Sir James Elliott

Gymnastics — Vitruvius — Opinions of Ancient Physicians on Gymnastics — The Athletes — The Baths — Description of Baths at Pompeii — ThermÆ — Baths of Caracalla.

Gymnastics.

Gymnastics were held in such high repute in ancient Greece that physical training occupied as much time in the education of boys as all their other studies, and was continued through life with modifications to suit the altering requirements of age and occupation. The Greeks fully recognized that mental culture could not reach its highest perfection if the development of the body were neglected. Lucian attributes not only the bodily grace of the Ancient Greeks, but also their mental pre-eminence, to the gymnastic exercises which they practised. They were also an important factor in the excellence of Greek sculpture, and probably the most important part of their medical treatment.

Unfortunately the baths of the Romans and the gymnasia of the Greeks became in time the haunts of the lazy and voluptuous. The gymnastic exercises of the Greeks date from very early times, and at first were of a warlike nature, and not reduced to a system. Each town possessed a gymnasium, and three very important ones were situated at Athens.

Vitruvius describes the general plan of an ancient gymnasium. It comprised a great stadium capable of accommodating a vast concourse of spectators, many porticoes where athletes exercised and philosophers and sages held discussions and lectured, walks and shady groves, and baths and anointing rooms. The buildings, in true Grecian fashion, were made very beautiful, being adorned with statues and works of art, and situated in pleasant surroundings.

Up to the age of 16 boys were instructed in gymnastics, in music and in grammar, and from 16 to 18 in gymnastics alone. The laws of Solon regulated the use of the gymnasia, and for very many years these laws were strictly enforced. It appears that married women did not attend the gymnasia, and unmarried women only in some parts of Greece, such as Sparta, but this custom was relaxed in later years.

The office of Gymnasiarch (Superintendent of Gymnasia) was one of great honour, but involved also a great deal of expense to the holder of the office. He wore a purple cloak and white shoes. Officers were appointed to supervise the morals and conduct of the boys and youths, and the Gymnasiarch had power to expel people whose teaching or example might be injurious to the young.

Galen relates that the chief teachers of the gymnasia were capable of prescribing suitable exercises, and thus had powers of medical supervision.

Before exercises were commenced, the body was anointed, and fine sand or dust applied. Regulation of the diet was considered of very great importance.

The games of the gymnasia were many and various, including games of ball, tug-of-war, top-spinning, and a game in which five stones were placed on the back of the hand, thrown upwards, and caught in the palm. One kind of game or exercise consisted in throwing a rope over a high post, when two boys took the ends of the rope, one boy on each side, the one trying to pull the other up. The most important exercises, however, were running, walking, throwing the discus, jumping, wrestling, boxing, and dancing.

The first public gymnasium in Rome was built by the Emperor Nero. In the time of the Republic Greek exercises were held in contempt by the Romans, and the first gymnasia in Rome were small, and connected only with private houses or villas.

The gymnasia were dedicated to Apollo, the god of healing, and exercises were considered of greater importance for restoring health than medicinal treatment. The directors of the gymnasia were in reality physicians, and acted as such. Plato states that one of these, Iccus by name, was the inventor of medical gymnastics. As in our own day, many creditable gymnasts, originally weak of body, had perfected their strength by systematic exercise and careful dieting.

Hippocrates had occasion to protest against prolonged and laborious exercises, and excessive massage, and recommended his own system, that of moderation. He applied massage to reduce swellings in suitable cases, and also recognized that the same treatment was capable of increasing nutrition, and of producing increased growth and development. Hippocrates described exercises of the kind now known as Swedish, consisting of free movements without resistance.

Galen generally followed the teaching of Hippocrates on gymnastics, and wrote a whole book on the merits of using the strigil. Oribasius, and Antyllus, too, in their writings, recommend special exercises which appealed to their judgment.

The ancient physicians had great faith in the efficacy of exercises in cases of dropsy, and Asclepiades employed this method of treatment very extensively, using also pleasant medicaments, so that Pliny said "this physician made himself the delight of mankind." Patients suffering from consumption were commonly sent to Alexandria to benefit from the climate, but Celsus considered the sea voyage most beneficial because the patient was exercised bodily by the motion of the ship. Germanicus was cured by riding exercise, and Cicero was strengthened by travelling and massage.

From the writings of Greek and Roman physicians there is no other conclusion to be drawn but that exercises and gymnastics were in great vogue for medical purposes, and were of the utmost benefit. It seems likely that the exercises of the Greeks, and the baths of the Romans, both freed from the abuses which took away in time from their merits, could be adopted at the present day and encouraged by physicians with great advantage to their patients. There is a strong tendency at present in that direction.

Belonging to a different class were the contests of the athletes, who, except in very early times in Greece, were people of the baser sort whose bodies were developed to the neglect of their minds. Those who underwent the severest training ate enormous quantities of meat, and tried to cultivate bulk and weight rather than strength. They did not compete, as a rule, after the age of thirty-five years. Euripides considered these athletes an encumbrance on the State. Plato said they were very subject to disease, without grace of manner, violent, and brutal. Aristotle declared that the athletes had not the active vigour that good citizens ought to possess.

The athletes and gladiators of Rome were mostly Greeks. Both Plutarch and Galen deride them. The former condemned the whole business, and Galen wrote six chapters to warn young men against becoming athletes. He said that man is linked to the divine and also to the lower animals, that the link with animals was developed by athletics, and that athletes were immoderate in eating, sleeping, and exertion, and were therefore unhealthy, and more liable than other people to disease and sudden death. Their brutal strength was of use only on rare occasions and unsuited for war, or for useful work.

In the time of St. Paul, the athletes were evidently abstemious, for he wrote "every man who striveth in the games is temperate in all things," but in Rome, at most periods of their history this class of men was notorious for grossness and brutality.

Baths (BalneÆ).

Greek Baths.—In Greece from very early times inability to read and to swim were considered the marks of the ignorant. In Homer's time over-indulgence in warm baths was considered effeminate.[1] The system of bathing was never so complete in Greece as in Rome, but in the former country there were both public and private baths, and ancient Greek vases display pictures of swimming-baths and shower-baths, and also of large basins for men and for women round which they stood to bathe. The Greek baths were near the gymnasia. After the bath, the bathers were anointed with oil and took refreshments. Sometimes a material consisting of a lye made of lime or wood-ashes, of nitrum and of fuller's earth was applied to the body. Towels and strigils were employed for rubbing and scraping after the anointing; the strigil was, as a rule, made of iron.

Natural warm springs used for curative purposes are mentioned by ancient Greek writers.

Roman Baths.—Bathing, which was not much in vogue in Rome in the most ancient times, was more common during the Republic, and became a factor in the decay of the nation in the time of the Empire. Seneca informs us that the ancient Romans washed their arms and legs every day and their whole bodies once a week. The bath-room was near the kitchen in the Roman house, to be convenient for the supply of hot water. Scipio's bath was "small and dark after the manner of the ancients." In the time of Cicero, the use of baths, both public and private, was general, and hot-water and hot-air baths are both mentioned. It has been computed that there were 856 baths in Rome in the time of Constantine.

The public baths were at first used only by the poor, but the mother of Augustus went to the public bath, and in time even the emperors patronized them. The baths were opened at sunrise and closed at sunset except in the time of Alexander Severus, when they were open also at night. The charges for admission were very low. The ringing of a bell announced that the bath was ready. Baths were taken seven or eight times in succession when the people were given to luxury, and some of them wasted almost the whole day there. The voluptuaries of the Empire bathed not only before the principal meal of the day, but also afterwards to promote digestion as they thought. The perspiration induced by the bath took the place of honest sweat induced by work or exercise, and excessive hot-bathing and perspiring in some cases had a fatal ending.

Galen and Celsus differ in their directions to bathers. Galen recommended first the hot-air bath, next the hot-water bath, then the cold bath and finally rubbing; Celsus recommended sweating first in the tepid chamber, then in the hot chamber, and next the pouring of hot, then tepid, and lastly, cold water over the head, followed by the use of the strigil, and anointing and rubbing.

The plan of the baths at Pompeii, which was largely a pleasure resort, is typical of the public baths that were in general use. These baths had several entrances, and the principal one led to a covered portico from which a lavatory opened. The portico ran round three sides of a courtyard (atrium) in which the attendants waited, and it was also the exercise-yard for the young men. Advertisements of the theatres and gladiatorial shows were exhibited on the walls of the atrium. The undressing room was also the reception room and meeting-place. The bathers' garments were handed over for custody to slaves, who were, as a general rule, a very dishonest class. The frigidarium contained a cold bath 13 ft. 8 in. in diameter, and a little less than 4 ft. deep. It had two marble steps, and a seat under water 10 in. from the bottom. Water ran into the bath through a bronze spout, and there was a conduit for the outflow, and an overflow pipe. The frigidarium opened into the tepidarium which was heated with hot air from furnaces, and furnished with a charcoal brazier and benches. The brazier at Pompeii was 7 ft. long and 2½ ft. broad. The tepidarium was commonly a beautifully ornamented apartment, while the anointing-room was conveniently situated off it. Pliny has described the various unguents used by wealthy and luxurious Romans. From the tepidarium the bather might enter the caldarium or sweating room, an apartment constructed with double walls and floor, between which hot air was made to pass. This room contained a labrum, or circular marble basin, containing cold water for pouring over the head before the bather left the caldarium. The method of heating rooms by passing hot air between the "hanging" and the lower floor was in use in the better class of houses, and the device can at present be seen in some of the buildings on the Palatine Hill in Rome, and in the ruins of the great Baths of Caracalla. After a course of sweating the bather had the sweat removed from his body by the strigil, in much the same way as a horse is scraped with a bent piece of hoop-iron by a groom. The guttus was a small vessel with a narrow neck adapted for dropping oil on the strigil to lubricate its working edge. Pliny states that invalids used sponges instead of strigils. Rubbing with towels followed the use of the strigil, and the bather finally lounged in the tepidarium for a varying period before entering the outer air.

The boilers in use at Pompeii were three in number. The lowest one, immediately over the furnace, contained the hottest water. The next above and a short distance to the side held tepid water, and the farthest removed contained cold water. This system was economical because as the very hot water was drawn off from the lowest boiler a supply of tepid water flowed down from the boiler next above, and from the highest to the middle boiler.

A smaller suite of bathing apartments adjoining the men's establishment was for the use of women.

The most important baths formed only a part of the great establishments called thermÆ. Adjoining the baths of the thermÆ were a gymnasium for sports and exercises, a library for the studious, lounging places for the idle, halls for poets and philosophers, in which they declaimed and lectured, museums of art, and sometimes shady groves. These complete establishments were first erected by Marcus Agrippa in the time of Augustus. Succeeding emperors vied with each other in providing magnificent thermÆ, and the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla remain in a wonderful state of preservation to this day. The building of these baths began in A.D. 216. The structure, 1,050 ft. long and 1,390 ft. broad, was on a scale of almost incredible magnificence. Priceless statues and rare objects of art have been unearthed from the ruins. In recent years excavations have revealed a complicated system of subterranean corridors and galleries which existed for the purpose of carrying leaden water-pipes to the baths, and providing a passage-way for the host of slaves who acted as bath-attendants. The great buildings were well lit by windows in the walls of the courtyards, and these openings also allowed for ventilation. A great stadium and beautiful gardens adjoined the Baths of Caracalla. In the north-west section of these baths Alessio Valle has very recently discovered the remains of a great public library. When Caracalla pillaged Alexandria he probably carried off many of the books from the famous library there to enrich his baths. The ruins of the library in the Baths of Caracalla reveal circular tiers of galleries for the display of manuscripts and papyri. There were 500 rooms round these baths. The great hall had a ceiling made in one span, and the roof was an early example of reinforced concrete, for it was made of concrete in which bronze bars were laid. The lead for the water-pipes was probably brought from Cornwall.

The ThermÆ of Diocletian could accommodate 3,200 bathers. Its tepidarium was 300 ft. long by nearly 100 ft. wide, "vaulted in three bays with simple quadripartite groining, which springs from eight monolithic columns of Egyptian granite about 50 ft. high and 5 ft. in diameter" (Middleton).

From the medical point of view, these great bathing institutions were capable of being used for the treatment of various diseases, and for physical culture. No doubt, they were extensively employed for these purposes and with good results, but their legitimate use became increasingly limited, and abuse of them was a prime factor in promoting national decay. To show to what an extent luxurious bathing was carried in some instances, it is interesting to read that baths were taken sometimes in warm perfumes, in saffron oil, and that the voluptuous PoppÆa soothed her skin in baths of milk drawn from a herd of 500 she-asses.