Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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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).