Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/95

Rh Corinth, Memphis, Agrigentum, and the great seaport towns of Western Asia had them; in Carthage they were maintained by a public tax and the voluntary contributions of numerous merchant-princes.

Imperial Rome became a Mecca of water-worshipers. Not less than six different aqueducts connected the city with the springs of wooded mountain-ranges — some of them twelve English miles from the corporation limits, and the Grand Thermæ of Caracalla atoned for all the demerits of the eccentric ruler; they formed a series of wall-enclosed artificial lakes, free to all, yet equipped with the conveniences of the most luxurious modern watering-place. The cold-water hall was large enough to accommodate the lovers of aquatic sports, and with its branch-tanks, in fact served the purpose of a swimming school.

Frequent baths were recognized as a main condition of physical welfare, and perhaps for that very reason were neglected by the bigots of an antinatural creed. The self-torturing monks gloried in filth, and Llorente, in his "History of the Inquisition," mentions numerous instances of converts from Mohammedanism incurring suspicion by continuing to practise the daily