BATHS, Balnea, denote large ornamented buildings, erected by the ancients for the sake of bathing. Baths made a part of the ancient gymnasia, though they were frequented more for the sake of pleasure than of health.
The most magnificent baths were those of Titus, Paulus, and Diocletian, of which some ruins still remain. It is said that at Rome there were eight hundred and fifty-six public baths. Fabricius justly observes, 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; and Macrobius tells us of one Sergius Oratus, a fantastical voluptuary, who had baths suspended in the air.
According to Dion, Mæcenas was the first who erected a bath at Rome; but there were instances of public baths prior to his time, although they were small, poorly decorated, and of cold water only. Agrippa, while ædile, built a hundred and sixty places for bathing, where the citizens might be accommodated either with hot or with cold water gratis; and, following his 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 inlaid with the richest marble, and wrought according to the rules of the most delicate architecture. The wealthy had baths, frequently very magnificent ones, at their own residences, especially after the practice of pillaging the provinces had commenced; but these they only used on extraordinary occasions. The great men, and even the 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 the palestræ or gymnasia, of which they were considered a part; and consisted of seven different apartments, usually separated from one another, and intermixed with other buildings belonging to different sorts of exercises. These were, the cold bath, frigidæ lavatio; the clæthesum, or room where they were anointed with oil; the frigidarium, or cooling room; the propigeum, or entrance of the hypocaustum or stove; the vaulted room for sweating in, or vapour-bath, called concamerata sudatio, or tepidarium; the laconicum, or dry stove; and the hot bath, called calida lavatio. With respect to the baths disjoined from the
palestræ, they appear to have been usually double; one for men and another for women, but so near that the same furnace heated both. The middle part was occupied by a large basin, which 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. These baths were vaulted over, and only received light from the top.
In the Roman baths, the first part which appeared was a large basin, called χολυμείζα in Greek, and nativio 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, hot bath, cold bath, and tepidarium. The two stoves, called laconicum and tepidarium, were circular, and joined together; and their floor was hollow and suspended, in order to receive the heat of a large furnace, which communicated with the stoves through the vacuities of their floor. This furnace also heated another room called vasarium, in which were three large brazen vessels called milliaria, containing respectively hot, warm, and cold water, and so disposed that, by means of siphons and pipes, the water might be made to pass out of one or other of them into the bath, in order to adjust its temperature. Such is the description given by Vitruvius.
At three in the afternoon, which Pliny calls hora octava et nona, the Romans repaired to the baths, public or private. This was called the hora balnei, or the "bath hour." In summer the earliest hour of admission was eight, and in winter nine; whence the expression of Pliny applied to the hour of general resort. The public baths were opened at the sound of a bell, and always at the same hour. Those who came too late stood a chance of obtaining only cold water. The bathers commenced with hot water; but when the pores had been thus opened, and a profuse perspiration produced, they thought it prudent 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 blunt knife or strigil, such as may still be found in the cabinets of the curious. Bathing was succeeded by unction and perfuming, after which they went fresh to the cænaculum.
The Romans, when they found their stomachs overloaded, proceeded to the bath. This we learn from Juvenal, who inveighs against those who, having gorged themselves with eating, were forced to go into the baths to seek relief. They also repaired to a bath to refresh themselves after any considerable fatigue or travel; and hence Plautus says, on one occasion, 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 such excess that many were ruined, and some had brought themselves to such a state that they could not take food without first bathing. The emperor Titus is said to have lost his life in consequence of the artificial habit thus induced. Hence Pliny inveighs against those physicians who held that hot baths aided digestion; and the emperor Hadrian laid a restraint on the immoderate humour of bathing, by a public edict, prohibiting all persons from bathing before the eighth hour.
Batus of Agrippa, Therma Agrippina, were built of brick, but painted in enamel. Those of Nero, Therma Neroniana, were not only furnished with fresh water, but had the sea brought into them; those of Caracalla were adorned with two hundred marble columns, and furnished with sixteen hundred marble seats, which, Lipsius assures us, were so large, that eighteen hundred persons might conveniently bathe in them at the same time. But the baths of Diocletian, thermæ Diocletiana, surpassed all the rest in magnificence; one hundred and forty thousand
men having been employed many years in building them. A considerable portion of this vast structure, as well as of the baths of Caracalla, still remains; and, from the dimensions of the arches, the beauty of the pillars, the profusion of foreign marble, the curious moulding of the roofs, the multitude of spacious apartments, and a variety of other circumstances, these ruins may be regarded as the most remarkable relics of ancient taste and splendour.