CHAPTER IX Introduction of Water Filters—Striking Example of the Effi- (Part 5)

being permitted to enter the interior unless naked. The clothes were then delivered to a class of slaves whose duty it was to take charge of them. These men were notorious for dishonesty, and leagued with all the thieves of the city, so that they connived at the rob- beries they were placed there to prevent. To so great an extent were these robberies carried, that very severe laws were finally enacted making the crime of stealing from a bath a capital offence. To return to the chamber itself, it is vaulted and spacious, with stone seats along two sides of the wall and a step for the feet below, slightly raised from the floor. Holes can still be seen in the walls which might have served for pegs on which the garments were hung when taken off; for in a small provincial town like Pompeii, where a robbery committed in the bath could scarcely escape detection, there would be no necessity for slaves to take charge of them. The dressing room was lighted by a window closed with glass, and the walls and ceilings were ornamented with stucco mouldings and painted yellow. There are no less than six doors to this chamber: one leading to the entrance, E, another to the entrance, D, a third to the small room, 11, a fourth to the furnaces, a fifth to the tepid apartment, and the sixth opened upon the cold baths, 10. The bath, which is coated with white marble, is 12 feet 10 inches in diameter, about 3 feet deep and has two marble steps to facilitate the descent into it, and a seat surrounding it at a depth of 10 inches from the bottom, for the purpose of enabling the bathers to sit down and wash themselves. It is probable that many 50 HISTORY OF SANITATION persons contented themselves with cold baths only, instead of going through the severe course of perspiration in the warm apartments; and as the frigidarium could have had no effect alone in baths like these, the natatio must be referred to when it is said that at one period cold baths were in such request that scarcely any others were used. There is a platform or ambulatory around the bath, also of marble, and four inches of the same material dis- posed at regular intervals around the walls, with pedestals for statues probably placed in them. The ceiling is vaulted and the chamber lighted by a window in the center. The annexed woodcut represents a frigidarium with its cold bath at one extremity, supposed to have formed a part of the Formain Villa of Cicero, to whose age the style of construction, the use of the simple Doric order, undoubtedly belongs. The bath itself, into which water still continues to flow from a neighboring spring, is placed under the alcove, and the two doors on each side opened into small chambers. In the cold bath of Pompeii the water ran into the basin through a spout of bronze and was carried off again through a conduit on the opposite side. It was also fur- nished with a waste pipe under the coping to prevent the water from run- ning over. INO. Ristea. small chamber on the side opposite to the frigidar- ium, which might have served for shaving or for keeping unguents or strigils; and from the centers of the side of the frigidarium, the Atlantes. From an old woodcut barter: who HISTORY OF SANITATION 51 intended to go through the process of warm bathing and sudation entered into 12, the tepidarium. The tepidarium did not contain water, either at Pom- peii or at the baths of Hippias, but was merely heated with warm air of an agreeable temperature, in order to prepare the body for the great heat of the vapor and warm baths; and, upon returning, to obviate the danger of too sudden transition to the open air. In the baths of Pompeii, this chamber served likewise as a disrobing room for those who took the warm bath, for which purpose the fittings up are evidently adapted, the walls being divided into a number of separate compart- ments or recesses for receiving the garments when taken off. One of these compartments, known as an Atlantes, is shown in the annexed woodcut. In addition to this service there can be little doubt that this apartment was used as a depository for unguents and a room for anointing, which service was performed by slaves. For the purpose of anointing, the common people used oil simply or sometimes scented, but the more wealthy classes indulged in the greatest extravagances with regard to their perfumes and unguents. These they evidently procured from the eleothesium of the baths, or brought with them in small glass bottles, hundreds of which have been discovered in different excavations made in various parts of Italy. From the tepidarium, a door which closed by its own weight, to prevent the admission of cold air, opened into No. 13, the thermal chamber. After having gone through the regular course of perspiration, the Romans made use of instruments called strigils, to scrape off the perspiration, much in the same way as we are accustomed to scrape the sweat off a horse with a piece of iron hoop after he has run a heat or come in from violent exercise. These instru- ments, many of which have been discovered among the ruins of the various baths of antiquity, were made of bone, bronze, iron and silver. The poorer classes were obliged to scrape themselves, but the more wealthy took their 52 HISTORY OF SANITATION slaves to the baths for the purpose, a fact which is eluci- dated by a curious story related by Spartianus. The Emperor while bathing one day, observing an old soldier, whom he had formerly known among the legions, rubbing his back as the cattle do against the marble walls of the chamber, asked him why he converted the walls into a strigil, and learning that he was too poor to keepaslave he gave him one, and money for his maintenance. On the following day, upon his return to the bath, he found a whole row of old men rubbing themselves in the same manner against the wall, in the hope of experiencing the same good fortune from the prince’s liberality; but instead of taking the hint, he had them all called up and told them to scrub one another. The strigil was » by no means a blunt instrument, conse- quently its edge was softened by the appli- cation of oil which was dropped on it from a small vessel. Coppers for Heating Water. From an old This vessel had a nar- wogdcut row neck, so as to dis- charge its contents drop by drop. Augustus is related to have suffered from an over violent use of this instrument. Invalids and persons of delicate habit made use of sponges, which Pliny says answered for towels as well as strigils. They were finally dried with towels and anointed. The common people were supplied with these neces- saries in the baths, but the more wealthy carried their own with them. After the operation of scraping and rubbing dry, they retired into or remained in the tepidarium until they thought it prudent to encounter the open air. But it does not appear to have been customary to bathe in the water, ng HISTORY OF SANITATION 53 when there was any, which was not the case at Pompeii nor at the Baths of Hippias, either of the tepidarium or frigidarium; the temperature only of the atmosphere in the two chambers being of consequence to break the sudden change from the extreme hot to cold. Returning now to the frigidarium, 8, which according to the direc- tions of Vitruvius has a passage, 14, communicating with the mouth of the furnace, e,and passing down that passage we reach the chamber, 15, into which the prefurnium pro- jects, and which has also an entrance from the street, B, appropriated to those who had charge of the fires. There are two stairways in it, one leading to the roof of the baths, and the other to the coppers which contained the water. Of these there were three, one of which contained the hot water, caldarium; the second, the tepid, tepidarium; and the last, the cold, frigidarium. The warm water was introduced into the warm bath by means of a conduit pipe, marked on the plan, and conducted through the wall. Underneath the caldarium was placed the furnace which served to heat the water and give out streams of warm air into the hollow cells of the hypocanstum. These coppers were constructed in the same manner as is represented in the engraving from the Therme of Titus; the one contain- ing hot water being placed immediately over the furnace, and as the water was drawn out from these it was supplied from the next, the tepidarium, which was already consider- ably heated, from its contiguity to the furnace and the hypocaust below it, so that it supplied the deficiency of the former without materially diminishing its temperature ; and the space in the last two was in turn filled up from the farthest removed, which contained the cold water received direct from the square reservoir behind them. Behind the coppers there is another corridor, 16, leading into the court, 17, appropriated to the servants of the baths, and which has also the conveniences of an immediate commu- nication with the street by the door, C. We now proceed to the adjoining set of baths, which were assigned to the women. The entrance is by the 54 HISTORY OF SANITATION door, A, which conducts into a small vestibule, 18, thence into the apodyterium, 19, which, like the one in the men’s baths, has a seat on either side built up against the wall. This room opens upon a cold bath, 20, answering to the natiatio of the other set, but of much smaller dimensions. There are four steps on the inside to descend into it. Opposite to the door of entrance there is another doorway which leads to the tepidarium, 21, which also communicates with the thermal chamber, 22, on one side of which is a warm bath in a square recess. The floor of this chamber is suspended and its walls perforated for flues, like the corresponding one in the men’s baths. The comparative smallness and inferiority of the fittings up in this suit of baths has induced some Italian antiqua- ries to throw a doubt upon the fact of their being assigned to women, and ingeniously suggest that they were a set of old baths, to which the larger ones were subsequently added when they became too small for the increasing wealth and population of the city. But the story already quoted of the consul’s wife who turned the men out of their bath at Teanum for her convenience, seems suffi- ciently to negative such a supposition and to prove that the inhabitants of ancient Italy, if not more selfish, were certainly less gallant than their successors. In addition to this, Vitruvius expressly enjoins that the baths of the men and women, though separate, should be contiguous to each other, in order that they might be supplied from the same boilers and hypocaust; directions that are here fulfilled to the letter, as a glance at the plans will demonstrate. Notwithstanding the ample account which has been given of the plans and usages respecting baths in general, something yet remains to be said about that particular class © denominated therme, of which establishment the baths, in fact, constituted the smallest part. The therme, properly speaking, were a Roman adaptation of the Greek gymna- sium. The therme contained a system of baths in conjunc- tion with conveniences for athletic games and youthful sports, places in which rhetoricians declaimed, poets recited HISTORY OF SANITATION 55 and philosophers lectured, as well as porticos and vesti- bules for the idle, and libraries for the studious. They were decorated with the finest objects of art, both in paint- ing and sculpture, covered with precious marbles and adorned with fountains and shaded walks. It may be said that they began and ended with the Empire, for it was not until the time of Augustus that these magnificent structures were commenced. M. Agrippa was the first who afforded these luxuries to his countrymen by bequeathing to them the therme and gardens which he had erected in the Campus Martius. The Pantheon, now existing at Rome, served originally as a vestibule to these baths; and, as it was considered too magnificent for the purpose, it is supposed that Agrippa added the portico and consecrated it as a temple, for which use it still serves. The example set by Agrippa was followed by Nero and afterward by Titus, the ruins of whose therme are still visible, covering a vast extent, partly under ground and partly above the Esquiline Hill. Previous to the erection of these establishments for the use of the population, it was customary, for those who sought the favor of the people, to give them a day’s bathing free of ex- pense. Thus, accord- ing to Divi Cas- sius, Faustus, the son of Sulla, fur- nished warm baths andoil gratistothe people foroneday ; and Augustus, on one occasion, furnished warm baths and barbers to the people for Ground Plan of Thermz of Caracalla. From an old woodcut 56 HISTORY OF SANITATION the same period free of expense, and at another time for a whole year to the women as well asthe men. From thence it is fair to infer that the quadrant paid for admission to the balnea was not exacted at the thermz, which as being the works of the emperors, would naturally be opened with im- perial generosity to all, and without any charge, otherwise the whole city would have thronged to the establishment bequeathed to them by Agrippa; and in confirmation of this opinion it might be remarked that the old establish- ments, which were probably erected by private enterprises, were termed Meritorial. Most, if not all, of the other regulations previously detailed as relating to the economy of the baths, apply equally to the therme; but it is in these establishments especially that the dissolute conduct of the emperors and other luxurious indulgence of the people in general, as detailed in the compositions of the satirists and later writers, must be considered to refer. Although considerable remains of the Roman therme are still visible, yet, from the very ruinous state in which they are found, we are far from being able to arrive at the same accurate knowledge of their component parts and the usages to which they were applied, as has been done with respect to the balnea; or, indeed, to discover a satisfactory mode of reconciling their constructive details with the description left us by Vitruvious and Lucian. All, indeed, is doubt and guesswork. Each of the learned men who have pretended to give an account of their contents differ- ing in all the essential particulars from one another; and yet the general similarity of the ground plan of the three which still remain cannot fail to strike even a superficial observer; so great indeed that it is impossible not to per- ceive at once that they were all constructed upon a similar plan. Not, however, to discuss the subject without enabling the reader to form something like a general idea of these enormous edifices, which from their extent and magnifi- cence have been likened to provinces, a ground plan of the therme of Caracalla is annexed, which are the best HISTORY OF SANITATION 57 preserved among those remaining, and which were per- haps more splendid than all the rest. Those apartments of which the use is ascertained with the appearances of probability, will be alone marked and explained. The dark parts represent the remains still visible; the open lines are restorations. A is a portico fronting the street made by Caracalla when he constructed his therme. B are separate bathing- rooms, either for the use of the common people, or per- haps for any person who did not wish to bathe in public. C are apodyteria attached to them. D, D and E, E, the DOLtICOS a) be bo exedra in which there were seats for the philoso- phers to hold their conversations. G, passages open TORtnes ait. Listy sladra. I, I, possi- bly schools or academies where public lectures were delivered. je jeweed. “Kk, -K, rooms appropri- ated to the ser- Hypocaust for Heating Water, Thermee of Caracalla vants of the bath. From an old woodcut In the latter are staircases for ascending to the principal reservoir. L, space occupied by walks and shrubberies. M, the arena or stadium in which the youth performed their exercises, with seats for spectators. N, N, reservoirs with upper stories; O, aqueduct which supplied the baths. Pecistern, This external range of buildings occupies one mile in circuit. We now come to the arrangement of the interior, for which it is very difficult to assign satisfactory destinations. 58 HISTORY OF SANITATION Q represents the principal entrances, of which there were eight. R is the natiatio or cold water baths to which the direct entrance from the portico is by a vestibule on either side marked S, and which is surrounded by a set of cham- bers that serve most probably as rooms for undressing and anointing. Those nearest to the peristyle were, perhaps, where the powder was kept which the wrestlers used in order to obtain a firmer grip upon their adversaries. The inferior quality of the ornaments which these apartments had, and the staircases in two of them, afford evidences that they were occupied by menials. T is considered to be the tepidarium with four warm baths taken out of its four angles, and two labra on its two flanks. There are steps