Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/678

BATH. The system of bathing in all the various classes of bathing establishments was funda- mentally the same, except when special treatment was prescribed by medical advice. Galen recom- mended the following succession: (1) hot-air bath in laconicum; (2) hot-water bath; (3) cold bath; (4) massage. That other great physi- cian, Celsus, recommended: (1) sweating, dressed, in tepidarium; (2) sweating, disrobed, in cali- darium; (3) douche bath, first hot, then tepid, then cold; (4) scraping, rubbing, and anointing. The essential parts of the bathing establishments were: (1) a vestibule for loungers, servants, and attendants, and sometimes an atrium; (2) an undressing-room, or apodyterium, though often the bathers undressed in the larger bathing- rooms; (3) the frigidarium, or hall for cold baths, with a sunk basin at one end or in the centre, often large enough for a swimming-tank; often the bathers contented themselves with the cold bath; (4) the tepidarium, a hall not used for bathing, but kept at a moderate temperature to serve as transition between the hot and cold bathrooms, used for dressing and undressing, anointing and waiting; it was fitted out with a sunken tank for hot water at one end, and a raised basin at the other for cold water; (5) the calidarium, or hall for hot baths; under it was the hypocaust, or hollow floor filled with hot air from the furnace, which was conveyed also into the hollow walls around the calidarium. With the furnace were connected three boilers, the lower one containing hot water, the middle one warm, and the upper cold water, so connected by pipes that when hot water was drawn off from the lower boiler it was replaced by tepid water from the one above, and that again by cold from the uppermost. The scraping off of the perspiration by strigils, and the anointing with oil, which at first took place in the calidarium, were afterwards transferred to the tepidarium, or to a special hall called the unctorium, the last hall toward the exit. Connected with the cali- darium was the laconicum, or sweating-room.

There are many remaining examples of Roman baths of the various classes. Those at Pompeii form the most interesting and varied group outside of Rome. That of the Villa of Diomedes shows the type followed in the wealthy private house (open-air bath; dressing-room; frigidarium; tepidarium; calidarium); the public ancient baths, which show two complete sections, one for each sex, show the normal plan of the age of Vitruvius, before the development of the elaborate imperial thermæ. One of the best preserved of these public baths of moderate size is in Germany, at Badenweiler, also with its two sex-divisions, perhaps the most interesting example of their perfectly symmetrical arrangement. Special arrangements are, of course, to be found in famous curative thermal establishments, such as those at Baiæ. The most monumental ruins of Roman baths are those of Caracalla and of Diocletian, whose tepidarium was transformed by Michelangelo into the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was an immense hall 300 feet long and 92 feet wide, covered with a groin vault in three compartments. The halls of Caracalla's thermæ, though not so large — the tepidarium being 170 × 82 feet — were better proportioned and more artistic in decoration. These thermæ had a profusion of marble columns, surface decoration of rich marble slabs, coffered ceilings, rich cornices, mosaic floors, a wealth of decorative statuary and paintings.

The process of bathing was usually as follows: After undressing in the apodyterium, the bather was anointed in the elæothesium with oil, and then proceeded to a spacious court devoted to exercises of various kinds, among which games at ball held a prominent place. After exercise, he went through the tepidarium into the calidarium to sweat and take a hot bath; he then returned to the frigidarium, took a cold bath, and returned to the calidarium or laconicum for another sweat. He was then rubbed and anointed by the attendants, and resumed his clothing. Sometimes the bather went at once to the hot-room, and followed the sweat with a cold plunge and a rubbing and anointing.

The public baths for women were much frequented, even by the most respectable. The women bathed in company, like the men. When there were no baths for women, they seem to have had the exclusive use of the public baths at special hours. At Rome the great baths were for men only, but were frequented by dissolute women. The irregularity of men and women bathing together is also alluded to by ancient writers, and was legislated against by several emperors. In later times, the baths in general became the scenes of all sorts of debauchery, as was the case at Baiæ.

. The barbarian invasions and wars finally ]nit an end to Roman culture in the West in the Sixth Century A.D., and with its fall the sumptuous baths were abandoned. There were still baths on a small scale in connection with churches and monasteries, and the sacrament of baptism preserved the religious symbolism of the bath. The habits of monasticism and of asceticism combined, however, with northern rudeness in discouraging the luxurious aspects of bathing. It was not so in the East, for the Byzantine Empire continued in this as in most respects the traditions of Rome; and life in Constantinople, in the time of Justinian and Theodora and their successors, was no less pleasure-loving than it had been in Rome. The Byzantines preserved there, for eight centuries more, all the various processes of Roman bathing, and initiated into them the conquering Arabs when, after founding the Caliphate of Bagdad and the great kingdoms of Egypt and Spain, the Mohammedans adopted all the traditions of advanced civilization around them. From the Eighth Century to the present day, all the Mohammedan cities of the East have been provided with public and private baths on a large scale. The baths at Broussa, for example, show how the main divisions of the Roman bath — frigidarium, tepidarium, and calidarium — had been handed down unimpaired. A typical city, Adrianople, had some years ago twenty-two public baths. The private houses at Cairo, Damascus, and other cities show how common it has been for the wealthy Orientals to have baths. The peculiarities of the Russian bath were also inherited through the Byzantines. The reason for this was both religious and sanitary.

. Islam enjoins on the believer the careful preservation of corporal purity, and for this purpose prescribes repeated daily ablutions. Besides these, certain circumstances and times make the use of the bath ritually obligatory on both men and women. For this end, not