s of the athletae; the
exedrae, or resting-places, provided with seats for those that were
weary; the palestrae, where every one chose that exercise which pleased
him best; the gymnasia, where poets, orators, and philosophers recited
their works, and harangued for diversion; the eleotesia, where the
fragrant oils and ointments were kept for the use of the bathers; and
the conisteria, where the wrestlers were smeared with sand before they
engaged. Of the thermae in Rome, some were mercenary, and some opened
gratis. Marcus Agrippa, when he was edile, opened one hundred and
seventy private baths, for the use of the people. In the public baths,
where money was taken, each person paid a quadrans, about the value of
our halfpenny, as Juvenal observes,

Caedere Sylvano porcum, quadrante lavari.

The victim Pig to God Sylvanus slay,
And for the public Bath a farthing pay.

But after the hour of bathing was past, it sometimes cost a great deal
more, according to Martial,

Balnea post decimam, lasso centumque petuntur
Quadrantes--

The bathing hour is past, the waiter tir'd;
An hundred Farthings now will be requir'd.

Though there was no distinction in the places between the first
patrician and the lowest plebeian, yet the nobility used their own
silver and gold plate, for washing, eating, and drinking in the bath,
together with towels of the finest linen. They likewise made use of the
instrument called strigil, which was a kind of flesh-brush; a custom to
which Persius alludes in this line,

I puer, et strigiles Crispini ad balnea defer.

Here, Boy, this Brush to Crispin's Bagnio bear.

The common people contented themselves with sponges. The bathing time
was from noon till the evening, when the Romans ate their principal
meal. Notice was given by a bell, or some such instrument, when the
baths were opened, as we learn from Juvenal,

Redde Pilam, sonat Aes thermarum, ludere pergis?
Virgine vis sola lotus abdire domum.

Leave off; the Bath Bell rings--what, still play on?
Perhaps the maid in private rubs you down.

There were separate places for the two sexes; and indeed there were
baths opened for the use of women only, at the expence of Agrippina,
the mother of Nero, and some other matrons of the first quality. The
use of bathing was become so habitual to the constitutions of the
Romans, that Galen, in his book De Sanitate tuenda, mentions a certain
philosopher, who, if he intermitted