BATHS, Balnea, in Architecture, denote large pompous buildings among the ancients, erected for the sake of bathing. Baths made a part of the ancient gymnasia, though they were frequented more for the sake of pleasure than health.
The most magnificent baths were those of Titus, Paulus Aemilius, and Diocletian, of which there are some ruins still remaining. It is said that at Rome there were 856 public baths. Fabricius adds, that the excessive luxury of the Romans appeared in nothing more visible than in their baths. Seneca complains, that the baths of plebeians were filled from silver pumps; and that the freedmen trod on gems.
Macrobius tells us of one Sergius Oratus, a voluptuary, who had pendant baths hanging in the air.
According to Dion, Mæcenas was the first who made a bath at Rome: yet there are instances of public baths prior to this; but they were of cold water, small, and poorly decorated. Agrippa, in his ædilate, built 160 places for bathing, where the citizens might be accommodated, either with hot or cold gratis. After this example, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Severus, Gordian, Aurelian, Maximian, Diocletian, and most of the emperors who studied to gain the affections of the people, erected baths laid with the richest marble, and wrought according to the rules of the most delicate architecture. The rich had baths at home, and frequently very magnificent ones, especially after the time that the practice of pillaging the provinces had begun; but they only used them on extraordinary occasions. The great men, and even emperors themselves, sometimes bathed in public with the rest of the people. Alexander Severus was the first who allowed the public baths to be opened in the night-time during the heats of summer.
The Greek baths were usually annexed to palestræ or gymnasia, of which they were considered as a part. These baths consisted of seven different apartments, usually separated from each other, and intermixed with other buildings belonging to the other sorts of exercises. These were, 1st, The cold bath, frigida lavatio; 2dly, The elaotheftum, or room where they were anointed with oil; 3dly, The frigidarium, or cooling room; 4thly, The propnigeum, or entrance of the hypocaustum or stove; 5thly, The vaulted room for sweating in, or vapour-bath, called concamerata sudatio, or tepidarium; 6thly, The laconicum, or dry stove; 7thly, The hot bath, called callida lavatio.
As for the baths separate from the palestræ, they appear to have been usually double, one for men, the other for women; but so near, that the same furnace heated both. The middle part was possessed by a large basin that received water by several pipes, and was surrounded by a balustrade, behind which there was an area for the reception of those who waited to use the bath. They were vaulted over, and only received light from the top.
In the Roman baths, the first part that appeared was a large basin, called κολυμβώδεια in Greek, and nataio or piscina in Latin. In the middle was the hypocaustum, which had a row of four apartments on each side, called balnearia: these were the stove, the bath, cold bath, and tepidarium. The two stoves, called laconicum and tepidarium, were circular and joined together. Their floor was hollow and suspended, in order to receive the heat of a large furnace, which was communicated to the stoves through the vacuities of their floor. This furnace also heated another room called vasarium, in which were three large brazen vessels called millaria, respectively containing hot, warm, and cold water; which were so disposed, that the water might be made to pass by syphons and pipes out of one or other of them into the bath, in order to adjust its temperature. The description is given by Vitruvius. At three in the afternoon, which is what Pliny calls hora octava et nona, the Romans all repaired to the baths, either the public or the private ones: this
was called the bath hour, hora balnei, which in winter was at nine, in summer at eight. The public baths were all opened at the sound of a bell, and always at the same hour. Those who came too late, stood a chance for bathing in cold water.
They began with hot water; after which, as the pores were now opened, and might give room for too plentiful a perspiration, they thought it necessary for their health to close them again, either with the cold bath, or at least with a sprinkling of cold water. During the bath, the body was scraped with a kind of knives, or small strigils, such as are still found in the cabinets of the curious. After bathing succeededunction and perfuming, from which they went fresh to supper.
The Romans, when they found their stomachs overcharged with meat, went to the bath, as we learn from Juvenal, who inveighs against those who, having gorged themselves with eating, were forced to go into the baths to give themselves relief. They found also that a bath was good to refresh themselves after some considerable fatigue or travel, as Celsus tells us; which makes Plautus say, that all the baths in this world were not sufficient to remove the weariness he felt. After Pompey's time, the humour of bathing was carried to great excess, by which many were ruined, several having brought themselves to such a pitch, that they could not bear food without bathing first. The emperor Titus is said to have lost his life thereby. Hence Pliny inveighs severely against those physicians who held, that hot baths digested the food. The emperor Hadrian first laid a restraint on the immoderate humour of bathing, by a public edict, prohibiting all persons to bathe before the eighth hour.
BATHS of Agrippa, (thermæ Agrippinæ), were built of brick, but painted in enamel: those of Nero, thermæ Nerviniane, were not only furnished with fresh water, but even had the sea brought into them: those of Caracalla were adorned with 200 marble columns, and furnished with 1600 seats of the same matter. Lipfius assures us they were so large, that 1800 persons might conveniently bathe in them at the same time. But the baths of Diocletian, thermæ Diocletiane, surpassed all the rest in magnificence. One hundred and forty thousand men were employed many years in building them. Great part of these, as well as those of Caracalla, are still standing; and with the vast high arches, the beautiful and stately pillars, the extraordinary plenty of foreign marble, the curious vaulting of the roofs, the prodigious number of spacious apartments, and a thousand other ornaments, make one of the greatest curiosities of modern Rome.