§372. The Public Baths.--To the simpler bathhouse of the earlier times as well as to the bath itself was given the name _balneum_ (_balineum_), used often in the plural, _balnea_, by the dactylic poets for metrical convenience. The more complex establishments of later times were called _balneae_, and to the very largest with features derived from the Greek gymnasia (§365) the name _thermae_ was finally given. These words, however, were loosely used and often interchanged in practice. Public baths are first heard of after the second Punic war. They increased in number rapidly, 170 at least being operated in Rome in the year 33 B.C., and later there were more than 800. With equal rapidity they spread through Italy and the provinces, all the towns and many villages even having at least one. They were public only in the sense of being open to all citizens who could pay the modest fee demanded for their use. Free baths there were none, except when some magistrate or public-spirited citizen or candidate for office arranged to relieve the people of the fees for a definite time by meeting the charges himself. So Agrippa in the year 33 B.C. kept open free of charge 170 establishments at Rome. The rich sometimes provided free baths for the people in their wills, but always for a limited time. §373. Management.--The first public baths were opened by individuals for speculative purposes. Others were built by wealthy men as gifts to their native towns, as such men give hospitals and libraries now, the administration being lodged with the town authorities who kept the buildings in repair and the baths open with the fees collected. Others were built by the towns out of public funds, and others still as monuments by the later emperors. However started, the management was practically the same for all. They were leased for a definite time and for a fixed sum to a manager (_conductor_) who paid his expenses and made his profits out of the fees which he collected. The fee (_balneāticum_) was hardly more than nominal. The regular price at Rome for men seems to have been a _quadrāns_, less than a cent, the bather furnishing his own towels, oil, etc., as we have seen (§370). Women paid more, perhaps twice as much, while children up to a certain age, unknown to us, paid nothing. Prices varied, of course, in different places. It is likely that higher prices were charged in some baths than in others in the same city, either because they were more luxuriously equipped or to make them more exclusive and fashionable than the rest, but we have no positive knowledge that this was done.