Chapter I (1)

The Bath is an animal instinct: and, _par excellence_, a human instinct; it is as much a necessity of our nature as drink. We drink because we thirst--an _interior sense_. We bathe because water, the material of drink, is a desire of the outward man--an _exterior sense_. An animal, whether beast or bird, pasturing or straying near a limpid stream, first satisfies the inward sense, and then delights the outward sense. A man, be he savage or civilized, can no more resist the gratification of bathing his wearied limbs in a warm transparent pool than he can resist the cup of water when athirst. Instinct bids him bathe and be clean. To inquire--Who invented the act of drinking? would be as reasonable as to ask--Who invented the bath?

The bath is coeval with the earliest existence of man. Can it be doubted that our first parents bathed their newly-created limbs in the river that "went out of Eden to water the garden"? History teaches us, that the Phœnicians and ancient Greeks of all ranks, from the daughters of their kings down to the poorest citizens, were wont to bathe in rivers and in the sea, for the purpose of cleansing their bodies and refreshing and invigorating their frames. They had recourse to the bath when they ceased from sorrow and mourning, after great fatigues of whatever kind, before and during their meals, and at the conclusion of their battles. Bathing was the first act of their lives, and it was a part of their funereal rites. The birth of Jupiter, the Thunderer, is celebrated by the poet Callimachus in the following lines:--

"As soon as you were born and saw the light,
Your mother's grateful burden and delight,
She sought for some _clear brook_ to purify
The body of so dear a progeny."

Again, of Alcestis, when about to lay down her life for her husband Admetus, it is written:--

"The pious dame, before the fatal day
Of her own exit, bathed her beauteous limbs
In _gentle rivulet_."

Plato, also, records how the good old philosopher Socrates, before he drank the fatal cup of hemlock that was to consign him to Hades, _bathed_ and _washed_ himself, that he might save the women, whose duty it was, their troublesome office.[1]

[1] "Part of the funereal rites of the Moors was to convey the corpse to the bath."--Urquhart, from "Mision Historial de Marueccos."

A short stage in the history of the bath leads us to the discovery of springs of hot water, hot vapour, and hot air; and these very possibly suggested to man's inventive mind the means of procuring so great a luxury by his own contrivance. Homer commends one of the sources of the Scamander for its warmth, and tells us how Andromache, with matronly care, prepared a hot bath for her husband Hector, against his return from battle:--

"Her fair-haired handmaids heat the brazen urn,
The BATH preparing for her lord's return."

We are taught also that Vulcan, or, as others say, Minerva, discovered certain _hot baths_ ([Greek: Hêrakleea loutra]) to Hercules, that he might replenish his strength after undergoing severe exertion and fatigue. And the Phœdrians, according to Homer, laid great stress upon the importance to the health and happiness of man of frequent changes of apparel, comfortable beds, and _hot baths_.

It is one of the marvels of the earth's history, that hot springs, or thermal springs, bubble upwards to the light, not only on Mount Ida, the source of the Scamander, but in countless other places and countries on the world's surface. These hot springs would appear to have invited man to their use by their pleasant aspect and by their warmth; and their enjoyment to have suggested the possibility of contriving artificially a similar luxury nearer to his threshold.

The word Hamâm, which is equivalent to thermal springs, is not unfrequently met with in the East as the name of a town or village in or near to which hot springs are found. Hamâm Ali, in the neighbourhood of ancient Nineveh, is an example of this kind. "The thermal spring is covered by a building, only commodious for half-savage people, yet the place is much frequented by persons of the better classes both from Baghdad and Mósul."[2] Captain Kennedy, in his "Travels in Algeria and Tunis," tells us of the hot springs of Hamâm Meskhoutin, which rise to the surface at a temperature of 203° of Fahrenheit, only 9° short of boiling, and are so abundant as to burst forth through any opening made accidentally in the ground. "The thermal waters, in flowing over the bank of the rivulet, have formed a calcareous deposit of great beauty, resembling a cascade of the purest white marble, tinged here and there with various shades of green and orange."

[2] F. W. Ainsworth: "Journey to Kalah Sherghat and Al Hadhr in 1840" (Transactions of the Geographical Society).

In Italy, near the town of Pozzuoli, are some natural thermal springs--the ancient Posidianæ, now called the Baths of Nero, of which the temperature of the water is 185°, while that of the vapour which rises from it is 122°. The spring is situated in a rocky cavern at the end of a long passage formed by a fissure in the rock, and in this way constitutes a natural bathing house.

In Germany, among others, are the thermal springs of Borcette, with a temperature of 171°; Carlsbad, in Bohemia, 165°; Wiesbaden, Ems, and Schlangenbad, in Nassau; Baden-Baden; Aix-la-Chapelle; Wildbad; and Ischl.

In Iceland are the far-famed Geysers; in the Southern Ocean the hot springs of Amsterdam Island; and many more are dispersed over the Continent of America; while in England there are the thermal springs of Bath, Bristol, Buxton, and Matlock.

The _heated rock_ and the _vaporization of water_ would seem to have originated the primitive idea of a hot-air and hot-vapour bath; and this idea we find carried out simultaneously in various parts of the world and amongst the rudest nations. Mr. Gent, in his "History of Virginia," describes the hot-vapour bath as employed by the American Indians.

"The doctor," he says, "takes three or four large stones, which, after having heated red-hot, he places in the middle of the stove, laying on them some of the inner bark of oak, beaten in a mortar, to keep them from burning; this being done, they (the Indians) creep in, six or eight at a time, or as many as the place will hold, and then close up the mouth of the stove, which is usually made like an oven in some bank near the water-side; in the meanwhile, the doctor, to raise a steam, after they have been stewing a little time, pours cold water on the stones, and now and then sprinkles the men to keep them from fainting; after they have sweat as long as they can well endure it, they sally out, and (though it be in the depth of winter) forthwith plunge themselves over head and ears in cold water, which instantly closes up the pores and preserves them from taking cold." After the bath, they are anointed like the Romans, the pomatum of the Indians being for the most part bear's-grease, containing a powder obtained by grinding the root of the yellow alkanet.

But we find this primitive form of bath nearer home than the American Continent--namely, in Ireland, although both the American and the Irish bath may, Mr. Urquhart suggests, have been derived from the same ancestry--that of the Phœnicians. In a foot-note appended to a page on the universality of the bath, in his "Pillars of Hercules,"[3] Mr. Urquhart gives the following very curious and very interesting account of the practice of sweating employed in former times in Ireland, as reported to him by a lady as a recollection of her childhood:--

[3] "The Pillars of Hercules; or, a Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848." By David Urquhart, M.P. 1850.

"With respect to the sweating-houses, as they are called, I remember about forty years ago seeing one in the island of Rathlin, and shall try to give you a description of it. It was built of basalt stones, very much in the shape of a bee-hive, with a row of stones inside, for the person to sit on when undergoing the operation. There was a hole at the top, and one near the ground, where the person crept in and seated him or herself, the stones having been heated in the same way as an oven for baking bread is, the hole on the top being covered with a sod while being heated, but I suppose removed to admit the person to breathe. Before entering, the patient was stripped quite naked, and on coming out, dressed again in the open air. The process was reckoned a sovereign cure for rheumatism and all sorts of pains and aches."

Dr. Haughton on the same subject remarks that:--"Two varieties of _Tig Allui_, or sweating-houses, exist in Ireland, one kind being capable of containing a good many persons, and the other only intended for a single occupant." The former is that just described: it is heated in the same way as an oven, by making a large fire of wood in the middle of the floor, and after the wood is burnt out, sweeping away the ashes. Besides the cure of rheumatism, the young girls who have tarnished their complexion in the process of burning kelp or sea-weed for the manufacture of soda, also resort to the Tig Allui for the purpose of clearing their skin. The usual time for remaining in the bath is under the half hour.

The second kind of Tig Allui--namely, that for the reception of a single person only--is described by Dr. Tucker, of Sligo, as follows:--

"It is built of stone and mortar, and brought to a round top. It is sufficiently large for one person to sit on a chair inside, the door being merely large enough to admit a person on his hands and knees. When any of the old people of the neighbourhood, men or women, are seized with pains, they at once have recourse to the sweat-house, which is brought to the proper temperature by placing therein a large turf fire, after the manner of an oven, which is left until it is burned quite down, the door being a flat stone and air-tight, and the roof, or outside of the house, being covered with clay, to the depth of about a foot, to prevent the least escape of heat. When the remains of the fire are taken out, the floor is strewn with green rushes, and the person to be cured is escorted to the bath by a second person carrying a pair of blankets. The invalid, having crept in, plants himself or herself in a chair, and there remains until the perspiration rolls off in large drops. When sufficiently operated on, he or she, as the case may be, is anxious to get out, and the person in waiting swaddles him up in the blankets, and off home, and then to bed. I have heard old people say that they would not have been alive, twenty years ago, only for the sweating-house.... Remains of the Tig Allui are also found in the county Tyrone, of the following dimensions:--five feet in height, nine in length, and four in width, being built of solid masonry, and shaped like a bee-hive at the top."

Another, and a very important step in the progress of the bath was the contrivance of a mode of heating by means of which the temperature might be made uniform, and might be regulated in any manner that should be required. The hot stones of the North American medicine-man were clearly a very bungling and uncertain expedient; little better than the warm skin of a newly-killed animal; and the wood fire of the Irish sweating-houses was more objectionable still, not only on account of the impossibility of regulating the heat, but also from the resulting impurity of the atmosphere and the danger of leaving fragments of the heated ashes on the floor. The next contrivance, and that which has continued to be the practice up to the present day, was the construction of a furnace under the floor--in other words, a _hypocaust_. Mr. Urquhart, speaking of the existence of baths among the Mexicans and their probable introduction by the Phœnicians, remarks:--"However magnificent their public monuments," their baths were "such as are found in almost every house in Morocco,--a small apartment seven feet square, with a cupola roof five to six feet high, and a slightly convex floor, under one side of which there is a fire, and a small low door to creep in by."

Reviewing the probable rise and progress of the bath, there seems little doubt that the bath took its origin in the East, the dwelling-place of our first parents, the birth-place of civilization and knowledge. It was known at a very early period in Phœnicia. Mr. Urquhart, in his recent work, "The Lebanon,"[4] relates his discovery of a Phœnician temple, or crypt, among the ruins of Baalbeck, or Baalbeth, _the House of Baal_--the Heliopolis, or _City of the Sun_, of the Greeks; in which were traces of the existence of the bath. "But the Phœnician crypt was not my only discovery. In a gap opening a few feet into the masonry, I found mortar hard as stone where exposed to the air, but soft within. Yet it was unlike other mortar; it was dark grey, with particles of charcoal; when I brought out some, it was recognised at once, and called _kissermil_, or ashes from the bath. Those ashes are still used in this country for mortar, which with this addition becomes as hard as stone. According to the old construction, the baths were heated as an oven is, brushwood and dung being used as well as wood. The combustion not being complete, there remain various chemical compounds, alkali, ammonia, sulphate and carbonate of lime, and carbon, which by entering into new combinations, bind the mortar into a distinct substance."

[4] "The Lebanon (Mount Souria): a History and a Diary." By David Urquhart. 1860.

"One thing is clear, there were baths at Baalbeck. In the elaborately finished bath of Emir Beshir at Ibtedeen, one peculiarity struck me as evidencing their high antiquity in this land. It was the absence of cocks; instead of which simple plugs or clots of cloth were used for the pipes which brought the water into the basins. As the Romans and Greeks used cocks, the art of the bath had not been derived from them, but traced beyond them. Still it was curious to observe these ashes in the midst of Cyclopic blocks. And yet why should not the bath have belonged to the very earliest period of human society? It is sufficiently excellent to be from the beginning."

"I remembered that in opening up the pavement of an ancient bath on the western coast of Africa, I had come upon a somewhat similar deposit, in large quantities, under the floor. This was _gazul_, the product of a certain mountain in Morocco, resembling soapstone, but composed of an admixture of silex, alumina, magnesia, and lime, and which has the peculiar property of polishing the skin when rubbed upon it, and so cleaning off the dead epidermis. Being used for this purpose largely in the baths, the grey deposit under the ruin in question is easily accounted for. Might not this same _gazul_, mixed with kissermil, have been the deposit which I took for mortar at Baalbeck?"

For the purpose of removing the dead epidermis from the surface of the skin, "four processes have been adopted throughout the families of the human race, and in successive times. The simple, the natural, the first hit upon, was the rubbing down with the ball of the hand, which is still the process used in this country for currying horses of high breed. The three others, of a more refined and, I may say, historical character, are, scraping, rolling, and polishing. The scraping is with the _strigil_, which we know of from the Romans and Greeks, but which is figured on the tombs of Lycia, and the Roman name of which is derived from Mauritania. The rolling is that which we see to-day practised by the Turks. The polishing is with the _gazul_, and practised by the Moors, to whom it is confined, and who alone possess the admirable substance which is used for it. Now, if _gazul_ was used by the early inhabitants of Baalbeck, their bathing process belonged to the last of these systems, and they carried on a traffic with Morocco."

From Phœnicia, from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, a knowledge of the bath may have spread along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, through Egypt, Tripoli, and Algiers, to Morocco and the Pillars of Hercules; or it may, as Mr. Urquhart suggests, have been earliest in use among the nations of Mauritania, and have been carried by the Moors into the countries of the East. From Phœnicia, the knowledge of the bath may have followed the line of caravan communication into Russia, Persia, China, and Hindostan; while the ships of the then greatest maritime country in the world would have carried it to Greece, to Ireland, and to America. The bath is a common practice in Russia; it is also well known in Persia, Hindostan, and China; and, as we have already seen, its use in North America, in Mexico, and Ireland, probably dates back to a very early age. Its progress in Europe we shall presently see.

Speaking of the mode of heating the bath in Mexico and Morocco, I have used the word hypocaust; this word is of Greek origin, and signifies _under-fire_--that is, the fire is placed under the thing to be heated; for example, under the foundation of the bath or of the house. The Greeks and the Romans had no other means of heating their houses than this; there was no open fire, but a fire under the foundation, from which flues were carried upwards in the walls of the building. When a great heat was required, as in the baths, the foundation was supported on short columns (_pilæ_), and the entire space between the columns was occupied with fire, while numerous ascending flues distributed the heat around the rooms. Now it is curious to find that at the present hour the Chinese continue the same means of heating their houses.

That they also employ the sudatory process of bathing, is shown by the following extract from Mr. Henry Ellis's "Journal of an Embassy to China," published in 1817:--

"Near this temple (at Nankin) is a public vapour bath, called, or rather miscalled, the Bath of Fragrant Water, where dirty Chinese may be stewed clean for ten chens, or three farthings; the bath is a small room of one hundred feet area, divided into four compartments, and paved with coarse marble; the heat is considerable, and as the number admitted into the bath has no limit but the capacity of the area, the stench is excessive; altogether, I thought it the most disgusting cleansing apparatus[5] I had ever seen, and worthy of this nasty nation."

[5] What would Mr. Ellis say of a country in which there existed no "cleansing apparatus" whatever?--for example, his native country.

The Baths of Greece are celebrated for their magnificence; they formed parts of buildings of vast extent and grandeur, termed Gymnasia. The gymnasium was an institution of the Spartans of Lacedæmonia or Laconia, and spread thence to other parts of Greece, and notably to the metropolis of Attica, the famed city, Athens. The gymnasium was sufficiently large to accommodate several thousands of persons, and afforded space for the assembly of philosophers, men of science, and poets, who delivered lectures to their scholars and recited their verses; and for the pursuit of the favourite games and exercises of their youths and men--namely, leaping, running, throwing the disc or quoit, and wrestling; the purpose of these exercises being to give strength to the people and make them accomplished warriors.

The different parts of a gymnasium or palæstra, were as follows:--

1. The PORTICOS, in which were numerous rooms furnished with seats for the professors and their scholars.

2. The EPHEBEUM, a large space in which the ephebi or youths planned and practised their exercises.

3. The APODYTERIUM, or undressing room; also called Gymnasterium, or the room for becoming nude.

4. The ELAIOTHESIUM, or anointing room, which was equally used by those who were preparing for exercise, and those who had completed their bath.

5. The KONISTERIUM, or dusting room, where the bodies of the wrestlers and other athletæ, after being anointed, were well dusted over; probably as a defence to the skin against injury.

6. The PALÆSTRA, or wrestling courts, which were bedded with sand more or less deep, like the modern circus, in order to break the fall of the combatants when they were thrown to the ground.

7. The SPHÆRISTERIUM, or court for ball exercise and raquets.

8. The PERISTYLE, or PIAZZA, within which was the area of the Peristyle, for walking, and the exercises of leaping, quoits, ball, and wrestling.

9. Then there were XYSTI, or covered courts, for the use of the wrestlers in bad weather; XYSTA, which were walks between walls open at the top and intended for hot weather; and a XYSTIC SYLVIS, or forest; the intervals of the numerous ornamental columns of the building being so called, and being devoted to walking exercise.

10. Next came the BATHS, which were hot, cold, and tepid water baths; and a stove, or Laconicum, named after the city of Laconia and the Lacedæmonians, from whom the Athenians derived their knowledge of the hot-air bath.

11. And lastly, there was the STADIUM, a segment of an ellipse, which received its name from being one hundred paces long, equal to six hundred feet, or something less than an eighth of a mile. The Stadium was furnished with rows of seats for spectators, and was intended for the exhibition of feats of running and exercises upon a large scale.

The most remarkable Stadium known was one erected by Lycurgus on the banks of the river Ilissus. It was built of Pentellick marble, and was so magnificent a structure, that Pausanias the historian, in describing it, informs his readers that they would not believe what he was about to tell them, "it being a wonder to all that beheld it, and of that stupendous bigness that one would judge it a mountain of white marble."

There were several gymnasia in Athens, the most noteworthy being, the Lyceum, the Academia, and the Cynosarges.

The LYCEUM, founded on the banks of the river Ilissus, was consecrated to Apollo; and not without reason, says Plutarch, but upon a good and rational account, since from the same deity that cures our diseases and restores our health, we may reasonably expect strength and ability to contend in our exercises. The Lyceum is also interesting to us as being the institution in which Aristotle taught philosophy. Aristotle was wont to lecture to his scholars while walking, and his disciples were therefore called Peripatetics; he continued his teaching daily until the hour of anointing, which, with the Greeks, was a preparation for dinner.

The ACADEMIA was situated in the suburbs of the city, on a piece of ground that had been reclaimed from the marsh by draining and planting. It was called after an old hero named Academicus. Plutarch informs us that it was beset with shady woods and solitary walks fit for study and meditation; in witness whereof another writer says:--

"In Academus' shady walks;"

and Horace writes:--

"In Hecademus' groves to search the truth."

Plato taught philosophy in the Academia; but having in consequence of the unhealthy nature of the soil caught the ague, he was advised to relinquish it for the Lyceum. "No!" said the old man, "I prefer the Academy, for that it keeps the body under, lest by too much health it should become rebellious, and more difficult to be governed by the dictates of reason; as men prune vines when they spread too far, and lop off the branches that grow too luxuriant."

The CYNOSARGES was also in the suburbs of Athens, not far distant from the Lyceum. It was dedicated to the god of strength, Hercules; and was interesting from its admission of strangers, and half-blood Athenians. Its name is derived from the circumstance of a white dog seizing upon a part of the victim that was being sacrificed to Hercules by Diomus; and was the origin of the sect of philosophers known as the "Cynics."

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. In these baths was centred all that was most perfect in material, elaborate in workmanship, elegant in design, and beautiful in art. Nothing was thought too grand or too magnificent for their decoration. Superb marbles brought from the most distant parts of the world; the choicest selections from the riches of their conquests, the curious and wonderful in nature and in art; precious gems and metals; and the finest works of the painter and the sculptor. That beautiful production of the sculptor's art, the Laocoon, was discovered among the ruins of the Baths of Titus, and the celebrated Farnese Hercules in those of Caracalla.

The Baths of Agrippa were constructed of brick coated with enamel. Those of Nero were supplied with water from the sea, as well as fresh water. The Baths of Caracalla were a mile in circumference; they possessed two hundred marble columns, sixteen hundred seats of marble, and were capable of accommodating nearly two thousand persons; while those of Diocletian surpassed all others in grandeur, and occupied 140,000 men for many years in their construction.

Within the bath was collected all that contributed to the enjoyment, the luxury, and the gaiety of existence of the Romans. Here they practised their games, their athletic sports; here they came to learn the news of the day, to listen to recitations of poetry and prose,[6] to hear the eloquent harangues of their orators, and to be entranced with the chords of melodious music. There were temples devoted to dancing, to refreshment, to the bath; and in their abundant gratitude they raised up appropriate statues to the gods who were supposed to preside over their several enjoyments. The great hall of their bath was ornamented with the statues of Hercules, the god of strength; Hygeia, the goddess of health; and Æsculapius, the god of medicine.

[6] Pliny, in one of his letters, relates, in reference to the reading of poetical productions in the gymnasia:--"This year has proved extremely fertile in poetical productions: during the whole month of April, scarce a day has passed wherein we have not been entertained with the recital of some poem. It is a pleasure to me to find, notwithstanding there seems to be so little disposition in the public to attend assemblies of this kind, that the sciences still flourish, and men of genius are not discouraged from producing their performances."

It is not to be wondered at, that, reared in the midst of the luxury, in the enjoyment of their Balneæ or Thermæ, the Romans should have carried with them their longing for the bath wheresoever they went, wheresoever their victorious armies forced themselves a way; and that, possessing a mastery over England and Wales, which they maintained for nearly four hundred years, they should have founded baths in their chief settlements in this country. Thus we have remains of Roman baths in London, in Chester, in Bath, at Wroxeter (Uriconium) in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury, at Cirencester (Corinium), at Carisbrooke, in Colchester (Camulodunum), and in several other places besides.

But here we are compelled to draw a line of distinction between those grand institutions of their own metropolis, which comprised, as I have just described, their places of recreation, of exercise, of amusement, of diversion, as well as their temples of health; which were, in fact, a centralization of almost all the public institutions of their city into one--and those particular parts of these institutions which were specially devoted to health. Although the remains of the Roman thermæ in England are large, although their construction evinces a great perfection in many of the arts of social life, particularly in the manufacture of bricks and pottery, yet they scarcely bear comparison with the grander thermæ of ancient Rome, and for this reason: that all that was simply ornamental--or, if I might be permitted to say so, that was superfluous--has been omitted, and nothing but the substantial and the wholesome allowed to remain--that portion, in fact, which was purely devoted to health and strength. We thus prune the bath down to its simpler elements, and we prepare the way for the consideration of the bath as it has been revived amongst us at the present day.

Without some explanation, it would be difficult to understand how an institution which was regarded with so much veneration by ancient Rome, should have totally fallen into decay in modern Rome; and that the thermæ shall have ceased to have an existence in Rome at the present day. It is clear that the games which were once played, and the exercises which were practised, within the narrow limits of the thermæ, grand though they were, have now sought a wider sphere: the paintings of their great artists have been gathered into the ecclesiastical edifices and academies; the statues and sculpture have found their way into museums, or have been applied to the decoration of modern palaces; refreshment is more conveniently obtained in the cafés and restaurants; music and singing have been transferred to the opera; recitation to the theatre; poetry and prose to the library; and dancing to the assemblies; nay, the great hall of the Bath of Agrippa is now, in all its integrity, a place of Christian worship. In a word, the thermæ has become decentralized; whether as the result of the adoption of foreign fashions, or as a matter of convenience, it may be difficult to say; but so it is, and nothing of it now remains but the bath--that temple of the ancient thermæ over which Hercules, and Hygeia, and Æsculapius presided of old, and over which (in its humbler shape) they will continue to preside to the end of time.

The Baths of Titus have fortunately preserved to us a drawing, taken from its walls, which illustrates the construction and the mode of taking the bath among the Romans.

Beneath the bath is shown the furnace, or _hypocaustum_, for heating the rooms, as also the water used in the latter stages of the process.

Then follows a series of rooms, of which the principal are:--

1. The APODYTERIUM, GYMNASTERIUM, or VESTIARIUM: the undressing and dressing-room.

2. The TEPIDARIUM, which is warmed to a moderate temperature, and is intended to prepare and season the body before entering the hotter apartment.

3. The CALDARIUM, or _Calidarium_, sometimes called the SUDATORIUM, and in the figure (Fig. 2), _concamerata sudatio_, was a room of higher temperature, in which the perspiratory process was accomplished. In this apartment there was commonly a recess, of a higher temperature still, which was intended for special purposes, and was named LACONICUM, in compliment to the Spartans of Laconia.

4. After the Calidarium followed a LAVATORIUM (Lavatrina, Latrina), called in the figure Balneum, in which the body was washed after the process of perspiration was complete. The mode of washing was to sit on the everted edge or lip of a large marble trough--the _labrum_--and to be rinsed with warm water poured over the body by means of a cup or small basin (_pelvis_).

5. The bather then went into the FRIGIDARIUM, where he received an affusion of cold water, and where he reclined, or sat, or walked about, until he was cool or dry.

6. From the Frigidarium the bather passed into the ELAIOTHESIUM, or anointing room, where he was smeared with fragrant oils previously to resuming his dress in the VESTIARIUM.

Besides these, which were the principal rooms, there were others devoted to additional processes, such as shaving, hair-cutting, depilation, and hair-plucking.

The Romans carried the indulgence and decoration of their baths to so unreasonable a pitch of luxury and extravagance as to call forth State restrictions upon their use, and the reproof of their philosophers. Juvenal levels a shaft of satire against those who make the bath the instrument of gluttony; and Pliny scolds the doctors for declaring that the bath assists digestion, and for withholding their denunciations against its excessive abuse. Moreover, the Emperor Titus is said to have lost his life through excess of the bath, having spent in it many hours of the day. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that the time devoted to bathing should be limited by imperial edict, as happened in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the hours when the bath was open to the public being confined to two,--namely, from three until five.

PLINY the Consul, in his admirable letters, speaks in most affectionate language of the bath. "How stands Comum" (meaning Como, his birthplace), says he, "that favourite scene of yours and mine? What have you to tell me of the firm yet soft gestatio,[7] the sunny bath?" In another letter, addressed to a lady, he says:--"The elegant accommodations which are to be found at Narnia ... particularly the pretty bath."

[7] A circus attached to Roman gardens, for riding or driving.

Describing his winter villa, Laurentium, after painting a series of rooms, he continues:--

"From thence you enter into the grand and spacious _cooling-room_ belonging to the baths, from the opposite walls of which two round basins project, large enough to swim in. Contiguous to this is the perfuming-room, then the sweating-room, and beyond that the furnace which conveys the heat to the baths. Adjoining are two other little bathing-rooms, which are fitted up in an elegant rather than costly manner: annexed to this is a warm bath of extraordinary workmanship, wherein one may swim, and have a prospect at the same time of the sea. Not far from hence stands the tennis-court, which lies open to the warmth of the afternoon sun."

"Between the garden and this gestatio runs a shady walk of vines, which is so soft that you may walk barefoot upon it without any injury."

Alluding to the mode of life of one of his friends, he observes:--

"When the baths are ready, which in winter is about three o'clock, and in summer about two, he undresses himself, and if there happens to be no wind, he walks for some time in the sun. After this he plays a considerable time at tennis, for by this sort of exercise, too, he combats the effects of old age. When he has bathed, he throws himself upon his couch till supper[8] time."

[8] The state meal of the Romans, usually taken at the ninth hour--_i.e._, three P.M.

SENECA reproves the extravagance and self-indulgence of his countrymen in a memorable letter (his eighty-sixth), which is as follows:--

"I write from the very villa of Scipio Africanus, having first invoked his manes, and that altar which I take to be the sepulchre of so great a man.

"I behold a villa built of squared stone; the wall encloses a wood, and has towers after the style of a fortification; the reservoir lies below the buildings and the walks, large enough for the use of an army; the bath is close and confined, dark, after the old fashion, for our forefathers united heat with obscurity.

"I was struck with an inward pleasure when I compared these times of Scipio with our own. In this nook did that dread of Carthage--to whom our city owes her having been but once taken--wash his limbs, wearied with labour; for, according to the ancient custom, he tilled his fields himself. Under this mean roof did he live--him did this rude pavement sustain.

"But who at this time would submit to bathe thus? A person is held to be poor and sordid, whose house does not shine with a profusion of the most precious materials, the marbles of Egypt being inlaid with those of Numidia; unless the walls are ornamented with an elaborate and variegated stucco, after the fashion of painting; unless the chambers are covered with glass; unless the Thasian stone, formerly a curiosity worthy of being placed in our temples, surrounds the pools into which we cast our bodies weakened with immoderate sweating; unless the water is conveyed through silver pipes.

"As yet, I have confined my remarks to private baths only. What shall I say when I come to our public baths? What a profusion of statues. What a number of columns do I see supporting nothing; but placed as an ornament, merely on account of their expense. What quantities of water murmuring down steps. We are come to that pitch of luxury, that we disdain to tread upon anything but precious stones.

"In this Bath of Scipio are small holes rather than windows, cut through the wall, so as to admit the light without interfering with its resemblance to a fortification.

"But now we reckon a bath fit only for moths and vermin, whose windows are not so disposed as to receive the rays of the sun during his whole career; unless we are washed and sunburnt at the same time; unless from the bathing-vessel we have a prospect of the sea and land. In fact, that which excited the admiration of mankind, when first built, is now rejected as old and useless. Thus it is that luxury finds out something new in which to obliterate her own works.

"Formerly, baths were few in number, and not much ornamented; for why should a thing of common life be ornamented, which was invented for use, and not for the purposes of elegance? The water in those days was not poured down in drops like a shower, neither did it run always as if fresh from a hot spring; nor was its clearness considered a matter of consequence. But, ye gods! what pleasure was there in entering those obscure and vulgar baths when prepared under the direction of the Cornelii, of Cato, or of Fabius Maximus? For the most renowned of the ædiles had, by virtue of their office, the inspection of those places where the people assembled, to see that they were kept clean and of a proper and wholesome degree of temperature; not of a heat like that of a furnace, such as has been lately found out, proper only for the punishment of slaves convicted of the highest misdemeanors. We now seem to make no distinction between being warm and burning.

"How many do I hear ridiculing the simplicity of Scipio, who did not admit the day into his sweating-places, or suffer himself to be baked in a hot sunshine. Unhappy man! He knew not how to enjoy life!

"The water he washed in was not clear and transparent, but, after rain, even thick and muddy. This, however, concerned him but little; he came to the bath to refresh himself after his labour, not to wash away the perfumes of a pomatumed body. What think you some will say of this? I envy not Scipio: he lived in exile indeed, who bathed in this manner.

"Should you be told further, that he bathed not every day--for those who relate to us the traditions of early times, say that our forefathers bathed their whole bodies on market-days only--it will be answered, Then they were very uncleanly. How, think ye, they smelt? Like men of labour and fatigue.

"Since dainty baths have been invented, we are become more nasty. Horace, when describing a man infamous for his dissipation, what does he reproach him with? With smelling of perfumed balls! 'Pastillos Rufillus olet.'"

Of the ancient Roman bath in England, we have several examples, the most interesting being that which has been lately brought to light in the ancient Roman city, Uriconium, in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury. Uriconium is close to the village of Uroxeter, commonly pronounced Wroxeter, five miles from Shrewsbury. It is situated on the property of the Duke of Cleveland, and is known to have existed at the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, when the Romans held dominion over England, and when England was a part, and a highly-treasured part, of the Roman Empire.

It was of considerable size, having a boundary wall three miles in circumference, and was, doubtless, a flourishing city; but fell a victim to the ravages of fire and the sword during the fifth century, and has since lain buried and unnoticed until the last few years, when a society was formed for the purpose of excavating it.

The walls of the houses are remarkable for their thickness, namely, three feet; while that of the wall of the town is four feet. They are constructed upon a plan commonly adopted by the Romans--namely, a facing of stone on each side, and the space between filled in with rubble and that remarkable stone-like enduring mortar which has suggested the name of a better kind of cement of the present time, known as "Roman cement." The height of the houses was thirty feet; but they had no upper storey, and there is no trace of staircase.

Of the mode of warming the houses and, _par excellence_, the baths, the Rev. Thomas Wright[9] observes:--"The Romans did not warm their apartments by fires lighted in them.... The floor of the house, formed of a considerable thickness of cement, was laid upon a number of short pillars formed usually of square Roman tiles placed one upon another, and from two to three feet high. Those of the largest hypocausts yet found at Wroxeter were rather more than three feet high. Sometimes these supports were of stone, and in one or two cases in discoveries made in this country they were round. They were placed near to each other and in rows, and upon them were laid, first, larger tiles, and over these a thick mass of cement, which formed the floor, and upon which the tesselated pavements were set. Sometimes small parallel walls forming flues instead of rows of columns supported the floor.... Flue tiles--that is, square tubes made of baked clay with a hole on one side or sometimes on two sides--were placed against the walls endways one upon another so as to run up the walls."

[9] "Guide to the Ruins of the Roman City of Uriconium at Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury." 1859.

My friend Mr. George Witt, having recently visited the ruins of the ancient Roman bath still existing at No. 117, Bridge-street, Chester, describes it as follows:--

"The most interesting of all the Roman antiquities of this ancient city are the remains of a private Roman bath, showing the _Hypocaustum_, or heating place beneath, in a state of great preservation. The hypocaust is 18 feet long by 8 feet wide, and 3 feet high. The roof was supported on thirty-two stone pillars (of a single block), broader at the base and the top, and narrower in the middle; of these twenty-eight still remain. On the top of the columns are placed, by way of capitals, strong tiles from 17 to 23 inches square, and 3 inches thick, reaching from pillar to pillar, thus forming, at the same time, the roof of the hypocaust and the floor of the room above. Over all these is a bed of hard concrete, 9 or 10 inches thick, the whole suited to bear any amount of heat. The pillars are made of the red sandstone of the district, and are so far worthy of note, that they differ from the tile-columns of most of the Roman hypocausts found in other parts of England, which are chiefly formed of piles of 8-inch tiles, 2 inches thick.

"The room above the hypocaust, which was the hot-chamber of the bath, called the _Caldarium_, has unfortunately been so dismantled, that little or nothing can now be learned of its character or proportions, two of the side walls only remain. The walls of these hot-chambers are generally on the inside by ranges of hollow flue-tiles, coming up from the hypocaust below, varying in number, according to the degree of heat required.

"There is nothing whatever here left of the _Frigidarium_, or cooling-room, nor any other of the apartments of the bath, nor of any of the contrivances used therein, except a sort of tank, 7 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 4 feet wide, situate near the mouth of the furnace, which may have served either as a receptacle for warm water, or as a place for a plunge in cold water, after the previous processes of the bath had been completed.

"Like modern Rome, the present city of Chester stands some feet above the level of the old Roman city; the visitors, therefore, must be prepared to descend into a dark cellar, to inspect the hypocaust and so-called bath! and to emerge therefrom, with a bitter feeling of humiliation and regret, that our forefathers could have so ruthlessly destroyed these interesting evidences of the manners and customs of that wonderful people, who for upwards of four hundred years held dominion over this island--a people to whom we are indebted for the fundamental principles of our social civilization; for the introduction of architecture, sculpture, coinage of money, construction of roads, and for innumerable other arts and adornments of life. There can be no more instructive proof of the mental darkness of those ages which followed the overthrow of the Roman Empire, than the wholesale destruction of the buildings of that great people, of which this is an example; and it is to be lamented that this barbarism, in regard to such monuments of antiquity, has not yet altogether disappeared."

And where, it may be asked, is the bath now; the conquering Romans have ceased to be other than a name, or a weary lesson for schoolboys; the Romans are gone, the Roman bath is lost. But here an eloquent modern author, Mr. Urquhart, helps us in our difficulty with a quotation:--"A people who know neither Latin nor Greek have preserved this great monument of antiquity on the soil of Europe, and present to us, who teach our children only Latin and Greek, this Institution in all its Roman grandeur and its Grecian taste. The bath, when first seen by the Turks, was a practice of their enemies, religious and political; they were themselves the filthiest of mortals; yet no sooner did they see the bath than they adopted it, made it a rule of their society, a necessary adjunct to every settlement, and Princes and Sultans endowed such institutions for the honour of their name." This, then, is the answer to the question--Where is the bath now? The ancient Roman bath lives in its modern offspring, the Turkish Bath--the Turkish Hamâm.

When, therefore, we see the words "Turkish Bath" in grand letters paraded through our metropolis; when we see a human being performing the part of a sandwich, with a broadsheet of Turkish bath in front, and a similar sheet behind, himself representing a flattened anchovy between the two slices, we shall know that the ancient Roman bath, after being kept alive for many centuries by the fostering care of the Turks, has at last come back to revisit its ancient haunts, and to offer to modern Britons the enjoyments from which our forefathers turned away with contempt as a custom of their conquerors. And we are led to recognise the truth of my preliminary proposition--that the bath is an instinct, and that, being an instinct, its survival of a race is no longer a wonder, but is a law of nature--a law of the universe.

Let me now describe the Hamâm, or Turkish Bath as it exists at the present moment in Constantinople; and in this description I shall take as my groundwork the account given of it by Mr. Urquhart. It is a large building, with a domed roof, a square massive body, from which minarets shoot up, and against which wings abut containing side apartments. The essential apartments of the hamâm are three in number--a great hall or _mustaby_, a _middle chamber_, and an _inner chamber_. We raise the curtain which covers the entrance to the street, and we find ourselves in the _mustaby_, a circular or octagonal hall, maybe a hundred feet high, with a domed roof, and open in the centre to the vault of heaven. In the middle of the floor is a basin of water four feet high, with a fountain playing in the centre, and around it are plants and trellises; and resting against it, at some one point, the stall whence comes the supply of coffee and pipes or chibouques.

Around the circumference of the hall is a low platform, from four to twelve feet in breadth and three feet high. This is divided by dwarf balustrades into small compartments, each containing one or more couches. These compartments are the dressing-rooms, and the couches, shaped like a straddling letter W, and adapted by their angles to the bends of the body, are the _couches of repose_. It is here that the bather disrobes; his clothes are folded and placed in a napkin, and the napkin is carefully tied up. He then assumes the bathing garb; a long Turkish towel (_peshtimal_ or _futa_) is wound turban-wise around his head; a second around his hips, descending to the middle of the leg; and a third, disposed like a scarf over one or both shoulders. Two attendants shield him from view while changing his linen, by holding a napkin before him; and when he is ready, the same attendants help him to descend from the platform; they place wooden pattens (called _nalma_ in Turkish, and _cob cob_ in Arabic) on his feet, and taking each arm, lead him to the middle apartment. The wooden pattens are intended to protect the feet from the heat of the inner rooms, and from the dirty water and slop of the passages.

"The slamming doors are pushed open, and you enter the region of steam;" this is the _second chamber_, it is low, dark, and small; it feels warm without being hot or oppressive, and the air is moistened with a thin vapour. It is paved with white marble, and a marble platform eighteen inches high occupies its two sides, while the space between serves as the passage from the mustaby to the inner hall. A mattress and cushion are laid on the marble platform, and here the bather reclines; he smokes his chibouque, sips his coffee, and converses in subdued and measured tones with his neighbour. This is the _Tepidarium_ of the Roman bath; here the bather courts a "natural and gentle flow of perspiration," and to this end are adapted the warm temperature, the bath coverings, the hot coffee, and the tranquil rest.

"The bath is essentially sociable, and this is the portion of it so appropriated; this is the time and place where a stranger makes acquaintance with a town or village. While so engaged, a boy kneels at your feet and chafes them, or behind your cushion, at times touching or tapping you on the neck, arm, or shoulder, in a manner that causes the perspiration to start."

After a while the bath attendant arrives; he passes his hand under the linen coverings of the bather; if he find the skin sufficiently moist and softened, the bather is again taken by the arms, his feet are replaced in the wooden pattens, another slamming door is opened, and he is ushered into the _inner apartment_, "a space such as the centre dome of a cathedral," lighted by means of "stars of stained glass in the vault." The temperature of this apartment, the Calidarium or Sudatorium of the Romans, is considerably higher than that of the middle room; the atmosphere is filled with "curling mists of gauzy and mottled vapour," the steam being raised by throwing water on the floor. In the middle of the apartment is "an extensive platform of marble slabs," and on this the bather is laid on his back, his scarf being placed beneath him to protect his skin from the heated marble, and the napkin that served as his turban being rolled up as a pillow to his head.

The bather is now subjected to the process of shampooing--that is, his muscles are pressed and squeezed, his joints are stretched until they snap, and they are forcibly bent in various directions. In the hands of the professional shampooer the process is elevated to an art, and words fail to convey other than a very imperfect idea of its nature.