Balneae
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. Thus, Nausicaa,
daughter of Alcinoüs, 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. vi. 58, 65). Odysseus, who is conducted to the same spot, strips
and takes a bath, while Nausicaa and her servants stand aside. Warm springs were also resorted
to for the purpose of bathing. The
Ἡράκλεια λουτρά shown
by Hephaestus or Athené to Heracles are celebrated by the poets. Pindar speaks of
the hot baths of the nymphs, and Homer (
Il. xxii. 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. Not to know how to read and to swim were proverbial marks of
the ignoramus. A plunge in the Eurotas always sufficed for the Lacedaemonians (Schol. on
Thuc.ii. 36). There appears to have been a swimming-bath (
κολυμβήθρα) at Athens in the time of Plato (
Rep. 453D).
The artificial warm bath was taken in a vessel called
ἀσάμινθος by Homer, and
ἔμβασις by Athenaeus.
It was no doubt of wood or marble, as the epithet
εὔξεστος
is applied to it (
Od. iv. 48), and in the case of Menelaus's Egyptian presents (
Od. iv. 128) it was of silver. It would appear from the description of
the bath administered to Odysseus in the palace of Circé, 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 vessels and poured over the head
and shoulders of the person who sat in the
ἀσάμινθος. Where
cleanliness merely was the object sought, cold bathing was adopted, which was considered as
most bracing to the nerves; but after violent bodily exertion or fatigue warm water was made
use of, in order to refresh the body and relax the over-tension of the muscles. Hesiod (
Op. 754) protests against men elaborately cleaning (
φαιδρύνεσθαι) their bodies with effeminate 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. viii. 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 Aristides (
vol. i. Orat. 2,
Sacr. Serm. p. 515), who wrote in the second century of our era, was no doubt
borrowed from the Romans.
After bathing both sexes anointed themselves with oil, in order that the skin might not be
left harsh and rough, especially after warm water. The use of precious unguents (
μύρα) was unknown at that early period. In the heroic ages, as well
as in later times, refreshments were usually taken after the bath (
Od. vi. 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. Accordingly Phocion was said to have never bathed
in a public bath, and Socrates to have made use of it very seldom. It was, however, only the
warm baths to which objection was made, and which in ancient times were not allowed to be
built within the city (Athen. i. 18 b); for the Greeks did not at all approve of people being
dirty; only cleanliness, they thought, should be attained by the use of
cold water.
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 (
Demetr. 24). Baths of this kind were probably mostly intended for the
exclusive use of the persons to whom they belonged (
Ps.
Xen. Rep. Ath. ii. 10.) There appears to have been a small, almost
nominal, charge for the use of the public baths. Thus, in the inscription of Andania (i. 107),
the price is fixed at two chalki=1/4 obol.
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 illustration taken from Sir W. Hamilton's vases.
|
Public Basin for Men. (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. The
λουτήρ 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 (iv. 75). Among the chambers of the Greek bathing establishment
was the
ἀλειπτήριον, Lat.
unctorium.
Lucian (
Hipp. p. 73) speaks of the
ἀποδυτήριον with its
ἱματιοφυλακοῦντες (
capsarii); but as they seem to be unknown to Aristotle, they were probably
introduced from Rome. Hence Aristotle tells us that those who stole clothes from the baths
were punishable with death. As the baths most frequently adjoined the gymnasia and palaestra,
one of the rooms of these latter buildings served the purpose of undressing-room (
Ps. Xen. Rep. Ath. ii. 10). About these
rooms the
τριβαλλοί used to loaf, looking out for an
invitation. We hear of wrestling and playing the cottabus, 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. It was generally taken shortly before the
δεῖπνον, or principal meal of the day. Epictetus (
Diss. i. 1, 29)
mentions noon as the hour, while voluptuaries bathed repeatedly. It was the practice to take
first a warm or vapour, and afterwards a cold bath, 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
βαλανεύς or his
assistants, who are called
παραχύται. The vessel from which
the water was poured was called
ὑδρία; there is mention also
of the
ἁρύταινα, which must have been much smaller. Bathing
establishments for women existed among the Greeks, whether belonging to the state or
maintained by private enterprise. We learn from Varro (
L. L. ix. 68) that the
earliest Greek
balneum in Rome contained a department for women.
Roulez (
Choix de Vases peints du Musée de Leyde, pl. xix. 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. xviii. 9)
shows us a bath for women similarly arranged, while an unpublished vase painting in the Louvre
represents a
κολυμβήθρα, or swimming-bath for women.
|
Shower Baths for Women. (From a Greek Vase.)
|
The persons who bathed probably brought with them strigils, oil, and towels, or had them
carried by a slave. The strigil, which was called by the Greeks
στλεγγίς or
ξύστρα, was usually made of iron,
but sometimes also of other materials. Pollux says (x. 181), “The cloth which is
worn by women round their loins when taking the bath, or by the men who bathe them, is called
ᾤα λουτρίς.” 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. This
ῥύμμα usually
consisted of a lye made of lime or wood-ashes (
κονία), of
nitrum, and of fuller's earth (
γῆ κιμωλία,
Ran. 710 and Schol.;
Plato Rep. iv.
430A).
Among the Greeks a person was always bathed at birth, marriage, and after death; whence it
is said of the Dardanians, an Illyrian people, that they bathe only thrice in their
lives—at birth, marriage, and after death. The water in which the bride was bathed
at Athens was taken from the fountain of Callirrhoë, which was called from the time
of Pisistratus
Ἐννεάκρουνος.
The natural warm springs (
θερμὰ or
Ἡράκλεια λουτρά) were not only esteemed as sacred to Heracles, but also
considered highly medicinal. 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. iii. 73). In later times it became a great resort for pleasure as well as health,
especially in the spring.
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, signifies, in its primary sense, a bath or bathingvessel, such as most
persons of any consequence among the Romans possessed in their own houses (
ad
Att. ii. 3), and hence the chamber which contained the bath, 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 characterize 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.
Balneae and
balineae, which according to Varro
(
L. L. viii. 25, ix. 41) have no singular number, were the public baths. 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, but particularly by
the poets, among 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.
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.vii. 233). Writers, however, use these terms without distinction.
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. The room set apart for this purpose was called
lavatrina or
latrina (q. v.), and was placed near the
kitchen, so that warm water might be easily procured.
It is not recorded at what precise period the use of the warm bath was first introduced
among the Romans; but we learn from Seneca 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 and dark,” he says, “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. These were baths
of warm
water; but the practice of
1
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 (ix. 1.1) and by Pliny (
Pliny H. N. ix. 168) to have been invented by Sergius Orata, who lived
in the age of L. Crassus, the orator, before the Marsic War.
In the time of Cicero, though young people used in summer to bathe in the Tiber, yet the use
of baths, both public and private, of warm water and hot air, had become general; 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, touching certain people to be admitted free, hours of opening and closing,
height of water, etc. The lessee or worker of a bath (
balneator) appears
to have stood very low in social estimation (
Juv.vii. 4).
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. 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 sign - board, 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.
Agrippa added 170 baths to those which existed already in Rome. In the time of Constantine
there were no less than 856 in the city, and the Regionarii actually reckon 952
(Becker-Göll,
Gallus, iii. 140).
In the earlier ages of Roman history a much greater delicacy was observed with respect to
bathing, even among the men, than was usual among the Greeks; for, according to Valerius
Maximus (ii. 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. 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, as in certain Austrian cities to-day. It is true, however, that the public
establishments generally contained separate baths for both sexes adjoining each other, as is
seen to have been the case at the baths of Pompeii. Aulus Gellius (x. 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—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 day break 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
|
Plan of the Roman Baths at Badenweiler. Women's Bath.
Explanation. a. Fore court, atrium. b.
Central hall, vestibulum. c. Undressing-room, apodyterium. d. Anointing-room, unctorium. e. Stoke-hole, 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. Men's Bath. 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.
|
them, and they were a possible place for assignations (
A. A. iii.
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. 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.
H. N. xxxiii. 153). This custom was forbidden by Hadrian (Spart.
Hadr. 18) and by M. Aurelius Antoninus (Capitolin.
Anton. 23);
and Alexander Severus prohibited any baths common to both sexes (
balnea
mixta), from being opened in Rome (Lamprid.
Alex. Sev. 24). Although the
practice was not adopted by women of respectability, 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 suppress it. Justinian recognizes it as a ground of divorce,
si forte uxor ita luxuriosa est, ut commune lavacrum cum viris libidinis causa
habere audeat.
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 Inlius 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.
The baths were opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. 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. The
allusion in Juvenal (vi. 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, which was paid to the keeper of the bath
(
balneator). Children below a certain age were admitted free (
Juv.ii. 152).
The passage of Juvenal (vi. 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. Faustus Sulla gave the people the use of the baths and oil on
the day of his father's funeral, and Augustus on his return from Germany gave them baths and
barbers for a day. Agrippa opened the baths gratnitously to both men and women for a year, and
afterwards gave the people his Thermae. Such munificence was repeated by emperors and also by
private individuals.
The baths were closed when any serious public misfortune happened, just as we should close
our theatres; and Suetonius says that the emperor Caligula made it a capital offence to
indulge in the luxury of bathing upon any religious holiday. 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. In the provinces the same duty seems to
have devolved upon the quaestor, as may be inferred from Aulus Gellius (x. 3).
The time usually assigned by the Romans for taking the bath was the eighth hour, or shortly
afterwards (
Mart.x. 48; xi. 52). Before that time none but
invalids were allowed to bathe in public. Vitruvius reckons the hours best adapted for bathing
to be from mid-day until about sunset. Spurinna took his bath at the ninth hour in summer and
at the eighth in winter; and Martial speaks of taking a bath, when business had been pressing,
at the tenth hour, and even later (iii. 36; x. 70).
When the water was ready and the baths prepared, notice was given by the sound of a
bell—
aes thermarum (
Mart.xiv.
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
sundial was found in the new baths at Pompeii, and Lucian (
Hipp. p. 8) places
in the baths a sundial and a water-clock, with apparently some mechanism for striking the
hours attached.
While 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. 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. Commodus also took his
meals in the bath—a custom which was not confined to a dissolute emperor alone.
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, p. 27; cf.
Juv. i.
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. See
Cena.
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 custom 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. H. N. xxv.
77; cf.
Epist. i. 15, 4), which became quite the fashion, in
consequence of the benefit which the emperor derived from it, though Dio Cass. (liii. 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 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, x. 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 (
de Med. i. 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
practised among the Orientals, who, as Gell remarks, “succeeded by conquest to
the luxuries of the enervated Greeks and Romans.”
The principal ancient authorities on baths are: Vitruvius (v. 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; Statius,
Silv. i. 5; Martial (vi. 42, and other epigrams); Seneca
(
Epist. 51, 56, 86), and Sidonius Apollinaris (
Epist. ii. 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 1854-58; 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 1824-25. Before describing the details of
the Roman public baths, attention may be called to the simpler baths used in private houses,
although to a modern these seem extraordinarily elaborate in their arrangements.
The cut given on the preceding page is a groundplan 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).
The so-called Old Baths, adjoining the Forum at Pompeii, afford an instance of a complete
set of public baths so well preserved that in some of the chambers even the ceilings are
intact. A ground-plan of these is given on the next page.
The whole building, which comprises a double set of baths, has six different entrances from
the street, one of which,
b, 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,
c and
c 2, communicate
directly with the furnaces, and the other three,
a 3,
a 2,
a, with the bathing apartments, of which
a, the nearest to the Forum, was the principal one; the other two,
a 3 and
a 2, being on different sides of the building, served for
the convenience of those who lived on the north and east sides of the city. Passing through
the principal entrance,
a, which is removed from the street by a narrow
footway surrounding the
insula (the outer curb 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,
x, which contained a water-closet
(
latrina), and proceeds into a covered portico,
g
g, which ran round three sides of an open court—
atrium
(A)—which was 68 ft. long and 53 ft. broad; and these together formed the vestibule
of the baths—
vestibulum balnearum (
Pro Cael.
26), in which the servants belonging to the establishment, as well as the attendants of the
bathers, waited. There are seats for their accommodation placed underneath the portico (
g, g). This
atrium was the exercise ground for the
young men, or perhaps served as a promenade for visitors to the baths. Within this court the
keeper of the baths (
balneator), who exacted
|
Plan of the Old Baths at Pompeii. (Overbeck.)
|
the
quadrans paid by each visitor, was also stationed; and the
box for holding the money was found in it. The room
f, which runs back
from the portico, might have been appropriated to him; but most probably it was an
oecus or
exedra, for the convenience of the better
classes while awaiting the return of their acquaintances from the interior.
|
Restoration of Apodyterium of Old Baths. (Overbeck.)
|
In this court, likewise, as being the most public place, advertisements for the theatre,
or other announcements of general interest, were posted up, one of which, announcing a
gladiatorial show, still remains. At the two sides of the entrance to it were stone seats
(scholae). n is the corridor which conducts from the entrance
a 2 into the same vestibule;
o, a small cell of similar
use to the corresponding one in the opposite corridor,
d; e, a passage of
communication which leads into the chamber B, the
apodyterium, a room for
undressing; and which is also accessible from the street by the door
a 3,
through the corridor
p, in which a small niche is observable, which
probably served for the station of another
balneator, who collected the
money from those entering from the north street. In this room, which was 38 ft. long and 22
ft. broad, all the visitors must have met before entering the baths. The
apodyterium probably belonged to the
frigidarium, which in Pliny
's villa it adjoined (
Epist. v. 6.25); though in the great thermae at Rome the
frigidarium and the
caldarium had doubtless each a
separate
apodyterium. In the
apodyterium the bathers
removed their clothing, which was taken in charge by slaves known as
capsarii, notorious in ancient times for their dishonesty (
Dig. xlvii.
17).
The
apodyterium was a spacious chamber, with stone seats along two
sides of the wall (
h, h). Holes are still visible on the walls, and
probably mark the places where the pegs for the bathers' clothes were set. The chamber was
lighted by a glass window, and had six doors. One of these doors led to the entrance
a 2, one to the entrance
a 3, one to
the small room
i, one to the furnaces, one to the
tepidarium D, while the sixth opened upon the
frigidarium C, with
its cold plunge-bath (
λουτρόν,
natatio,
natatorium, piscina, baptisterium, puteus).
The bath in this chamber is of white marble, and is 13 ft. 8 in. in diameter, and about 3
ft. 9 in. deep. It is approached by two marble steps, as shown in the following illustration.
From the
frigidarium the bather who wished to go through the warm bath
and sweating process entered the
tepidarium D. This
tepidarium, 33 ft. long by 18 ft. 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,
|
Frigidarium of the Old Baths at Pompeii. (Overbeck.)
|
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 (q.v.) or Telamones, which project from the walls and support a rich cornice
above them. Three bronze benches were also found in the room, which was heated as well by its
contignity to the hypocaust of the adjoining chamber, as by a brazier of bronze (
foculus), in which the charcoal ashes were still remaining when the
excavation was made.
|
Brazier of the Old Baths at Pompeii.
|
Sitting and perspiring beside such a brazier was called
ad flammam
sudare (
Suet. Aug. 82). A representation
of it is given in the above illustration. Its whole length was 7 ft., and its breadth 2 ft. 6
in.
The
tepidarium is generally the most highly ornamented room in baths.
It was merely a room to sit in and be anointed in. 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.
Anointing was performed by slaves called
unctores and
aliptae (q. v.). It sometimes took place before going to the hot bath, and sometimes
after the cold bath, before putting on the clothes, in order to check the perspiration (Galen.
x. 49). In some baths is a special room (
destrictarium or
unctorium) for this purpose. For an account of the various kinds of oils and
scents used by the wealthy, see the fifteenth book of Athenaens, the thirteenth book of the
Historia Naturalis of Pliny , and cf.
Suet.
Cal. 37.
From the
tepidarium a door opened into E, the
caldarium, a chamber 53 ft. long and 17 1/2 ft. wide. Its mosaic floor was directly
above the furnace or hypocaust. Its walls also were hollow, forming a great flue filled with
heated air. At one end was a round basin (
labrum), and at the other a
quadrangular bathingplace (
πύελος,
alveus,
solium, calida piscina), approached from the platform (
schola) by
steps. The
alveus was 16 1/2 ft. long, 5 1/2 ft. wide, and 2 ft. deep.
The
labrum was 7 1/2 ft. in diameter and 8 in. deep, and was raised 3 1/4
ft. from the ground. It held cold water, for pouring upon the bather's head before he left the
room. These basins are of marble in the Old Baths, but we hear of
alvei
of solid silver (
Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 152).
Because of the great heat of the room, the
caldarium was but slightly
ornamented.
The Old Baths have no
laconicum, which was a chamber still hotter
than the
caldarium, and used simply as a sweating-room, having no bath.
It was said to have been introduced at Rome by Agrippa (Dio Cass. liii. 27), and was also
called
sudatorium and
assa.
The
suspensurae, or hanging-floors above the
hypocaustum, are described in the following passage from Prof. Middleton's
Ancient Rome in 1885 (p. 334), from which the illustration on page 193 is
taken:
“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 ft. 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 support the upper or ‘hanging floor’ (
suspensura). These
pilae were to be 2 ft. high, made of
tegulae bessales, or tiles 8 in. square, set, not in mortar, but with
clay in the
|
Tepidarium. (Overbeck.)
|
joints. In existing examples these clay joints have been baked into brick by the
action of the fire” (rather “hot air,” for there was not a fire
in the
hypocaustum, but in the
hypocausis). The
passages from the furnace to the hypocaust and the flues in the walls appear to have been
called
cuniculi (
Plin. H. N.
ix. 134).
The
apodyterium has a passage,
q, communicating
|
Caldarium of the Old Baths. (Overbeck.)
|
with the mouth of the furnace
r, called
praefurnium or
propigneum; and, passing down that passage, we
reach the chamber M, into which the
praefurnium projects, and which is
entered from the street at
c. It was assigned to the
fornacatores, or persons in charge of the fires. Of its two staircases, one leads to
the roof of the baths, and one to the boilers containing the water. There were three boilers,
one of which (
caldarium vas) held the hot water; a second, the tepid
(
tepidarium); and the third, the cold (
frigidarium). The warm water was turned into the warm bath by a pipe through the wall,
marked on the plan. Underneath the hot chamber was set the circular furnace
d, of more than 7 ft. in diameter, which heated the water and poured hot air into the
hollow cells of the
hypocaustum. It passed from the furnace under the
first and last of the caldrons by two flues, which are marked upon the plan. The boiler
containing hot water was placed immediately over the furnace; and, as the water was drawn out
from thence, it was supplied from the next, the
tepidarium, which was
raised a little higher and stood a little way off from the furnace. It was already
considerably heated from its contiguity to the furnace and the hypocaust below it, so that it
sup
|
Boiler, miliarium. (From Pompeii.)
|
plied the deficiency of the former without materially diminishing its temperature;
and the vacuum in this last 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 establish
|
Method of Heating the Baths in the Thermae of Caracalla. (Middleton.) AA. Concrete wall
faced with brick. 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 flue 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 pumicestone concrete.
|
ments. 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 on preceding page. Such coppers or boilers appear to have
been called
miliaria, from similarity of shape to a mile-stone (Pallad.
i. 40; v. 8).
Behind the coppers there is another corridor leading into the court or
atrium (K) 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 2.
We now proceed to the adjoining set of baths, which were assigned to the women. The entrance
is by the door
b, which conducts into a small vestibule,
m, and thence into the
apodyterium H, which, like the
one in the men's bath, has a seat (
pulvinus, gradus) on either side built
up against the wall. This opens upon a cold bath, J, answering to the
natatio of the other set, but of much smaller dimensions. 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 H,
which also communicates with the thermal chamber F, on one side of which is a warm bath in a
square recess, and at the farther 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 especially noticed that the
tepidarium in the
women's baths had no brazier, but had a hanging or suspended floor.
After having gone through the regular course of perspiration, the Romans made use of
instruments called
strigiles 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
στλεγγίς or
ξύστρα. These instruments, many of which have been discovered among 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” (xiv. 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 (
Hadr. 17).
The strigil was by no means a blunt instrument, consequently its edge was softened by the
application of oil that was dropped upon it from a small vessel called
guttus, which had a narrow neck, so as to discharge its contents drop by drop, from
whence the name is taken. A representation of a
guttus is given on the
following page. Augustus is related to have suffered from an over-violent use of the strigil
(
Suet. Aug. 80). Invalids and persons of a
delicate habit made use of sponges, which Pliny says answered for towels as well as strigils,
They were finally dried with towels (
lintea) and anointed (
Juv.iii. 262;
Plin. H. N.
xxxi. 125 foll.).
The common people were supplied with these necessaries in the baths—
omnia commoda praestantur
|
Women's Bath. (Pompeii.)
|
—as we saw above; but the more wealthy carried their own with
them (
Pers. v. 126).
After the operation of scraping and rubbing dry, they retired into, or remained in, the
tepidarium
|
Strigils with Guttus. (Found in Roman Baths.)
|
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 the
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.
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 known as
thermae, of which establishments the baths, in fact, constituted the smallest
part. The thermae, properly speaking, were a Roman adaptation of the Greek gymnasium, or
palaestra (see
Palaestra), as
described by Vitruvius; 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, and served at
Rome all the purposes of a modern club. It may be said that they began
|
Chief Hall of the Thermae of Caracalla. (Restoration by Reber.)
|
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. The
Pantheon (q.v.), now existing
at Rome, served originally as a vestibule to these baths; and, as it was considered too
magnificent for the purpose, it is supposed that Agrippa added the portico and consecrated it
as a temple, for which use it still serves. It appears from a passage in Sidonius Apollinaris
that the whole of these buildings, together with the adjacent Thermae Neronianae, remained
entire in the year A.D. 466. Little is now left beyond a few fragments of ruins and the
Pantheon. 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 underground and partly
above the Esquiline Hill. Thermae were also erected by Trajan, Caracalla, and Diocletian, of
the last two of which ample remains still exist; and even as late as Constantine, besides
several which were constructed by private individuals, P. Victor enumerates sixteen.
Previously to the erection of these establishments for the use of the population, it was
customary for those who sought the favour of the people to give them a day's bathing free of
expense. Thus, according to Dio Cassius, Faustus, the son of Sulla , furnished warm baths and
oil gratis to the people for one day; and Augustus, on one occasion, furnished warm baths and
barbers to the people for the same period gratuitously, and at another time for a whole year
to the women as well as the men. From thence it is fair to infer that the
quadrans paid for admission into the
balneae was not exacted at
the thermae, which, as being the works of the emperors, would naturally be opened with
imperial generosity to all, and without any charge, otherwise the whole city would have
thronged to the establishment bequeathed to them by Agrippa; and in confirmation of this
opinion it may be remarked that the old establishments, which were probably erected by private
enterprise, were termed
meritoriae. 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.
The student is cautioned against an illustration found in all the older dictionaries. It is
styled a “Representation of a Roman Bath,” and is said to be from the
Thermae of Titus at Rome. It is, in fact, a drawing made in 1553 by Giovanni Antonio Rasconi,
an Italian architect, to illustrate a treatise by Johannes Antonius Siccus Cremensis, and was
drawn after the description of the baths in Vitruvins. In that treatise it is styled simply
“Figura Antiqui Balinei,” but it was put forth by one P. A. Maffei in 1704
as a picture of the “Baths of Titus.” Thence it got into many other works,
and received, unfortunately, a general acceptance, though containing several important errors.
See Marquardt,
Privatleben der Römer, pp. 270, 271.
Bibliography.—On the subject of the ancient baths the
reader is referred to Baccius,
De Thermis Veterum (Graevius,
Thes. xii. 279-379); Ferrarius,
De Balneis (Polneus,
Thes. iii. 297-310); Montfaucon,
Antiq. Expl. iii. 201-212;
Palladio,
Le Terme dei Romani, ed. Scamozzi; Cameron,
The Baths of the
Romans; Stieglitz,
Archäologie der Baukunst, iii. 241-276;
Hirt,
Geschichte der Baukunst, iii. 233- 236; Canina,
L'Architettura Antica (2d ed. 1844); Bussemaker and Daremberg,
Œuvres d'Oribase, ii. 865-875; Bechi in
Mus.
Borbonico, ii. 49-52; Gell,
Pompeiana, chaps. vi., vii.
(1837); Saglio,
Dict. des Antiquités, i. 648-664; Guhl
and
Koner, Das Leben der Griechen und Römer (1876);
Overbeck,
Pompeii (4th ed. 1884); Nissen,
Pompeianische
Studien, chaps. v., vi., vii.; Becker's
Gallus, ed. Göll,
iii. 104-157; Marquardt,
Privatleben der Römer, i. 262-288;
Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries (1888);
Middleton, Ancient Rome in 1885 (1885); and id.
Remains of Ancient Rome (1892).