Part 9

The price of a bath was a quadrant, the smallest piece of coined money from the age of Cicero downward, which was paid to the keeper of the bath. Children below a certain age were admitted free, and strangers, also foreigners, were admitted to some of the baths, if not to all, without payment.

The baths were closed when any misfortune happened to the republic, and Sentonius says that the Emperor Caligula made it a capital offence to indulge in the luxury of bathing upon any religious holiday. The baths were originally placed under the superintendence of the ædiles, whose business it was also to keep them in repair, and to see that they were kept clean and of a proper temperature.

The time usually assigned by the Romans for taking the bath was the eighth hour or shortly afterward. Before that time none but invalids were allowed to bathe in public. Vilruvins reckoned the best hours adapted for bathing to be from midday until about sunset. Pliny took his bath at the ninth hour in summer and the eighth in winter; and Martial speaks of taking a bath when fatigued and weary at the tenth hour and even later.

When the water was ready and the baths prepared, notice was given by the sound of a bell. One of these bells with the inscription Firmi Balneatoris was found in the thermæ Diocletiane, in the year 1548.

When the bath was used for health merely or cleanliness, a single one was considered sufficient at a time, and that one 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. It was the usual and constant habit of the Romans to take the bath after exercise, and previous to the principal meal; but the debauchees of the empire bathed also after eating, as well as before, in order to promote digestion so as to acquire a new appetite for fresh delicacies. Nero is said to have indulged in this practice.

Upon quitting the bath, it was usual for the Romans, as well as the Greeks, to be anointed with oil; indeed, after bathing, both sexes anointed themselves, the women as well as the men, in order that the skin might not be left harsh and rough, especially after hot water. Oil is the only ointment mentioned by Homer as used for this purpose, and Pliny says the Greeks had no better ointment at the time of the Trojan war than oil perfumed with herbs. A particular habit of body or tendency to certain complaints, sometimes required the order to be reversed and the anointment to take place before bathing. For this reason, Augustus, who suffered from nervous disorders, was accustomed to anoint himself before bathing, and a similar practice was adopted by Alexander Severus. The most usual practice, however, seems to have been to take some gentle exercise in the first instance, and then after bathing to be anointed either in the sun or in the tepid or thermal chamber, and finally to take their food.

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, of course, the succession would be regulated by the nature of the disease for which a cure was sought, and would vary also according to the different practice of different physicians. It is certain, however, that it was a general practice to close the pores and brace the body after the excessive perspiration of the vapor bath, either by pouring cold water over the head, or by plunging at once into the tank. Musa, the physician of Augustus, is said to have introduced the practice which became quite the fashion, in consequence of the benefit which the emperor derived from it, though Dion accuses him 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 vapor bath, and cold water immediately after it; and at other times a succession of warm, tepid and cold water was resorted to.

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 laconicum, next the bath of warm water, afterward the cold, and finally to be well rubbed; while the latter recommends his patients first to sweat for a short time in the tepid chamber without undressing, then to proceed into the thermal chamber, and after having gone through a regular course of perspiration there, not to descend into the warm bath, but to pour a quantity of warm water over the head, then tepid, and finally cold; afterward to be scraped with the strigil and finally rubbed dry and anointed. Such in all probability was the usual habit of the Romans when the bath was resorted to as a daily source of pleasure, and not for any particular medical treatment; the more so as it resembles in many respects the system of bathing still in practice among the Orientals who succeeded by conquest to the luxuries of the enervated Greeks and Romans.

Having thus detailed from classical authorities the general habits of the Romans in connection with their systems of bathing, it now remains to examine and explain the internal arrangements of the structures which contained their baths, which will serve as a practical commentary upon all that has been said. Indeed, there are more ample and better materials for acquiring a thorough insight into Roman manners in this one particular than for any of the other usages connected with their daily habit.

In order to make the subjoined description clear, a reproduction from an old woodcut of a fresco painting on the walls of the thermæ of Titus at Rome, is here reproduced, showing in broken perspective the general arrangement of one of the baths known as the thermæ. Heat was supplied to warm the apartments and the water used in the baths by the furnace shown extending under the entire floor of the establishment. This furnace was known as a Hypocustum. To the right may be seen the vessels in which water for the baths was heated. The topmost vessel, the Frigidarium, contained cold water from which the hot water tanks and the various baths were supplied. Next in order is the tepidarium, in which water of moderate temperature was stored, and in the lowest, the caldarium, was heated the hottest water used in the baths. After the end of the republic, large establishments used to have a separate steam bath, the laconicum, and in this apartment, or sometimes adjoining the tepidarium, was the Clipeus, a small circular chamber covered by a cupola. The Clipeus received its light through an aperture in the center of the dome, and this aperture served also as a vent from the chamber. The Clipeus was heated by means of a separate heating apparatus, and its temperature could be raised to an enormous degree or could be regulated to suit the bather by raising or lowering the shield.

The tepidarium, as the name would imply, was a room in which a moderately warm bath could be taken and where the process of dry rubbing also took place. In the balneum a hot bath could be taken, originally in a tub, but in later times in a large reservoir; and in the frigidarium a cold plunge could be had. The elæothesium was the anointing room where the body was rubbed with oil and massaged.

A good idea of the general layout of a Roman bath can be gained from the accompanying woodcut, showing the ground floor plan of the baths of Pompeii. The baths, as may be seen by the illustration, are nearly surrounded on three sides by houses and shops. The whole building, which comprises a double set of baths, has six different entrances from the street, one of which, A, gives admission to the smaller set only, which was appropriated to the women, and five others to the male department, of which two, B and C, communicate directly with the furnaces, and the other three, D, E, F, with the bathing apartments, of which F, the nearest to the Forum, was the principal one; the other two, D and E, being on opposite sides of the building served for the convenience of those who lived on the north and east sides of the city. To have a variety of entrances was one of the qualities considered necessary to a well constructed set of baths.

Passing through the principal entrance, F, which is removed from the street by a narrow footway, and after descending three steps, the bather finds upon his left hand a small chamber or toilet room, 1, which contains a latrine. From passage, F, he proceeded to covered portico, 2, which ran around three sides of an open court, 3, and this portico and court together formed the vestibule of the baths, in which servants belonging to the establishment, as well as such of the slaves and attendants of the great and wealthy, whose services were not required in the interior, waited. Within the court the keeper of the baths who exacted the fee paid by each visitor, was also stationed, and accordingly in it was found the box for holding the money. The room, 4, which runs back from the portico, might have been apportioned to him, or if not, it might have been a waiting room for the convenience of the better classes while waiting the return of their acquaintances from the interior. In this court, likewise, as being the most public place, advertisements for the theater and other announcements of general interest were posted, one of which, announcing a gladiatorial show, still remains. The passageway, 5, is the corridor which leads from the entrance, E, to the vestibule; and the cell, 6, is a toilet room similar to 1. Number 7 is a passage of communication which leads into the chamber, 8, which served as a room for undressing. This room is also accessible from the street by the door, D, through the corridor, 9, in which a small niche is observable, which probably served for the station of another doorkeeper, who collected money from those entering from the north street. Here, then, is the center in which all the persons must have met before entering into the interior of the baths; and its locality, as well as other characteristic features of its fitting up, leave no room to doubt that it served as an undressing room. It does not appear that any general rule of construction was followed by the architects of antiquity with regard to the locality and temperature best adapted for a dressing room. The bathers were expected to take off their garments in the dressing room, not being permitted to enter the interior unless naked. The clothes were then delivered to a class of slaves whose duty it was to take charge of them. These men were notorious for dishonesty, and leagued with all the thieves of the city, so that they connived at the robberies they were placed there to prevent. To so great an extent were these robberies carried, that very severe laws were finally enacted making the crime of stealing from a bath a capital offence.

To return to the chamber itself, it is vaulted and spacious, with stone seats along two sides of the wall and a step for the feet below, slightly raised from the floor. Holes can still be seen in the walls which might have served for pegs on which the garments were hung when taken off; for in a small provincial town like Pompeii, where a robbery committed in the bath could scarcely escape detection, there would be no necessity for slaves to take charge of them. The dressing room was lighted by a window closed with glass, and the walls and ceilings were ornamented with stucco mouldings and painted yellow. There are no less than six doors to this chamber: one leading to the entrance, E, another to the entrance, D, a third to the small room, 11, a fourth to the furnaces, a fifth to the tepid apartment, and the sixth opened upon the cold baths, 10. The bath, which is coated with white marble, is 12 feet 10 inches in diameter, about 3 feet deep and has two marble steps to facilitate the descent into it, and a seat surrounding it at a depth of 10 inches from the bottom, for the purpose of enabling the bathers to sit down and wash themselves. It is probable that many persons contented themselves with cold baths only, instead of going through the severe course of perspiration in the warm apartments; and as the frigidarium could have had no effect alone in baths like these, the natatio must be referred to when it is said that at one period cold baths were in such request that scarcely any others were used.

There is a platform or ambulatory around the bath, also of marble, and four inches of the same material disposed at regular intervals around the walls, with pedestals for statues probably placed in them. The ceiling is vaulted and the chamber lighted by a window in the center. The annexed woodcut represents a frigidarium with its cold bath at one extremity, supposed to have formed a part of the Formian Villa of Cicero, to whose age the style of construction, the use of the simple Doric order, undoubtedly belongs. The bath itself, into which water still continues to flow from a neighboring spring, is placed under the alcove, and the two doors on each side opened into small chambers.

In the cold bath of Pompeii the water ran into the basin through a spout of bronze and was carried off again through a conduit on the opposite side. It was also furnished with a waste pipe under the coping to prevent the water from running over.

No. 11 is a small chamber on the side opposite to the frigidarium, which might have served for shaving or for keeping unguents or strigils; and from the centers of the side of the frigidarium, the bather who intended to go through the process of warm bathing and sudation entered into 12, the tepidarium.

The tepidarium did not contain water, either at Pompeii or at the baths of Hippias, but was merely heated with warm air of an agreeable temperature, in order to prepare the body for the great heat of the vapor and warm baths; and, upon returning, to obviate the danger of too sudden transition to the open air.

In the baths of Pompeii, this chamber served likewise as a disrobing room 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. One of these compartments, known as an Atlantes, is shown in the annexed woodcut.

In addition to this service there can be little doubt that this apartment was used as a depository for unguents and a room for anointing, which service was performed by slaves. For the purpose of anointing, the common people used oil simply or sometimes scented, but the more wealthy classes indulged in the greatest extravagances with regard to their perfumes and unguents. These they evidently procured from the elæothesium of the baths, or brought with them in small glass bottles, hundreds of which have been discovered in different excavations made in various parts of Italy.

From the tepidarium, a door which closed by its own weight, to prevent the admission of cold air, opened into No. 13, the thermal chamber. After having gone through the regular course of perspiration, the Romans made use of instruments called strigils, 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 come in from violent exercise. 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. 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. The Emperor while bathing one day, observing an old soldier, whom he had formerly known among the legions, rubbing his back as the cattle do against the marble walls of the chamber, asked him why he converted the walls into a strigil, and learning that he was too poor to keep a slave he gave him one, and money for his maintenance. On the following day, upon his return to the bath, he found a whole row of old men rubbing themselves in the same manner against the wall, in the hope of experiencing the same good fortune from the prince's liberality; but instead of taking the hint, he had them all called up and told them to scrub one another.

The strigil was by no means a blunt instrument, consequently its edge was softened by the application of oil which was dropped on it from a small vessel. This vessel had a narrow neck, so as to discharge its contents drop by drop. Augustus is related to have suffered from an over violent use of this instrument. Invalids and persons of delicate habit made use of sponges, which Pliny says answered for towels as well as strigils. They were finally dried with towels and anointed.

The common people were supplied with these necessaries in the baths, but the more wealthy carried their own with them.

After the operation of scraping and rubbing dry, they retired into or remained in the tepidarium until they thought it prudent to encounter the open air. But it does not appear to have been customary to bathe in the water, when there was any, which was not the case at Pompeii nor at the Baths of Hippias, either of the tepidarium or frigidarium; the temperature only of the atmosphere in the two chambers being of consequence to break the sudden change from the extreme hot to cold. Returning now to the frigidarium, 8, which according to the directions of Vitruvius has a passage, 14, communicating with the mouth of the furnace, e, and passing down that passage we reach the chamber, 15, into which the præfurnium projects, and which has also an entrance from the street, B, appropriated to those who had charge of the fires. There are two stairways in it, one leading to the roof of the baths, and the other to the coppers which contained the water. Of these there were three, one of which contained the hot water, caldarium; the second, the tepid, tepidarium; and the last, the cold, frigidarium. The warm water was introduced into the warm bath by means of a conduit pipe, marked on the plan, and conducted through the wall. Underneath the caldarium was placed the furnace which served to heat the water and give out streams of warm air into the hollow cells of the hypocanstum. These coppers were constructed in the same manner as is represented in the engraving from the Thermæ of Titus; the one containing hot water being placed immediately over the furnace, and as the water was drawn out from these it was supplied from the next, the tepidarium, which was already considerably heated, from its contiguity to the furnace and the hypocaust below it, so that it supplied the deficiency of the former without materially diminishing its temperature; and the space in the last two was in turn filled up from the farthest removed, which contained the cold water received direct from the square reservoir behind them. Behind the coppers there is another corridor, 16, leading into the court, 17, appropriated to the servants of the baths, and which has also the conveniences of an immediate communication with the street by the door, C.

We now proceed to the adjoining set of baths, which were assigned to the women. The entrance is by the door, A, which conducts into a small vestibule, 18, thence into the apodyterium, 19, which, like the one in the men's baths, has a seat on either side built up against the wall. This room opens upon a cold bath, 20, answering to the natiatio 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 there is another doorway which leads to the tepidarium, 21, which also communicates with the thermal chamber, 22, on one side of which is a warm bath in a square recess. The floor of this chamber is suspended and its walls perforated for flues, like the corresponding one in the men's baths.

The comparative smallness and inferiority of the fittings up in this suit of baths has induced some Italian antiquaries to throw a doubt upon the fact of their being assigned to women, and ingeniously suggest that they were a set of old baths, to which the larger ones were subsequently added when they became too small for the increasing wealth and population of the city. But the story already quoted of the consul's wife who turned the men out of their bath at Teanum for her convenience, seems sufficiently to negative such a supposition and to prove that the inhabitants of ancient Italy, if not more selfish, were certainly less gallant than their successors. In addition to this, Vitruvius expressly enjoins that the baths of the men and women, though separate, should be contiguous to each other, in order that they might be supplied from the same boilers and hypocaust; directions that are here fulfilled to the letter, as a glance at the plans will demonstrate.

Notwithstanding the ample account which has been given of the plans and usages respecting baths in general, something yet remains to be said about that particular class denominated thermæ, of which establishment the baths, in fact, constituted the smallest part. The thermæ, properly speaking, were a Roman adaptation of the Greek gymnasium. The thermæ contained a system of baths in conjunction with conveniences for athletic games and youthful sports, places in which rhetoricians declaimed, poets recited and philosophers lectured, as well as porticos and vestibules for the idle, and libraries for the studious. 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. It may be said that they began and ended with the Empire, for it was not until the time of Augustus that these magnificent structures were commenced. M. Agrippa was the first who afforded these luxuries to his countrymen by bequeathing to them the thermæ and gardens which he had erected in the Campus Martius. The Pantheon, 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.

The example set by Agrippa was followed by Nero and afterward by Titus, the ruins of whose thermæ are still visible, covering a vast extent, partly under ground and partly above the Esquiline Hill.