4. After the Calidarium followed a Lavatorium (Lavatrina, Latrina), called in the figure Balneum, in which the body was washed after the process of perspiration was complete. The mode of washing was to sit on the everted edge or lip of a large marble trough—the labrum—and to be rinsed with warm water poured over the body by means of a cup or small basin (pelvis).
5. The bather then went into the Frigidarium, where he received an affusion of cold water, and where he reclined, or sat, or walked about, until he was cool or dry.
6. From the Frigidarium the bather passed into the Elaiothesium, or anointing room, where he was smeared with fragrant oils previously to resuming his dress in the Vestiarium.
Besides these, which were the principal rooms, there were others devoted to additional processes, such as shaving, hair-cutting, depilation, and hair-plucking.
The Romans carried the indulgence and decoration of their baths to so unreasonable a pitch of luxury and extravagance as to call forth State restrictions upon their use, and the reproof of their philosophers. Juvenal levels a shaft of satire against those who make the bath the instrument of gluttony; and Pliny scolds the doctors for declaring that the bath assists digestion, and for withholding their denunciations against its excessive abuse. Moreover, the Emperor Titus is said to have lost his life through excess of the bath, having spent in it many hours of the day. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that the time devoted to bathing should be limited by imperial edict, as happened in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the hours when the bath was open to the public being confined to two,—namely, from three until five.
Pliny the Consul, in his admirable letters, speaks in most affectionate language of the bath. "How stands Comum" (meaning Como, his birthplace), says he, "that favourite scene of yours and mine? What have you to tell me of the firm yet soft gestatio,[7] the sunny bath?" In another letter, addressed to a lady, he says:—"The elegant accommodations which are to be found at Narnia ... particularly the pretty bath."
Describing his winter villa, Laurentium, after painting a series of rooms, he continues:—
"From thence you enter into the grand and spacious cooling-room belonging to the baths, from the opposite walls of which two round basins project, large enough to swim in. Contiguous to this is the perfuming-room, then the sweating-room, and beyond that the furnace which conveys the heat to the baths. Adjoining are two other little bathing-rooms, which are fitted up in an elegant rather than costly manner: annexed to this is a warm bath of extraordinary workmanship, wherein one may swim, and have a prospect at the same time of the sea. Not far from hence stands the tennis-court, which lies open to the warmth of the afternoon sun."