Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

BALNEUM.

0

BALNEUM.

were anointed with oil. The Romans did not
content themselves with a single bath of hot
or cold water ; but they went through a
course of baths in succession, in which the
agency of air as well as water was applied.
It is difficult to ascertain the precise order in
which the course was usually taken; but it
appears to have been a general practice to
close the pores, and brace the body after the
excessive perspiration of the vapour bath,
either by pouring cold water over the head,
or by plunging at once into the piscina. To
render the subjoined remarks more easily in-
telligible, the preceding woodcut is inserted,
which is taken from a fresco painting upon
the walls of the thermae of Titus at Rome.
The chief parts of a Roman bath were as
follow :—1. Apndyterium. Here the bathers
were expected to take off their garments,
which were then delivered to a class of slaves,
called enpsarii, whose duty it was to take
charge of them. These men were notorious
for dishonesty, and were leagued with all the
thieves of the city, so that they connived at
the robberies which they were placed to pre-
vent. There was probably an Elaeothesium
or Vnctorium, as appears from the preceding
cut, in connection with the apodyterium,
where the bathers might be anointed with
oil.—2. Erii/idarium or Cella Friijidaria,
where the cold bath was taken. The cold
bath itself was called Natatio, Natatorium,
Piscina, Baptisterium, or Puteiis.—3. Tepi-
darium would seem from the preceding cut
to have been a bathing room, for a person is
there apparently represented pouring water
over a bather. But there is good reason for
thinking that this was not the case. In most
cases the tepidarium contained no water at
all, but was a room merely heated with warm
air of an agreeable temperature, in order to
prepare the body for the great heat of the
vapour and warm baths, and upon returning
from the latter, to obviate the danger of a
too sudden transition to the open air.—4. The
Caldarium or Concamerata Sudatio contained
at one extremity the vapour bath [Laconicum),
and at the other the warm bath [balneum
or calda lavaiio), while the centre space
between the two ends was termed sudatio or
sudatorium. In larger establishments the
vapour bath and warm bath were in two
separate cells, as we see in the preceding
cut: in such cases the former part alone was
called concamerata sudatio. The whole rested
on a suspended pavement (suspensura), under
which was a fire (hypocaustum), so that the
flames might heat the whole apartment. (See
cut.) The warm water bath [balneum or
calda lavatio), which is also called piscina
or calida piscina, labrum and solium, appears

to have been a capacious marble vase, some-
times standing upon the floor, like that in the
preceding cut, and sometimes either partly
elevated above the floor, as it was at Pompeii,
or entirely sunk into it. After having gone
through the regular course of perspiration,
the Romans made use of instruments called
striyilcs or strit/lcs, to scrape off the perspira-
tion. The strigil was also used by the Greeks,

Stngil (From a Relief at Athens.)

who called it stlengis (<rrA*yy«) or xystra
(fiio-Tpa). The figure in the cut on p. 24 is
represented with a strigil in his hand. As
the strigil was not a blunt instrument, its
edge was softened by the application of oil,
which' was dropped upon it from a small
vessel called guttus or ampulla, which had a
narrow neck, so as to discharge its contents
drop by drop, from whence the name is taken.

Strigil and Guttus. (From a Statue in the Vatican J

In the Thermae, spoken of above, the baths
were of secondary importance. They were a
Roman adaptation of the Greek gymnasium,
contained exedrae for the philosophers and
rhetoricians to lecture in, porticoes for the
idle, and libraries for the learned, and were
adorned with marbles, fountains, and shaded
walks and plantations. M. Agrippa, in the