 5.11.)--F, F, Exedrae, in which there were seats for the philosophers to hold their conversations. (Vitruv. l.c.; Cic. de Orat. 3.5, 17.)--G, Hypaethrae, passages open to the air: “Hypaethrae ambulationes quas Graeci περιδρόμιδας,, nostri xystos appellant.” (Vitruv. l.c.)--H, H, Stadia in the palaestra--quadrata sive oblonga (Vitruv. l.c.), if they were not like I, I, which were possibly academies where public lectures were delivered.--J, J, and K, K, Rooms appropriated to the servants of the baths (balneatores). In the latter are staircases for ascending to the principal reservoir. The spaces between J and K, marked I, I, were probably like I, I, below, lecture rooms or libraries.--L, Space occupied by walks and shrubberies--ambulationes inter platanones. (Vitruv. l.c.)--M, The arena or stadium in which the youth performed their exercises, with seats for the spectators (Vitruv. l.c.), called the theatridium.--N, N, Reservoirs, with upper stories, sectional elevations of which are given in the two woodcuts on p. 283.--O, Aqueduct which supplied the baths.--P, The cistern or piscina. This external range of buildings occupies one mile in circuit.
We now come to the arrangement of the interior, for which it is very difficult to assign satisfactory destinations. Q represents the principal entrances, of which there were eight.--R, the natatio, piscina, or cold-water bath, to which the direct entrance from the portico is by a vestibule on either side marked S, and which is surrounded by a set of chambers which served
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| Tepidarium of the Thermae of Caracalla, restored. (From Middleton.) |
Inque vicem fulvae tactu flavescit arenae.”
OVID, Met. 9.35.
(See also Salmas. ad Tertull. Pall. p. 217; and Mercurialis, de Art. Gymn. 1.8.) The inferior quality of the ornaments which these apartments have had, and the staircases in two of them, afford evidence that they were occupied by menials. T is considered to be the tepidarium, with four warm baths (U, U, U, U) taken out of its four angles, and two labra on its two flanks. There are steps for descending into the baths, in one of which traces of the conduit are still manifest. Thus it would appear that the centre part of this apartment served as a tepidarium, having a balneum or calda lavatio in four of its corners. The centre part, like that also of the preceding apartment, is supported by eight immense columns. This tepidarium was a splendid room, 170 feet long by 82 feet wide. It is restored in the above cut from existing indications. “It had a groined roof springing from immense columns of granite and porphyry, each surmounted by a short piece of entablature, which merely returns round the capital of the column in the debased fashion of the second and third centuries. The smaller columns on each side were set in front of the recesses containing the warm baths.” (Middleton, p. 361.) [p. 1.283]
The apartments beyond this, which are too much dilapidated to be restored with any degree of certainty, contained of course the laconicum and sudatories, for which the round chamber W and its appurtenances seem to be adapted, and which are also contiguous to the reservoirs, Z, Z. (Vitr. 5.11.)
ε, ε probably comprised the ephebia, or places where the youth were taught their exercises, with the appurtenances belonging to them, such as the sphaeristerium and corycaeum. The first of these takes its name from the game at ball, so much in favour with the Romans, at which Martial's friend was playing when the bell sounded to announce that the water was ready (Mart. 14.163). The latter is derived from κώρυκος,, a sack (Hesych. sub voce), which was filled with bran and olive husks for the young, and sand for the more robust, and then suspended at a certain height, and swung backwards and forwards by the players. (Aulis, de Gymn. Const. p. 9; Antill. ap. Oribas. Coll. Med. 6.)
The chambers also on the other side, which are not marked, probably served for the exercises of the palaestra in bad weather. (Vitr. 5.11.)
These baths contained an upper story, of which nothing remains beyond what is just sufficient to indicate the fact. They have been mentioned and eulogized by several of the Latin authors. (Spartian. Caracall. 100.9; Lamprid. Heliogab. 100.17, Alex. Sever. 100.25; Eutropius, 8.11; Olymp. apud Phot. p. 114, ed. Aug. Vindel. 1601.) For a full account of the noble proportions and elaborate ornamentation of the several rooms, the reader is referred to Middleton, l.c., 356-369.
It will be observed that there is no part of the bathing department separated from the rest which could be assigned for the use of the women exclusively. From this it must be inferred either that both sexes always bathed together promiscuously in the thermae, or that the women were excluded altogether from these establishments, and only admitted to the balneae.
It remains to explain the manner in which the immense body of water required for the supply of a set of baths in the thermae was heated, which has been performed very satisfactorily by Piranesi and Cameron, as may be seen by a reference to the two subjoined sections of the castellum aquaeductus and piscina belonging to the thermae of Caracalla.
A, Arches of the aqueduct which conveyed the water into the piscina B, from whence it flowed into the upper range of cells through the aperture at C, and thence again descended into the lower ones by the aperture at D, which were placed immediately over the hypocaust E; the praefurnion of which is seen in the transverse section, at F in the lower cut. There were thirty-two of these cells arranged in two rows over the hypocaust, sixteen on each side, and all communicating with each other; and over these a similar number similarly arranged, which communicated with those below by the aperture at D. The parting walls between these cells were likewise perforated with flues, which served to diffuse the heat all around the whole body of water. When the water was sufficiently warm, it was turned on to the baths through pipes conducted likewise through flues in order to prevent the loss of temperature during the passage, and the vacuum was supplied by tepid water from the range above, which was replenished from the piscina.
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| Piscina and Castellum of the Aquaeductus of the Thermae of Caracalla. |
Of the thermae of Diocletian, built on the Quirinal hill, the largest edifice of the imperial period, which accommodated 3200 bathers, twice as many as those of Caracalla, commenced in A.D. 302 by Maximian in honour of his colleague Diocletian, and dedicated in 305 A.D., we have extensive remains, which, like those of the thermae of Titus, include the cavea of a theatre, while the tepidarium was made by Michel Angelo into the church of S. Maria degli Angeli, about 1565. “Even now this tepidarium forms one of the most imposing interiors in the world; it is about 300 feet long by 92 wide, vaulted in three bays with simple quadripartite groining, which springs from eight monolithic columns of Egyptian granite about 50 feet high and 5 feet in diameter” (Middleton, op. cit. 371). The vestibule of the church was the laconicum of the baths: it is a circular domed hall, which originally had a circular opening in the centre of the dome.
Remains of the thermae of Constantine, built only a few years after those of Diocletian, existed in the sixteenth century (see Palladio, plate xiv.), but have been mostly cleared away to obtain sites for Italian palaces.
The most important works on the subject are--Baccius, de thermis veterum (Graevii Thes. xii. pp. 279-379); Ferrarius, de balneis (Polnei Thes. 3.297-310); Montfaucon, Antiq. expl. iii. pp. 201-12; Palladio, Le Terme dei Romani, ed.. Scamozzi; Cameron, The Baths of the Romans; Stieglitz, Archaeologie der Baukunst, iii. pp. 241-76; Hirt, Geschichte der Baukunst, iii. pp. 233-36; Canina, L'architettura Romana, i. ch. ix.; Bussemaker et Daremberg, Œuvres d'Oribase, 2.865-75; Bechi in Mus. Borbonico, 2.49-52; Gell, Pompeiana, chapters vi., vii.;. Saglio, Dict. des Antiquités, 1.648-664; Guhl and Koner, Das Leben der Griechen und Römer, ed. 1876, especially pp. 491-503, 655-660; Overbeck, [p. 1.284]Pompeii, 174-190 for the old baths, 190-207 for the Stabian baths; Nissen, Pompeianische Studien, chaps. v., vi., vii.; Becker's Gallus, ed. Göll, 3.104-57; Marquardt, Privatleben der Römer, 1.262-88, who gives in the notes to p. 269 references to descriptions of the most interesting remains of ancient baths now extant; J. H. Middleton, Ancient Rome in 1885, ch. xi., who gives the results of the latest excavations and valuable information as regards the materials used in the building and other architectural peculiarities of the great Roman thermae.