Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1891-12-16
BATHS, ANCIENT AND MODERN
BY HELEN EvERTsoN SMITH.

We who are close upon the nine
teenth century, and very proud of our
progress, might find one good opin.
Jon OF ourselves trifle shaken did we
look back into the history of the world
little more.
We need not imagine that the worlds
march has been one unbroken, upward
progression, until crowned by our
boasted civilization. We may Indeed
be Justly proud of some of our attain
ments, but in other respects we may as
Justly humble ourselves before the
civilization of the Ancients. This is
true OF many things, but of none m ore
so than in the matter of personal clean
illness. 1t is only within compare
lively short time that modern sanitary
science has sufficiently developed to
recognize the vital importance of per-
sonal loauliness, not only to the indi-
vidual, but to the race. Yet ancient
nations knew this at a very early per-
iod, and even their small cities we're
abundantly provided with the means TO
insure it.
| From inscriptions and remains it ap-
pears probable that the cities of the
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian en-
pires, had large, free public Baths; ard
1t is certain that the Egyptians were
amply supplied with them. Moses
learned in all the wisdom of Egypt
knew the sanitary value of personal
cleanliness, and did not fail to give to
frequent bathing a religious import,
that it might never be neglected among
| the Jews. 1t was probably from the
Egyptians that the Greeks also OBJ
timed their knowledge of the Bath and
its uses.
The warm Bath must have been well
established in Greece, and the adjacent
lands 5000 years ago, for Homer al
ludes to Its use among the Greeks,
and Irojans, as well as in the countries
visited by Ulysses. Hippocrates-
mighty father" of the healing art
speaks of the Importance of bathing, as
] does of air, temperance and food, as
If a alike, being common things, were
not properly appreciated for their
preservative and healing qualities.
The Greeks were probably the first
people to convert their hot springs
into capacious Baths, though the Jews
also had several that were early famed
for the cures ascribed to them. The
Romans always carried everything to
colossal proportions and the Bath was
no exception to the rule. Acknowl-
edged as a public necessity, it became
a practice of ambitious men, wishing
to carry favor with the populapce, to
erect magnificent Baths for public ac-
commodation. These increased with
the wealth and size of the city, until,
| in the reign of Tiberius, there were
nearly 900 Baths in Rome, most of
which were free, or nearly so;" while
no villa was considered complete with
out being provided with suitable bath
ing apartments" At first these Baths
were for utility only, but as the seven
hilled-city became unhealthfully rich
with the spoils of wronged nations, a
lavish luxury was displayed in their
structure and decoration. Seneca,
writing in the reign of Claudius, after
speaking of the costly construction of
| private Baths, adds-"And what shall
l say of our public Baths? We have
come to that pitch of luxury that we
disdain to tread upon anything but
| precious stones.
| Tie public Bath which Nero built
after the burning of Rome. to divert
the suspicious of the populace, who
| justly regarded him as the incendiary
was splendid structure, but small
in comparison with some of the gor-
geous buildings of later Emperors. 1t is
to the Baths of Nero that we first find
applied the name of IhermG-
the Greek IhermOs, heat. After this
time it was applied to all the public
Baths of Rome.
| All of the many Baths given to Rome
Dy successive Emperors were of Won
derful magnifcence, but those OF Car
acalla are the most celebrated, because
their remains have suffered least from
the savages of war and time. Every
| tourist who visits Rome is taken to see
the vast ruin, and countless descrip-
tions have been written; but none Is
better that than by Americas own art
ist-poet-W. w. Story-in his Roba di
| Roma, from which we make a few ex-
tracts.
"Come with me to the massive ruin
| of Caracalla's Baths-climb its lofty
arched, and creep, along the broken
roofs of its perilous terraces. Golden
gorses and wall flowers blaze there
in the sun, out of reach; fig trees,
whose fruit no hand can pluck,
root themselves in its clefts; pink
sweet peas, and every variety OF
creeping vetch, hero blooms in perfec-
ton; tall grasses wave their feathery
plumes out on dizzy and impracticable
| lodges, and nature seems to have de-
| lighted to twine this majestic ruin with
| its loveliest flowers .... Look down
from your dizzy height. Sunken In
the ground are monstrCus, inform
blocks, the fragments of the ceiling
that rooted with mosaics these spacious
halls. When these great pieces fell
Rome shook with their thunder, and
the people said There is an earth
quake OF the giant granite columns
which once bore them mp, nothing now
remains save shattered fragments
strewed upon the ground. -. The stat
nes and precious marbles OF antiquity
are all gone, save a few broken bits
and relics, kept in fenced-ln-cham-
ber below. The Farnese family, and
T. cir successors the Frati, swept the
place of every thing. Its ancient mar
BILE guests, the Flora, the farnese bull.
the Hercules, and the Venus Callipyge,
are now in the Museum of Naples; and
in the Villa Borghese and the Museum
of San Giovanni in Laterano, you may
see portions of the mosaics OF athletes
! which once adorned these walls. The
slopirg pavement of black and wh1te
mo aic crumbles away daily under the
tooth of time, and the reckless destruc-
tiveness of travellers. Sheep and goats
niible under the shadow of the ms
ave walls that still stand as firm as
ever Nothing could be more peace
ful, grand and beautiful than these
mountainous ruins.
"Let us reconstruct them as we
fand here, and imagine them as they
were in the days of their perfection.
They we're begun by Caracalla IN the
year 30, continued by Heliogabalus,
and finished by Alexander Severus. J."
/ THE Baths themselves covered vast,
oblong rectangular space which, it is
,aid, may be roughly estimated as about
eighty times the superficial area COW
cred by New York city's great Madison
Sonare Garden. on one floor of which