The eastern or Turkish bath : $b its history, revival in Britain, and application to the purposes of healthWilson, Erasmus, Sir
History
The eastern or Turkish bath : $b its history, revival in Britain, and application to the purposes of health
Wilson, Erasmus, Sir
Baths, Turkish
"The room above the hypocaust, which was the hot-chamber of the bath,
called the _Caldarium_, has unfortunately been so dismantled, that
little or nothing can now be learned of its character or proportions,
two of the side walls only remain. The walls of these hot-chambers are
generally on the inside by ranges of hollow flue-tiles, coming up from
the hypocaust below, varying in number, according to the degree of heat
required.
"There is nothing whatever here left of the _Frigidarium_, or
cooling-room, nor any other of the apartments of the bath, nor of any
of the contrivances used therein, except a sort of tank, 7 feet deep,
10 feet long, and 4 feet wide, situate near the mouth of the furnace,
which may have served either as a receptacle for warm water, or as a
place for a plunge in cold water, after the previous processes of the
bath had been completed.
"Like modern Rome, the present city of Chester stands some feet above
the level of the old Roman city; the visitors, therefore, must be
prepared to descend into a dark cellar, to inspect the hypocaust and
so-called bath! and to emerge therefrom, with a bitter feeling of
humiliation and regret, that our forefathers could have so ruthlessly
destroyed these interesting evidences of the manners and customs of
that wonderful people, who for upwards of four hundred years held
dominion over this island--a people to whom we are indebted for the
fundamental principles of our social civilization; for the introduction
of architecture, sculpture, coinage of money, construction of roads,
and for innumerable other arts and adornments of life. There can
be no more instructive proof of the mental darkness of those ages
which followed the overthrow of the Roman Empire, than the wholesale
destruction of the buildings of that great people, of which this is an
example; and it is to be lamented that this barbarism, in regard to
such monuments of antiquity, has not yet altogether disappeared."
And where, it may be asked, is the bath now; the conquering Romans have
ceased to be other than a name, or a weary lesson for schoolboys; the
Romans are gone, the Roman bath is lost. But here an eloquent modern
author, Mr. Urquhart, helps us in our difficulty with a quotation:--"A
people who know neither Latin nor Greek have preserved this great
monument of antiquity on the soil of Europe, and present to us, who
teach our children only Latin and Greek, this Institution in all its
Roman grandeur and its Grecian taste. The bath, when first seen by
the Turks, was a practice of their enemies, religious and political;
they were themselves the filthiest of mortals; yet no sooner did they
see the bath than they adopted it, made it a rule of their society, a
necessary adjunct to every settlement, and Princes and Sultans endowed
such institutions for the honour of their name." This, then, is the
answer to the question--Where is the bath now? The ancient Roman bath
lives in its modern offspring, the Turkish Bath--the Turkish Hamâm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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