A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

AUTŎNŎMI (αὐτονόμοι), the name given by the Greeks to those states which were governed by their own laws, and were not subject to any foreign power. This name was also given to those cities subject to the Romans, which were permitted to enjoy their own laws and elect their own magistrates.

AUXĬLĬA. [[Socii].]

AXĀMENTA. [[Salii].]

AXĪNĒ. [[Securis].]

AXIS. [[Currus].]

AXŎNES (ἄξονες), also called kurbeis (κύρβεις), wooden tablets of a square or pyramidal form, made to turn on an axis, on which were written the laws of Solon. According to some writers the Axones contained the civil, and the Kurbeis the religious laws; according to others the Kurbeis had four sides and the Axones three. But at Athens, at all events, they seem to have been identical. They were at first preserved in the Acropolis, but were afterwards placed in the agora, in order that all persons might be able to read them.

B

BĀLISTA, BALLISTA. [[Tormentum].]

BALNĔUM or BĂLĬNĔUM (λοετρόν or λουτρόν, βαλανεῖον, also balneae or balineae), a bath. Balneum or balineum signifies, in its primary sense, a bath or bathing vessel, such as most Romans possessed in their own houses; and from that it came to mean the chamber which contained the bath. When the baths of private individuals became more sumptuous, and comprised many rooms, the plural balnea or balinea was adopted, which still, in correct language, had reference only to the baths of private persons. Balneae and balineae, which have no singular number, were the public baths. But this accuracy of diction is neglected by many of the later writers. Thermae (from θέρμη, warmth) means properly warm springs, or baths of warm water, but was afterwards applied to the structures in which the baths were placed, and which were both hot and cold. There was, however, a material distinction between the balneae and thermae, inasmuch as the former was the term used under the republic, and referred to the public establishments of that age, which contained no appliances for luxury beyond the mere convenience of hot and cold baths, whereas the latter name was given to those magnificent edifices which grew up under the empire, and which comprised within their range of buildings all the appurtenances belonging to the Greek gymnasia, as well as a regular establishment appropriated for bathing.—Bathing was a practice familiar to the Greeks of both sexes from the earliest times. The artificial warm bath was taken in a vessel called asaminthus (ἀσάμινθος) by Homer, and puelus (πύελος) by the later Greeks. It did not contain water itself, but was only used for the bather to sit in, while the warm water was poured over him. On Greek vases, however, we never find anything corresponding to a modern bath in which persons can stand or sit; but there is always a round or oval basin (λουτήρ or λουτήριον), resting on a stand, by the side of which those who are bathing are standing undressed and washing themselves. In the Homeric times it was customary to take first a cold and afterwards a warm bath; but in later times it was the usual practice of the Greeks to take first a warm or vapour, and afterwards a cold bath. At Athens the frequent use of the public baths, most of which were warm baths (βαλανεῖα, called by Homer θερμὰ λοετρά), was regarded in the time of Socrates and Demosthenes as a mark of luxury and effeminacy. Accordingly, Phocion was said to have never bathed in a public bath, and Socrates to have used it very seldom. After bathing both sexes anointed themselves, in order that the skin might not be left harsh and rough, especially after warm water. Oil (ἔλαιον) is the only ointment mentioned by Homer, but in later times precious unguents (μῦρα) were used for this purpose. The bath was usually taken before the principal meal of the day (δεῖπνον). The Lacedaemonians, who considered warm water as enervating, used two kinds of baths; namely, the cold daily bath in the Eurotas, and a dry sudorific bath in a chamber heated with warm air by means of a stove, and from them the chamber used by the Romans for a similar purpose was termed Laconicum. A sudorific or vapour bath (πυρία or πυριατήριον) is mentioned as early as the time of Herodotus. At what period the use of the warm bath was introduced among the Romans is not recorded; but we know that Scipio had a warm bath in his villa at Liternum, and the practice of heating an apartment with warm air by flues placed immediately under it, so as to produce a vapour bath, is stated to have been invented by Sergius Orata, who lived in the age of Crassus, before the Marsic war. By the time of Cicero the use of baths of warm water and hot air had become common, and in his time there were baths at Rome which were open to the public upon payment of a small fee. In the public baths at Rome the men and women used originally to bathe in separate sets of chambers; but under the empire it became the common custom for both sexes to bathe indiscriminately in the same bath. This practice was forbidden by Hadrian and M. Aurelius; and Alexander Severus prohibited any baths, common to both sexes, from being opened in Rome. The price of a bath was a quadrant, the smallest piece of coined money, from the age of Cicero downwards, which was paid to the keeper of the bath (balneator). Children below a certain age were admitted free. It was usual with the Romans to take the bath after exercise, and before the principal meal (coena) of the day; but the debauchees of the empire bathed also after eating as well as before, in order to promote digestion, and to acquire a new appetite for fresh delicacies.