§366. Essentials for the Bath.--The ruins of the public and private baths found all over the Roman world, together with a dissertation by Vitruvius, and countless allusions in literature, make very clear the general construction and arrangement of the bath, but show that the widest freedom was allowed in matters of detail. For the luxurious bath of classical times four things were thought necessary: a warm ante-room, a hot bath, a cold bath, and the rubbing and anointing with oil. All these might have been had in a single room, as all but the last are furnished in every modern bathroom, but as a matter of fact we find at least three rooms set apart for the bath in very modest private houses and often five or six, while in the public establishments this number may be multiplied several times. In the better equipped houses were provided: (1) A room for undressing and dressing (_apodytērium_), usually unheated, but furnished with benches and often with lockers for the clothes; (2) the warm ante-room (_tepidārium_), in which the bather waited long enough for the perspiration to start, in order to guard against the danger of passing too suddenly into the high temperature of the next room; (3) the hot room (_caldārium_) for the hot bath; (4) the cold room (_frīgidārium_) for the cold bath; (5) the _ūnctōrium_, the room for the rubbing and anointing with oil that finished the bath, from which the bather returned into the _apodytērium_ for his clothes. [Illustration: FIGURE 171. STRIGILES]