Roman bath

“ In the earlier stages of Roman history a much greater delicacy was observed with respect to promiscuous bathing, even among men, than obtained at a later period. Virtue passed away as wealth increased, and the public baths became places of meeting and amusement where not only did men bathe together in numbers, but even men and women stripped and bathed promiscuously in the same bath.
Some idea of the magnitude of the baths at Rome can be gained from a statement of the number of bathers they could accommodate at one time. ”

“ Lucas's Bath being a plain hall without piers, Sutherland assumed the same form for the hall of the great Roman Bath, and altogether omitted the arcades that divide it into three aisles. (5) Not to dwell on other errors built on the baseless fabric of conjecture, it is evident that Sutherland imagined a system of baths existed west of the great Roman Bath similar in all respects to that known to exist east of the great Roman Bath. But here, again, theory has been upset by facts. ”

“ The bath-room, with its warm pipes, its great wooden tubs, with the carved gilt garlands round them, its lounges for cooling, its little tables spread with a dainty supper, still preserved a souvenir of Roman luxury. People used to bathe in company, sometimes men and women together (as we still do at the sea-side) , their heads beautifully dressed and adorned with flowers, their bodies hidden up to the neck in their great cask-like baths, where the water was often thickened with scented bran or strewn with a dust of salutary herbs. ”

“ Bathrooms are rare, and the habit of the daily bath is almost unknown in a city which once boasted the finest baths the world has seen.
If the Roman does not know how to make himself comfortable indoors, no one knows better how to enjoy himself in the open air. The ragged loafer suns himself in the public squares, the workman dozes away his dinner hour at full length under the shelter of a [Pg 100] wall; it is in the streets that a Roman holiday is spent. ”

“ The Roman’s most amiable idiosyncrasy was his devotion to the bath. Every considerable house had an elaborate bathing department with at least a hot room built over a furnace, and a cold room with a swimming-tank. But there were also public baths, on an ever-increasing scale of magnificence. Agrippa alone built 170 of them at Rome. Rich and poor alike made it their daily practice to bathe after exercise, just before their principal meal in the early afternoon. The custom of the noon-tide siesta was universal, except with prodigies of industry like Cicero. ”

“ That the existence of the great Roman Bath has been transferred from the region of conjecture to the region of fact we owe entirely to the enthusiasm and unwearied zeal of Major Davis, and no fair mind can deny him the credit of being the practical discoverer of the great Roman Bath. ”

“ There is no occasion to be wise beyond what is written: 'When, as we may suppose, they have run a length proportionable to their width, they compose a bath, which may indeed be called great, 96ft. by 68ft.' The fact is, Sutherland supposed that the dimensions of the great Roman Bath would observe the same relative proportions as Lucas's Bath. ”

“ Lean persons should be wary of the Turkish bath, while the victim of corpulency must avoid the Russian. The Roman bath, in reality an oil bath, is productive of flesh, therefore beneficial to badly nourished bodies. Bathing should never be indulged in directly after eating and never carried to the point of over-exertion. ”

“ The Hot Baths at Rome.—The Thermæ of Stabiæ.—A Tilt at Sun Dials.—A Complete Bath, as the Ancients Considered It; the Apartments, the Slaves, the Unguents, the Strigillæ.—A Saying of the Emperor Hadrian.—The Baths for Women.—The Reading Room.—The Roman Newspaper.—The Heating Apparatus.
The Romans were almost amphibious. They bathed themselves as often as seven times per diem; and young people of style passed a portion of the day, and often a part of the night, in the warm baths. Hence the importance which these establishments assumed in ancient times. ”

“ The anointment of the body with oils was one of the characteristics of a Roman bath. The practice was indulged in by people of both sexes, and the time when applied depended much on the treatment the bather was taking. For instance, most bathers anointed the body as the finishing touch of the bath, while some bathers applied the oil before going to the hot or sweat room.
Interior of the Frigidarium or Cold Bath, Caracalla
No luxury can be monopolized by the rich, and it was not long before public bathing establishments, in which a small entrance fee was charged, were built by private capital. ”

“ ON THE EXCAVATIONS OF THE ROMAN BATHS AT BATH. Re-printed from the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society. Vol. VIII., part I.
Leland, on his visit to Bath in the year 1530, with tolerable fulness describes the baths, and after completing his description of the King's Bath goes on to say "Ther goith a sluse out of this Bath and servid in Tymes past with Water derivid out of it 2 places in Bath Priorie usid for Bathes: els voide; for in them be no springes;" ”

“ All authorities seem to be agreed in finding here the origin of the revival of the public bath. It is to Rome first, and later to Islam, the lineal inheritor of classic culture, that we owe the cult of water and of physical purity. Even to-day the Turkish bath, which is the most popular of elaborate methods of bathing, recalls by its characteristics and its name the fact that it is a Mohammedan survival of Roman life. ”

“ She was off duty for all of that day and night and was to dine with Flexinna and Vocco. In the course of the pestilence they had inherited a magnificent abode on the Esquiline. In particular it had a private bath with a large swimming-pool. The Vestals were the only ladies in Rome who might not enjoy the magnificent public baths, to which all Roman society flocked every afternoon, somewhat as we moderns throng a beach at a fashionable seaside resort. Brinnaria, who loved swimming, felt the deprivation keenly. The Atrium had luxurious baths, but no swimming-pool. ”

“ In the sixteen provinces of the Roman Empire every larger town had a free bath or two, and our entire neglect of this branch of public hygiene is certainly the ugliest feature of our boasted civilization; but our children at least might make shift with the natural bathing facilities which can be reached by a short excursion beyond the precincts of all but the unluckiest cities. A cool bath at the end of a sweltering day can be delightful enough to reconcile a poor city slave to his misery ”

“ The necessity and meaning of light and cleanliness, the indifference of the human body to all natural changes of temperature, when strengthened and maintained in health by wholesome food and efficient bathing, might lead to the taking of effective measures to restore the old Roman bath to general use. ”

“ Near to the Feathers Hotel, in Bridge-street, in a cellar now occupied as an earthenware shop, are the remains of the Roman hypocaust and sweating bath, the use of which appears to have been very general amongst the Romans, and regarded by them as one of their chief luxuries. From the details which have been handed down to us by ancient historians, respecting these curious erections, we learn that they were not only constructed so as to secure the comfort and convenience of the bathers to the fullest p. ”

“ I believe the apartments necessary to complete the system of the modern Turkish bath, or rather the ancient bath, with the requisite waiting rooms and corridors, stood there.
After these discoveries of the middle of the last century but very partial excavations were made in proximity to the baths, and those that were made were never sunk to a depth sufficient to reach the ruins. The flood of hot water had no drain to carry it off, and was maintained at such a height in the soil that whenever a sinking was made, it was impossible without pumping machinery to sufficiently overcome it. ”

“ Assisted by Mr. {11} Palmer, an ingenious builder, I have ventured to exhibit a complete ground plot of the Roman Baths,7 a discovery of no less curiosity than instruction.... This ground plot is exhibited in the plate annexed (Pl. V.) as far as the earth is cleared away. The remainder is supposed and drawen out in dotted lines. The plate exhibits also an elevation of the section of the wing discovered, with references."8
Dr. Sutherland published the plan of the bath with this description having "drawen out in dotted lines" the supposed arrangement of the baths. ”

“ Thus, in the Roman baths, the spaces for serious athletic contests, which had formed the principal part of the Greek gymnasion, were wholly subordinated to the departments for indolent luxury and light amusements. The primitive bathing-chambers were enlarged to magnificent halls, which offered the greatest scope for the development of that interior architecture which was cultivated with such great success by the Romans. ”

“ Similarly, in a Roman style, a Pompeian court seems suggestive of the arrangement of a fine frigidarium, with its cubicula for couches, and its central area and fountain.
The above are but theoretical suggestions as to what might be done should the bath make such progress in this country as may necessitate the provision of handsome public baths for the people. In everyday practice there is not a great field for elaborate designing in baths. ”

“ Ever since my “Roman baths’ round,” the contrast of Imperial Rome and our London has been popping up. Why have not we, at any rate, one or two public baths on something like the old Roman scale? Did they really let any Roman citizen bathe free of charge? Could we possibly do that? and how? Well, after all, it only wants a Cæsar to work the “panem et circenses” trick astutely. And have not we got at last our equivalent for Nero or Titus in our County Council? ”

“ The bath was sunk in the floor as the baths of luxurious Roman Empresses used to be, and as nowadays baths sometimes are, in model dwellings. (Only I am told that some people keep their coals in the baths—which is quite useless because coals are always black however much you wash them.) ”

“ There seems to be a common error in turning up Roman remains, that we hear of from those who perhaps may be well excused for the supposition,—if a Roman hypocaust is found, it is at once dubbed a bath ”

“ An intelligent study of old plans, and of the writings of those who have given their attention to the elucidation of the special purposes to which the various apartments of the Roman Thermæ were devoted, serves in no small degree to a complete understanding of the problems involved in the perfecting of the bath in modern times. ”

“ Enclosing the bath all round the four sides are six steps, the sixth landing the bather on the Schola, or platform. The riser of the bottom steps varies in depth from 15in. to 11in., with a tread of 14in., the next riser is 14in. with a tread of 11in., as also is the next step and the one following. The step above has a rise of 12in., and a tread of 14in. This step was scarcely covered with water, but it is evident the water flowed over it when bathers agitated it. The riser or the step above, 10in. ”

“ Resting on the platform, formed by these three steps, is a quarter circle pedestal,17 on which stands a large stone 6ft. 8in. long and 9in. thick, over-hanging its base, and presenting a concave line towards the bath with an ovolo section in its thickness. This stone spans a large channel 2ft. 3in. wide, within which is fitted a very thick lead pipe, gradually narrowed horizontally and turned up under the ovolo concave stone. Through this aperture the mineral water was thrown into the bath in a sort of spray, so that it might be cooled in its passage. ”

“ Vitruvius, cum annotat. G. Philandri, Lugd. 1586, 4to, p. 279. Philander says that the ancients conveyed from subterranean stoves, into the apartments above, the steam of boiling water; but of this I have found no proof. If this be true, the Roman baths must have been like the Russian sweating-baths. [Many of the large establishments and work-shops in this country are now heated by means of hot air, hot water, or steam circulating through a ramified system of pipes.] ”

“ Baths of Rome.—When Greece was subjugated by the Romans, the Romans carried back with them to Italy the taste for the bath. They erected thermæ of great magnificence, and in so great number, that at one period there were nearly nine hundred public baths in Rome. Agrippa alone is said to have built one hundred and sixty, while Mecænas has the credit of possessing the first private bath. The most famed of the public baths were those of Titus, Paulus Æmilius, Diocletian, Caracalla, and Agrippa. ”

“ The colonnades and the large waiting-rooms gave ample space for the lounge after the bath, which the Roman prized so highly.
378 Baths of Diocletian.—The irregularity of plan and the waste of space in the Pompeian thermae just described are due to the fact that it was rebuilt at various times with all sorts of alterations and additions. Nothing can be more symmetrical than the thermae of the later emperors, as a type of which is shown in Fig. ”

“ Their vast halls are cold and dreary. 270 The pavements of marble and mosaic are not half so comfortable as a plain wooden floor covered with a carpet. There is no gas—they are lighted only with candles; while the liberal supply of water which we have in our American cities is unknown. A lady living in one of the grandest palaces in Rome, tells me that every drop of water used by her family has to be carried up those tremendous staircases, to ascend which is almost like climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Of course a bath is a luxury, and not, as with us, an universal comfort. ”