And then—
They to the polish'd marble baths repair,
Anoint with fresh perfumes their flowing hair,
And seek the banquet hall.
There was another way, too, of refreshing themselves and getting rid of their fatigue, by pouring water over the head:—
Then o'er their heads and necks the cooling stream
The handmaids pour'd;[40:2]
for baths, in which the whole body is immersed, as the water surrounds all the pores on every side, prevents the escape of the perspiration, just as if a sieve were thrown into the water. For then nothing goes through the sieve, unless you lift it up out of the water, and so allow its pores, if one may call them so, to open, and make a passage through; as Aristotle says in his problems of natural philosophy, when he asks, "Why do men in a perspiration, when they come into warm or cold water no longer perspire, until they leave the bath again?"
45. Vegetables also were set before the ancient heroes when they supped. And that they were acquainted with the use of vegetables is plain from the expression,
He went down to the furthest bed
In the well-order'd garden.
And they used onions too, though they have a very disagreeable smell:—
There was the onion, too, to season wine.
Homer represents his heroes also as fond of the fruit of trees:—