The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-04-07
R0MErS CHARMING FEATURE
BATHS or CARACALLA AND OTHER
IN ERMAE or THE ANCIENT CRY.


Tho Whole Place Was Nearly Mile in
circumference and Contained MANY
Magnificent Rooms, the Floors of Which
Were Laid With Mosaics-Beautiful
Paintings Still Visible in Ruins.
Dresden, Feb. 10, 1896
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER
The earliest records concerning
Baths refer to their existence in cities
which have long since disappeared
from the banks of the Ganges and the
Nile. In the stirring verses of Homer
we find illusions to warm baths in
which brave heroes bathed their god
like forms. The Jews and particularly
the Greeks and their colonists con-
structed popular bathing establish
ments,. even the jewellers in far away
Persia were renowned for their luxurl-
ant and delightful baths which were
built upon a grand scale. The Ro-
mans, however, surpassed every other
nation in the sumptuousness and mag
nificence of their famous Thermae or
Bathing establishments, which We're
constructed during the first three CEN
turtles of the Christian era. In the old
en- days the aqueducts conveyed INTO
Rome from the distant mountains a
large supply of delicious and abundant
water and it is recorded that there
were over thirteen thousand fountains
and nine thousand baths for a popula-
ton Of one million Inhabitants
or ,,rocnrt HaW the water
supply of Rome is inexhaustible and IS
surpassed by only two other cities,
Philadelphia and London.
One of the most potent of the many
causes of the decline of the Roman
empire was the baleful influence aris-
ing from the various bathing establish
ments, which We're maintained at tire
mendous cost in Rome, a cost and eX-
penditure not only of vast sums of
money and treasure, but especially the
waste of 'manliness" expressed better
by the Latin word ''virtus') which had
been rendered so effeminate that the
men whose ancestors had subjugated
the whole world, had no courage left to
beat back their rude enemies who
swarmed in hordes from the north,
threatening to let the very life blood
from the veins of their mother Rome
The luxury and vices which were
fostered in the magnificent baths of
the emperors served as a powerful lev
er, which eventually overthrow and de-
stroyed the empire. The youth Of
Rome found in the Baths every object
that could assuage their idle desires;
they were listless, selfish vicious, prod
igal. The empire tottered with a rot
tenness born of too great wealth &C.
cruing from centuries of uninterruptei
success. Men who pointed with pride
to long lines of noble ancestors, puis-
SAINT heroes, cultured poets, orators,
philosophers and emperors who were
styled divine and worshipped as very
gods, awaited naught to stay the enfee,
bled strength and glory of an empire
which had actually grasped the globe
Rome, like the tabled "apples of So
DOM, was filled with great moral de-
cay. The ashy rottenness within COM
pletely gnawed away the brilliant We
neer Of the exterior life and we of to-
day who visit ancient Rome stand APP
ralled as we behold the effects pro-
duced by the many causes which de
+
which dominated the world
It is an answering law of nature
that every cause produces it's effect; il
is automatic; so also did the enervatine
baths produce their poisonous influ
ence. The early Christians saw thu
dread effect Of the baths at Rome
which were nothing less than gigantic
club houses, and fearing the effeminan
cy which might creep into and destroy
the life Of the church, determined tina
uncleanliness was a cardinal virtue
and to the present day even some reli
gious orders retain this impression.
The great social and moral pendulum
was vibrating terribly; if it swung to-
far in one direction on the part of TIL
effeminate Romans, it did certainl.
pass too far in the other direction will
the early church fathers when they es
chewed the harmless pleasures of tn
necessary bath. 1t is not the use bu
the abuse of Gods gifts which destroy
and works mischief. Pendulums hay
ever been swinging in the past just a
they vibrate at the present. Great wa
the vibration in the early portion 0
the seventeenth century when tn
stern first settlers of New England lef
their grandly historic cathedrals of Oh
England and built for themselves Il
the New England wilderness gloom,
and frightful wooden boxes in whic
they worshipped their master; eve
their seats or "pews" were fashione
in as uncomfortable manner as inge
nuity could form them, thus forcibl
contrasting with the delightful and re
fined places of worship in their dea
old England. They thought the pen
dulum of worldliness swayed too far i
the old country among clustered pillar
and stately cathedral naves; most Ger
tainly it rushed too eagerly in the OF
posite direction in the little icy, com
fortress New England neeting-house
Right thankful should we be that til
old New England church architectu1
with it's gloom and sadness is rapid
passing away.
Let us suppose that we are mo-
P1IIEH ON RIA re-