Bath is the immersion of the body in water, or an apparatus for this purpose. The use of the bath as an institution apart from occasional immersion in rivers or the sea, is, as might be anticipated, an exceedingly old custom. Homer mentions the bath as one of the first refreshments offered to a guest; thus, when Ulysses enters the palace of Circe, a bath is prepared for him, and he is anointed after it with costly perfumes. No representation, however, of a bath as we understand it is given upon the Greek vases, bathers being represented either simply washing at an elevated basin, or having water poured over them from above. In later times, rooms, both public and private, were built expressly for bathing, the public baths of the Greeks being mostly connected with the gymnasia. Apparently, by an inversion of the later practice, it was customary in the Homeric epoch to take first a cold and then a hot bath; but the Lacedemonians substituted the hot-air sudorific bath, as less enervating than warm water, and in Athens at the time of Demosthenes and Socrates the warm bath was considered by the more rigorous as an effeminate custom.
The fullest details we have with respect to the bathing of the ancients apply to its luxurious development under the Romans. Their bathing establishments consisted of four main sections: the undressing room, with an adjoining chamber in which the bathers were anointed; a cold room with provision for a cold bath; a room heated moderately to serve as a preparation for the highest and lowest temperatures; and the sweating-room, at one extremity of which was a vapour-bath and at the other an ordinary hot bath. After going through the entire course both the Greeks and Romans made use of strigils or scrapers, either of horn or metal, to remove perspiration, oil, and impurities from the skin. Connected with the bath were walks, covered race-grounds, tennis-courts, and gardens, the whole, both in the external and internal decorations, being frequently on a palatial scale. The group of the Laocoon and the Parnese Hercules were both found in the ruins of Roman baths.
With respect to modern baths, that commonly in use in Russia consists of a single hall, built of wood, in the midst of which is a powerful metal oven, covered with heated stones, and surrounded with broad benches, on which the bathers take their places. Cold water is then poured upon the heated stones, and a thick, hot steam rises, which causes the sweat to issue from the whole body. The bather is then gently whipped with wet birch rods, rubbed with soap, and washed with lukewarm and cold water; of the latter, some pailfuls are poured over his head; or else he leaps, immediately after this sweating-bath, into a river or pond, or rolls in the snow.
The Turks, by their religion, are obliged to make repeated ablutions daily, and for this purpose there is, in every city, a public bath connected with a mosque. A favourite bath among them, however, is a modification of the hot-air sudorific-bath of the ancients introduced under the name of Turkish Bath into other than Islamic countries. A regular accompaniment of this bath, when properly given, is the operation known as 'kneading,' or massage, generally performed at the close of the sweating process, after the final rubbing of the bather with soap, and consisting in a systematic pressing and squeezing of the whole body, stretching the limbs, and manipulating all the joints as well as the fleshy and muscular parts.
Public baths were common in Europe during the late 19th century, but the first English public baths and wash-houses of the kind common in all cities during the late 19th century were established in Liverpool and near the London docks in 1844. In 1846 an act was passed for their encouragement, and a Baths and Wash-houses Act of 1878 authorized the establishment of cheap swimming-baths.
The principal natural warm baths in England are at Bath in Somersetshire (the hottest), and Brixton and Matlock in Derbyshire. The temperature of the Bath springs ranges from 109 to 117 degrees, while that of the Buxton and Matlockwaters scarcely exceeds 82 degrees. The baths of Harrogate, which are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, are also of great repute for the cure of obstinate cutaneous diseases, indurations of the glands, etc. The most celebrated natural hot baths in Europe are those of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the various Baden in Germany; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagnieres, Bareges, and Dax, in the south of France; and Spa, in Belgium. Besides the various kinds of water-bath with or without medication or natural mineral ingredients, there are also milk, oil, wine, earth, sand, mud, and electric baths, smoke-baths and gas-baths; but these are as a rule only indulged after specific prescription.
The practice of bathing as a method of cure in cases of disease falls under the head of hydrotherapathy; in the 19th century it was advised that even when bathing was employed simply for pleasure or purification due regard should be paid to the physiological condition of the bather. During the Victorian era in Britain writers were concerned about the potential dangers of bathing, and one warned:
'in many cases cold bathing should be avoided altogether, especially by those who have any tendency to spitting of blood or consumption, by gouty people, or by those who have any latent visceral disease or apoplectic tendency. Wherever the bath is followed by shivering instead of by a healthy reactionary glow, it is undesirable; and a cold bath in the morning after any debauchery or excess in eating or drinking on the previous evening is exceedingly imprudent. Delicate persons and children ought not to bathe in the sea before ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, and in no case should bathing be indulged after a long fast. In cold streams and rivers additional precautions should be taken, the cold plunge, when heated or fatigued, being frequently attended with fatal results. Even warm baths are not wholly free from danger; apoplexy and death having been known to follow a hot bath when entered with a full stomach. As a rule the temperature should not exceed 105 degrees, and they should not be too long continued. Frequent indulgence in them has an enervating effect, though the majority of people need as yet no renewal of Hadrian's prohibitive legislation in this matter.'
The eminent author, George Black, in 1892, while generally encouraging bathing, and describing bathing as 'likely to be of excellent use and efficacy both in the prevention and cure of disease.' Also went on to warn:
'Baths should never be taken immediately after a meal, nor when the body is very much exhausted by fatigue or excitement of any kind, nor during nor just before menstruation; and they should be sparingly and guardedly used by pregnant women.' Research Bath
The Hercules-beetle (Scaraboeus) is a very large Brazilian lamellicorn beetle. An enormous horn projects from the head, and a smaller one from the thorax. The beetle grows to 12cm long. Research Hercules-beetle
Antonio Canova was an Italian sculptor. He was born in 1757 at Possagno, in Venetian territory and died in 1822. He was first an apprentice to a statuary in Bassano, from whom he went to the Academy of Venice, where he had a brilliant career. In 1779 he was sent by the senate of Venice to Rome with a salary of 300 ducats, and there produced his Theseus and the Slain Minotaur. In 1783 Antonio Canova undertook the execution of the tomb of Pope Clement XIV in the Church of the Apostles, a work in the Bernini manner, and inferior to his second public monument the tomb of Pope Clement XIII (1792) in St Peter's.
From 1783 his fame rapidly increased. He established a school for the benefit of young Venetians, and amongst other works produced his group of Venus and Adonis, the Psyche and Butterfly, a Repentant Magdalene, the well-known Hebe, the colossalHerculeshurling Lichas into the Sea, the Pugilists, and the group of Cupid and Psyche. In 1796 and 1797 Antonio Canova finished the model of the celebrated tomb of the Archduchess Christina of Austria, and in 1797 made the colossal model of a statue of the King of Naples executed in marble in 1803. He afterwards executed in Rome his Perseus with the Head of Medusa, which, when the BelvidereApollo was carried to France, was thought not unworthy of its place and pedestal.
In 1802 he was invited by Bonaparte to Paris to make the model of his colossal statue. Among the later works of the artist are a colossalGeorge Washington, the tombs of the Cardinal of York and of Pius VII; a Venus Rising from the Bath; the colossal group of Theseus Killing the Minotaur; the tomb of Alfieri; the Graces Rising from the Bath; a Dancing Girl; a colossalHector; a Paris, etc. After the second fall of Napoleon, in 1815, Antonio Canova was commissioned by the pope to demand the restoration of the works of art carried from Rome. He went from Paris to London, and returned to Rome in 1816, where he was made Marquis of Ischia, with a pension of 3000 scudi. Research Antonio Canova
Baccio Bandinelli was Italian sculptor. He was born in 1493 at Florence and died in 1560. He was jealous of and strove to rival Michaelangelo. Among his works are a Hercules and Cacus, the dead body of Christ held up by an angel, Adam and Eve, etc. Research Baccio Bandinelli
Commodus (Aelius Aurelius) was a Roman emperor. The son of Marcus Aurelius, hw was born in 161 and died in 192. He succeeded his father in 180, and soon revealed proof of his cruel and voluptuous character. He used to fight in the circus like a gladiator, and caused himself to be worshipped as Hercules. One of his concubines, whom he intended to put to death, administered poison to him; but it operated too slowly, and he was strangled by a favourite athlete. Research Commudus
David Urquhart was a British politician. He was born in 1805 at Cromarty and died in 1877. Educated on the continent, and at St John's College, Oxford, he fought under Cochrane in Greece, from 1827 to 1828, and from the knowledge he acquired of that country was given diplomatic employment. A friend of Turkey and violently anti-Russian, his attitude towards Russia necessitated his recall from Constantinople (Istanbul), where he was secretary of embassy from 1835 until 1837. He was member of parliament for Stafford from 1847 until 1852, he opposed Palmerston and denounced the participation of Britain and France in the Crimean War. He founded a journal, The Free Press, in 1855, and published The Pillars of Hercules, 1850, and The Lebanon, 1860. Research David Urquhart
The Dorians were one of the four great branches of the Greek nation who migrated from Thessaly southwards, settling for a time in the mountainous district of Doris in Northern Greece and finally in Peloponnesus. Their migration to the latter was said to have taken place in 1104 BC; and as among their leaders were certain descendants of Hercules (or Heracles), it was known as the return of the Heraclidae. The Dorians ruled in Sparta with great renown as a strong and warlike people, though less cultivated than the other Greeks in arts and letters. Their laws were severe and rigid, as typified in the codes of the great Doric legislators Minos and Lycurgus. The Doric dialect was characterized by its broadness and hardness, yet on account of its venerable and antique style was often used in solemn odes and choruses. Research Dorians
Euripides was a Greek dramatist. He was born in 480 BC ior 485 BC at Phyla on the island of Salamis and died in 406 BC. He studied under Prodicus and Anaxagoras, and is said to have begun to write tragedies at the age of eighteen, although his first published play, the Peliades, appeared only in 455 BC. He was not successful in gaining the first prize until the year 441 BC, and he continued to exhibit until 408 BC, when he exhibited the Orestes. The violence of unscrupulous enemies, who accused him of impiety and unbelief in the gods, drove Euripides to take refuge at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, where he was held in the highest honour. According to a tradition he was killed by hounds in 406 BC.
Euripides is a master of tragic situations and pathos, and shows much knowledge of human nature and skill in grouping characters, but his works lack the artistic completeness and the sublime earnestness that characterize AEschylus and Sophocles. Euripides is said to have composed seventy-five, or according to another authority ninety-two tragedies. Of these eighteen (or nineteen, including the Ehesus) are extant: Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Hecuba, Heracleidse, Supplices, Ion, Hercules Eurens, Andromache, Troades, Electra, Helena, Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes, Phcenissse, Bacchas, Iphigenia in Aulis, and Cyclops. Research Euripides
The Farnese were an illustrious Italian family of Italy, whose descent may be traced from about the middle of the 13th century, and which gave to the church and the Republic of Florence many eminent names. The line became extinct with Antonio Farnese in 1731. The name of the Farnese is associated with several famous buildings and works of art. The Farnese Palace, at Rome, was built for Pope Paul III while he was cardinal, by Sangallo and Michael Angelo. Its sculpturegallery was formerly very celebrated, but the best pieces have been removed to Naples, including the following: The Farnese Bull, a celebrated ancient sculpture representing the punishment of Dirce, discovered in the 16th century in the Baths of Caracalla at Home; Farnese Hercules, a celebrated ancient statue of Hercules by Glycon, found in the Baths of Caracalla in 1540; Farnese Flora, a colossal statue of great merit, found in the Baths of Caracalla; Farnese Cup, an antiqueonyxcup, highly ornamented with figures in relief. Research Farnese
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Bath
