BALNEARIUS FUR, in antiquity, a kind of thief who practised stealing the clothes of persons in the baths; sometimes also called fur balnearum. The crime of those thieves was a kind of sacrilege; for the hot baths were sacred: hence they were more severely punished than common thieves who stole out of private houses. The latter were acquitted with paying double the value of the thing stolen; whereas the former were punished with death.