The form of the Puelos,[[330]] or vessel in which they bathed, appears occasionally to have resembled an Egyptian sarcophagus, and to have been sometimes round, and constructed of white or green marble, or glass, or bronze, or common stone, or wood,[[331]] in which case it would seem to have been portable. In the baths of Pompeii the marble basins, whether parallelogramatic or circular, were of spacious dimensions, and raised two or three feet above the pavement. A step for the convenience of the bathers extends round it on the inside, and at the bottom are marble cushions upon which they rested. In the labra of the Grecian female baths rose a smooth cippus in the form of a truncated cone, denominated omphalos, on which the ladies sat while chatting with their female companions.[[332]]
When once the warm bath came into use, people employed it to excess, bathing as frequently as five or six times a day, and in water so hot as to half scald themselves.[[333]] Immediately afterwards, to prevent the skin from chapping, they anointed their bodies with oils and perfumed unguents.[[334]] Occasionally, instead of plunging into the water, they sat upright, as is still the custom in the hammāms of the East, while the water was poured with a sort of ladle on their head and shoulders.
The public baths, of which no full description referring to very ancient times remains, were numerous in all Hellenic cities, more particularly at Athens, where they were surmounted with domes,[[335]] and received their light from above. These establishments were frequented by all classes of women who could afford to pay for such luxury, rich, poor, honourable, and dishonourable.
The attendants, in later and more corrupt times at least, were men, whose sole clothing consisted of a leathern apron about the loins, while the ladies, who undressed in the Apodyterion, went through the various processes of the bath in the same primitive clothing. It was, however, customary for them to enter the water together in crowds,[[336]] so that they kept each other in countenance. Here the matrons who had sons to marry studied the form and character of the young ladies who frequented the baths; and as all the defects both of person and features were necessarily revealed, it was next to impossible for any lady, not sufficiently opulent to keep up a bathing establishment in her own house, to retain for any length of time an undeserved celebrity for beauty. In the baths of the East, the bodies of the bathers are cleansed by small bags of camel-hair, woven rough, and passed over the hand of the attendant; or with a handful of the fine fibres of the Mekka palm-tree combed soft, and filled with fragrant and saponaceous earths, which are rubbed on the skin till the whole body is covered with froth. Similar means were employed in the baths of Greece, and the whole was afterwards cleansed off the skin by gold or silver stlengides, or blunt scrapers somewhat curved towards the point.[[337]]
The architectural arrangements of these baths,[[338]] if we may draw any analogy from similar establishments in a later age, were nearly as follows:—Entering the building by a lofty and spacious portico, you found yourself in a large hall, paved with marble and adorned with columns, from which, through a side-door, you passed into the Apodyterion, or undressing-room; next, into a chamber where was the cold water in basins of porphyry or green jasper; immediately contiguous lay the Tepidarium, to which succeeded the Sudarium, a vaulted apartment furnished with basins of warm water, and where the heat was excessive; from this, moving forward, you successively traversed saloons of various degrees of temperature and dimensions, until you found yourself in the dressing-room, whither your garments had been carried by your domestic, or the attendants on the baths.[[339]] These establishments were likewise provided with water-closets,[[340]] placed in a retired part of the building, and furnished with wooden seats, basin and water-pipe, as in modern times.
To diminish the chances of being robbed, stealing from a bath was at Athens made a capital offence;[[341]] so that the persons who frequented them ran very little risk. The price was usually moderate, though in some cities, as for example at Phaselis, they were in the habit of doubling their charges to foreigners, which drew from a witty sophist a very cutting remark; for his slave disputing with the keeper of the bath, and contending that his master ought not to be charged more than other persons, the sophist, who overheard the dispute, exclaimed, [“Wretch], would you make me a ‘Phaselitan for a farthing?’”[[342]]
The roofs of the more ancient Greek houses were generally flat,[[343]] not sloping upwards to a point, as was afterwards the fashion.[[344]] In Egypt and Syria, and almost throughout the East, the same taste still obtains; and as palm trees, loftier than the buildings, often grow beside the walls, and extend their beautiful pendulous branches over a great part of the roof, nothing can be more delightful on a mild serene evening than to sit aloft on those breezy eminences sipping coffee, gazing over the green rice fields, or watching the stars as they put forth their golden lamps through the violet skirts of day. But there a parapet usually preserves him who enjoys the scene from falling. It was otherwise of old in Greece. The roof consisted simply of a number of beams laid close together and covered with cement, so that, as was proved by the fate of Elpenor,[[345]] the practice of sleeping there in warm weather, quite common throughout the country, was not wholly without danger.
On the construction of the kitchen,[[346]] which in Greek houses was sometimes a separate little building erected in the court-yard, our information is extremely imperfect. It is certain, however, contrary to the common opinion, that it was furnished with a chimney,[[347]] and that the smoke was not permitted to find its way through an aperture in the roof. Thus much might be inferred from a passage in the Wasps, when the old dicast, in love with the courts of law, is endeavouring to escape from the restraint imposed on him by his son, by climbing out through the chimney. It is clear that he has got into some aperture, where he is hidden from sight, for hearing a noise in the wall, his son Bdelycleon, cries out, “What is that?” upon which the old man replies, “I am only the smoke.” It is plain, that he would not, like a Hindù Yoghi, be balancing himself in the air, otherwise the young man must have beheld him sailing up towards the roof. But the matter is set entirely at rest by the Scholiast, who observes, that the καπνοδόχη was a narrow channel like a pipe through which the smoke ascended from the kitchen. This explanation has been confirmed by the discoveries of Colonel Leake,[[348]] who on the rocky slopes of the hill of the Museion and Pnyx, found the remains of a house partly excavated in the rock, in which the chimney still remained.
The same convenience, also, existed in the Roman kitchens,[[349]] though they would appear to have been unskilfully constructed in both countries, since the cooks complain of the smoke being borne hither and thither by the wind, and interfering with their operations. However, this may have arisen from the numerous small furnaces which, as in France, were ranged along the wall for the purpose of cooking several dishes at once. The chimneys having been perpendicular, as in our old farm-houses, were furnished with stoppers to keep out the rain in bad weather.[[350]]
That the kitchens were sometimes not sufficiently airy and comfortable may be inferred from the practice of a philosophical cook in Damoxenos, who used to take his station immediately outside the door, and from thence give his orders to the inferior operatives. Great care was nevertheless taken that it should be well lighted, and that the door should be so situated as to be as little exposed as possible to whirling gusts of wind.[[351]] From a passage in the Scholiast on the Wasps, and the existence of drains in the excavations on the hill of the Museion, it is clear that the Athenian houses were furnished with sinks,[[352]] though in the Italian kitchens there seem merely to have been little channels running along the walls to carry off the water. The floor, too, was constructed in both countries with a view at once to dryness and elegance,[[353]] being formed of several layers of various materials all porous though binding, so that it allowed whatever water was spilt to sink through instantaneously. The upper layer, about six inches thick, consisted of a cement composed of lime, sand, and pounded charcoal or ashes, the surface of which, being polished with pumice-stone, presented to the eye the appearance of a fine black marble. The roof in early times was no doubt of wood,[[354]] though afterwards it came to be vaulted or run up in the form of a cupola. The walls were sometimes decorated with rude paintings.[[355]]