By the Grceks and Romans no branch of education was considered more important than swimming, and it was usual to stigmatise the uneducated by saying neque literas neque natare dicrieit. At first they bathed in the rivers and streams, but gradually the luxury of the warm bath crept in, and the health-producing open-air bathing gave way to the more enervating systems now adopted in eastern countries. Homer, in the Tenth Book of the Iliad, says of Diomed and Ulysses : from nocturnal sweat and sanguine stain They cleanse their bodies in the neighbouring main. Then in the polished bath, refreshed from toil, Their joints they supple with dissolving oiL' References to the bathing of Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, king of Phmacia, and her attendants, in the rivers, are to be found in the Sixth Book of the Odyssey. Herodotus also tells us of the daring which the inhabitants of the Greek islands exhibited in swimming and diving. The laws of Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, included swimming, and many of the kindred nations attached an equal value to the practice of it. In time of war a knowledge of it was often of extreme value, as fre quently no other means offered of crossing rivers when pursuing or retreating from an enemy. It was made a part of military training, and highly esteemed as an accomplishment. The Lacedmmonians seem to have been utterly opposed to anything They bathed daily in the Eurotas, and Alcibiades, when exiled among them, rendered himself popular by adopting this, among many other of their customs.
That bathing in open water was considered beneficial by the ancients is unquestionable. In the Ninth Book of the tEneid, Numanus, when taunting the Trojans, says : Strong from the cradle, of a sturdy brood, We bear our new-born infants to the flood ; There bathed amid the stream our boys we hold, With winter hardened and inured to cold.' The Romans are supposed to have derived their ideas as to indoor bathing from the Greeks, but before covered baths became so common in Rome the more exhilarating exercise of swimming was popular. The Tiber flowed by the Campus Martius, where the Roman youth were trained to bear arms, and their exercises included bathing and swimming in the waters of the famous river. It is also said that swimming races were among their competitions, and this is not at all improbable, as the primary thought of the ancients was the cultivation of the body in order to endure the hardships of frequent wars.
The conqueror of Britain, Julius Caesar, was renowned as a swimmer, and used at the head of his legions to cross the rivers encountered during the long marches incidental to his great campaigns. It is owing to his knowledge of the art that the world is enriched by his Commentaries. Singularly enough Camoens, the Virgil of Portugal, was, like Caesar, once compelled to swim with his works in his mouth.
Cmsar, when attacked by Ptolemy in Alexandria, swam to his fleet, and returning with his forces defeated Ptolemy and proclaimed Cleopatra queen. Shakespeare describes a race
between Cesar and Cassius : I was born free as Cwsar ; so were you : We both have fed as well ; and we can both Endure the winter's cold as well as he : once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, Daest thou, Cassius, now. Leap in with me into this angry flood, And swim to yonder point ?' Upon the word. Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bad him follow ; so, indeed, he did. The torrent roar'd ; and we did buffet it With lusty sinews ; throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, Caesar cried, ' Help me, Cassius, or I sink.' I, as dEneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Caesar : And this man Is now become a god.
Seneca is said to have been so fond of a cold bath that he often used to plunge into the Euripus in mid-winter. In his writings he inveighs strongly against the luxury of the tepid baths. Plutarch, in his life of Cato, mentions that the philo sopher taught his son to traverse rapid rivers and dangerous gulfs, and Suetonius incidentally remarks that the Emperor Augustus taught his nephew to swim.
It is stated that the Romans even incorporated a society of divers known as the Urinatores. Gruterus gives the following inscription : Patrono Corporis Piscatorum et Urinatorum, and says that there then remained on one of the gates of Rome the old characters : In the reign of the Emperor Severus, the Byzantines were besieged for three years by the Greeks, and were in such dire straits that they at length resolved to attack their adversaries' fleet with their divers. These cut the cables under water, and hairing fastened them to some cables of their own ships carried off those of the enemy without their men, which obliged the Grecians to raise the siege.
The story told in one of the poems attributed to Musaaus, of Leander, a young man of Abydos, who swam nightly across the Hellespont to visit his love, Hero, a priestess of Venus, and who was one night drowned in the attempt to reach the opposite shore, illustrates the fact that swimming was largely cultivated at this remote age ; as, even if the story be a myth, it is doubtless founded on some daring feat well known to the poet. Lord Byron in aro proved beyond question that the swim was easy of accomplishment to an expert. The actual breadth of the course is barely an English mile, but the distance covered by Lord Byron and Lieutenant Ekenhead, of the Salsette,' was computed by those on board the frigate as upwards of four English miles, as the currents are so strong that it is impossible for even a boat to go directly across. Byron's description of his swim is well known : If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, He sped to Hero, nothing loth, And thus of old thy current pour'd, Fair Venus ! how I pity both.