The Golden House and many of the palaces of the wealthy contained baths which, while not on so large a plan as the public _thermæ_, were doubtless even more luxuriously appointed. We will take, however, the public baths for our example. In the period of the early Republic, the Romans, though scrupulously cleanly as the warmth of their country required, contented themselves with washing in the Tiber. Every ninth day was deemed sufficient for a complete immersion. As the arts of civilization advanced, tubs were placed in the houses, and a daily bath before the evening meal became customary. The first aqueduct for the conveyance of water into the city was built by Appius Claudius about B.C. 310. Seven or eight others were afterward constructed, notably that of Agrippa; so that no city was ever better supplied with water than was ancient Rome. This made possible the public baths, which early made their appearance and which must have been such a boon to the people. At first these baths were solely for lavatory purposes, and were neither so magnificent nor so much a social feature as they afterward became. Seneca relates that at first the ædiles superintended not only the decorum of the bathers, but also the temperature of the baths. Under Augustus, these public conveniences began to be characterized with that magnificence of structure in which all the emperors delighted. A great many of these buildings were erected in various parts of the city; as many as eight hundred have been enumerated. Some of these were marvellous, not only for their dimensions, but also for the costliness of the material and the artistic decorations. The baths of Caracalla were adorned with two hundred columns of the finest marble and furnished with sixteen hundred seats of marble, and it is said that eighteen thousand persons might conveniently bathe there at one time. Yet these were excelled both in size and magnificence by the Thermæ Dioclesianæ. The gift of these establishments was one of the means by which the emperors kept themselves in favor with the people. For a trifling sum, a citizen of any degree could repair to this scene of magnificence and luxury, where there were crowds of slaves to minister to his comfort in a style which might arouse the envy of the proudest Oriental monarch. Besides the various kinds of hot and cold baths, swimming tanks, etc., there were stately porticoes for games and exercise, there were gymnasiums, magnificent galleries for the exhibition of specimens of painting and sculpture, and frequently there were libraries where the studious might rest and read after the refreshing luxury of the baths. The bathrooms proper were duplicated in each establishment, one part being open for the use of the men, the other set apart for the women. There is a hint, however, that, during the reign of some of the worst of the emperors, this propriety was not always strictly adhered to. Unless