BATH HOUSES, Public. Bathing as serving for cleanliness, health and for pleasure, has been almost instinctively practised by nearly every people. The most ancient records men tion bathing in the rivers Nile and Ganges. From an early period the Jews bathed in run ning water and used hot and cold baths; so also did the Greeks. The Persians must have had handsomely equipped baths, for Alexander the Great admired the luxury of the bath of Darius. But the baths of the Greeks and prob ably of all Eastern nations were on a small scale as compared with those which eventually sprang up among the Romans.
In early times the Romans used, after exer cise, to throw themselves into the Tiber. Next, when ample supplies of water were brought into the city, large piscina, or cold swimming baths, were constructed, the earliest of which appear to have been the piscina public° (312 a.c) near the Circus Maximus, supplied by the Appian aqueduct, the lavacrum of Agrippina and a bath at the end of the Clivus Capitolinus. Next, small public as well as private baths were built; and with the empire more luxurious forms of bathing were introduced, and warm baths became far more popular than cold baths. Public baths (balnee) were first built in Rome after Clodius brought in the supply of water from Praeneste. After that date, baths began to be common in Rotne and in other Italian cities. In fact, private baths gradually came into use, being usually attached to the villas of the wealthy citizens. Maecenas was one of the first who built public baths at his own expense_ Af ter this time, each emperor, as he wished to ingratiate himself with the people, lavished the revenues of the state in the construction of enormous buildings, which not only contained suites of bathing apartments, but included gymnasia, and sometimes even theatres and libraries. Such establishments went by the name of Therm?. The principal them= were those of Agrippa (21 n.c ), of Nero (65 A.n.), of Titus (81 A.D.), of Domitian (95 A.D.), of Caracalla (217 Al)),. and still later those of Diocletian (302 a.n.) and of Constantine (317 A.D.). There are said to have been 850 baths altogether in Rome at one period. The technical skill displayed by the Romans in rendering their walls and the sides of reservoirs impervious to moisture, in conveying and heating water, and in constructing flues for the conveyance of hot air through the walls, was of the highest order. The Roman baths contained swimming
pools, warm baths of hot air and vapor baths. The piscine were often of immense size — that of Diocletian being 200 feet long— and were adorned with beautiful marbles. Wherever the Romans settled, they built public baths, and the ruins of such have been found in all the countries which at any time were subject to the Roman eagles —Gaul (France), Spain, Ger many, England, etc. It may be well to point out that none of those public baths was free; on the contrary they were usually patronized only by the upper classes. It has remained for the modern city to adopt free public baths as part of its service to the public.
Although they never wholly gave up cold water bathing, the Romans practised chiefly warm bathing. This, of course, is more lux urious, but when indulged in to excess is enervating. The unbounded license of the pub lic baths, and their connection with modes of amusement that were condemned, led to their being to a considerable extent proscribed by the early Christians. The early Fathers wrote that bathing might be practised for the sake of cleanliness, but not for pleasure. About the 5th century many of the large therm in Rome fell into decay. The cutting off of the aqueduct by the Huns, and the gradual decrease in popu lation contributed to this. Public bathing, how ever, was kept up in full vigor in Alexandria and elsewhere. Hot bathing, and especially hot air and vapor baths, were adopted by the Mo hammedans; and the Arabs brought them with them to Spain. The Turks at a later time carried them high up the Danube. The Crusaders also contributed to the spread of baths in Europe, and hot vapor baths were especially recommended for the leprosy so prevalent in those days. After the commence ment of the 13th century, there were few large cities in Europe without vapor baths. According to Erasmus, they were common at the time of the Reformation in France, Ger many and Belgium; they seem to have been a common adjunct to inns. After a time they became less common, but the reason for the decline is not clear.