BATHS, Balnea, denote large ornamented buildings, erected by the ancients for the sake of bathing. Baths made a part of the ancient gymnasia, though they were frequented more for the sake of pleasure than of health.

The most magnificent baths were those of Titus, Paulus Aemilius, and Diocletian, of which some ruins still remain. It is said that at Rome there were eight hundred and fifty-six public baths. Fabricius justly observes, that the excessive luxury of the Romans appeared in nothing more visible than in their baths. Seneca complains that the baths of plebeians were filled from silver pumps, and that the freedmen trod on gcms; and Macrobius tells us of one Sergius Oratus, a fantastical voluptuary, who had baths suspended in the air.

According to Dion, Maecenas was the first who erected a bath at Rome; but there were instances of public baths prior to his time, although they were small, poorly decorated, and of cold water only. Agrippa, while aedile, built a hundred and sixty places for bathing, where the citizens might be accommodated either with hot or with cold water gratis; and, following his example, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Severus, Gordian, Aurelian, Maximian, Diocletian, and most of the emperors who studied to gain the affections of the people, erected baths inlaid with the richest marble, and wrought according to the rules of the most delicate architecture. The wealthy had baths, frequently very magnificent ones, at their own residences, especially after the practice of pillaging the provinces had commenced; but these they only used on extraordinary occasions. The great men, and even the emperors themselves, sometimes bathed in public with the rest of the people. Alexander Severus was the first who allowed the public baths to be opened in the night-time during the heats of summer.

The Greek baths were usually annexed to the palest roe or gymnasia, of which they were considered a part; and consisted of seven different apartments, usually separated from one another, and intermixed with other bulldogs belonging to different sorts of exercises. These were, the cold bath, frigida lavatio; the elceothesium, or room where they were anointed with oil; the frigidarium, or cooling room; the propnigeum, or entrance of the hypo-caustum or stove; the vaulted room for sweating in, or vapour-bath, called concamerata sudatio, or tepidarium; the laconicu i n, 0r ; 1 ∙y s t 0ve . and ⅛e hot bath, called ca-w« lavatio. V ith respect to the baths disjoined from the palestrae, they appear to have been usually double; one for men and another for women, but so near that the same furnace heated both. The middle part was occupied by a large basin, which received water by several pipes, and was surrounded by a balustrade, behind which there was an area for the reception of those who waited to usc the bath. These baths were vaulted over, and only received light from the top.

In the Roman baths, the first part which appeared was a large basin, called κοί.υμζτβζα in Greek, and natatio or piscina in Latin. In the middle was the hypocaustum, which had a row of four apartments on each side, called balnearia; these were the stove, hot bath, cold bath, and tepidarium. The two stoves, called laconicum and tepidarium, were circular, and joined together; and their floor was hollow and suspended, in order to receive the beat of a large furnace, which communicated with the stoves through the vacuities of their floor. This furnace also heated another room called msaríww, in which were three large brazen vessels called milliaria, containing respectively hot, warm, and cold water, and so disposed that, by means of siphons and pipes, the water might be made to pass out of one or other of them into the bath, in order to adjust its temperature. Such is the description given by Vitruvius.

At three in the afternoon, which Pliny calls hora octava et nona, the Romans repaired to the baths, public or private. This was called the hora balnei, or the “bath hour.” In summer the earliest hour of admission was eight, and in winter nine; whence the expression of Pliny applied to the hour of general resort. The public baths were opened at the sound of a bell, and always at the same hour. Those who came too late stood a chance of obtaining only cold water. The bathers commenced with hot water; but when the pores had been thus opened, and a profuse perspiration produced, they thought it prudent to close them again, either with the cold bath, or at least with a sprinkling of cold water. During the bath the body was scraped with a kind of blunt knife or strigil, such as may still be found in the cabinets of the curious. Bathing was succeeded by unction and perfuming, after which they went fresh to the ccenaculum.

The Romans, when they found their stomachs overcharged, proceeded to the bath. This we learn from Juvenal, who inveighs against those who, having gorged themselves with eating, were forced to go into the baths to seek relief. They also repaired to a bath to refresh themselves after any considerable fatigue or travel; and hence Plautus says, on one occasion, that all the baths in this world were not sufficient to remove the weariness he felt. After Pompey’s time the humour of bathing was carried to such excess that many were ruined, and some had brought themselves to such a state that they could not take food without first bathing. The emperor Titus is said to have lost his life in consequence of the artificial habit thus induced. Hence Pliny inveighs against those physicians who held that hot baths aided digestion; and the emperor Hadrian laid a restraint on the immoderate humour of bathing, by a public edict, prohibiting all persons from bathing before the eighth hour.

Baths of Agrippa, Thermae Agrippinae, were built of brick, but painted in enamel. Those of Nero, Thermae Neronianae, were not only furnished with fresh water, but had the sea brought into them; those of Caracalla were adorned with two hundred marble columns, and furnished with sixteen hundred marble seats, which, Lipsius assures us, were so large, that eighteen hundred persons might conveniently bathe in them at the same time. But the baths of Diocletian, thermae Diocletianoe, surpassed all the rest in magnificence; one hundred and forty thousand [7:4:442]men having been employed many years in building them. A considerable portion of this vast structure, as well as of the baths of Caracalla, still remains; and, from the dimensions of the arches, the beauty of the pillars, the profusion of foreign marble, the curious moulding of the roofs, the multitude of spacious apartments, and a variety of other circumstances, these ruins may be regarded as the most remarkable relics of ancient taste and splendour.

Bath-KoI, u the daughter of a voice.” So the Jews denominate one of their oracles, which is frequently mentioned in their books, especially the Talmud. The bath-kol was a fantastic method of divination invented by the Jews, though called by them a revelation of God’s will, made to his chosen people after all verbal prophecies had ceased in Israel, being, in fact, analogous to the Sortes Virgilianae among the Romans. For as, with the latter, the first words they happened to turn to in the works of the Mantuan bard were considered a kind of oracle prognostic of future events, so with the Jews, when they appealed to Bath-kol, the first words they heard from any man’s mouth were regarded as a voice from heaven, directing them in the, matter they inquired about. And· even the Christians were not quite free from this superstition, often making the same use of the Scriptures as the Romans did of the works of Virgil; and it descended, through them, to later times. In France it was the practice for several ages to use this kind of divination at the consecration of a bishop, in order to discover his life, manners, and future behaviour; and the usage came into England with the Norman conquest, for we are told, that, at the consecration of William, the second Norman bishop of the diocese of Norwich, the words which first occurred on dipping into the Bible were, “Not this man, but Barabbas.” William died soon after, and was succeeded by Herbert de Lozinga, chief simony broker to King William Rufus, on whose consecration the Bible opened at the words in which Jesus accosted Judas Iscariot; “Friend, wherefore art thou come ?” This circumstance so affected Herbert that it brought him to a thorough repentance of his crime, in expiation of which he built the cathedral church of Norwich, the first stone of which he laid in the year 1096.