Sketches of the Institutions and Domestic Manners of the Romans (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1826 edition. Excerpt: ...both for health and cleanliness; and, from constant habit, it became requisite to their personal comfort, and one of their chief sources of enjoyment. A citizen, of whatever class, therefore, seldom failed in his attendance on the bath, unless public or private mourning obliged him to abstain from it. In the rude ages of the republic, when the mass of the people were chiefly engaged in agriculture, and the toils of the field were only interrupted by an occasional festival, it was merely customary to wash the limbs in the evening, on the cessation ''until of labour, and every ninth day, when the assemfor the affairs of government, or the the city, they bathed the consulted no other rules than those which cleanliness dictated, and the nearest stream was usually considered the most convenient bath. It was not until about the year 441 from its foundation that Rome was supplied with water by means of aqueducts; but, at a later period, they became so numerous, that they are supposed to have furnished the city with a quantity equal to 500,000 hogsheads every twenty-four hours. They were constructed of brick, from distances of thirty, forty, and even of sixty miles, to reservoirs, whence it was distributed over the town through metal pipes, in such a quantity that whole rivers seemed to flow through the streets and sewers; so that every house had its pipes and cisterns sufficient to furnish a copious and perpetual supply. Of these, a late traveller informs us, that three only, out of nine, remain to supply modern Rome; and yet, such is the quantity they convey, and so pure the sources whence president, and from that time the situation i always held by men of the first rank. The establishment of baths followed soon after that of aqueducts; but...