Invisible Romans (8 page)

There were worries to accompany the good times. Assignations might not be successful. Adultery might occur at your expense. Your clothes might be stolen while you bathed, leaving you seething and cursing the thief. In Rome, this was such a problem that the Prefect of the City Guard was put in charge of doing something about it. He had:

… authority to make an investigation of attendants at the baths who look after bathers’ clothing for a fee, if they act dishonestly in taking care of clothes.
(Digest
1.15.3.5)

You might worry about your women going to the baths, for bad things could happen, as this formal complaint from Egypt documents:

From Hippalos son of Archis, public farmer from the village of Euhemeria of the Themistos division. On the 6th Tybi, while my wife Aplounous and her mother Thermis were bathing, Eudaimonis daughter of Protarchos, and Etthytais daughter of Pees, and Deios son of Ammonios, and Heraklous attacked them, and gave my wife Aplounous and her mother in the village bath-house many blows all over her body so that she is laid up in bed, and in the fray she lost a gold earring weighing three quarters, a bracelet of unstamped metal weighing 16 drachmas, a bronze bowl worth 12 drachmas; and Thermis her mother lost a gold earring weighing two and a half quarters, and … (Rowlandson, no. 254)

But the fellowship of the baths was an indispensable, positive part of the social life of ordinary men.

As we picture this social venue, crowded as it was with men (women usually had separate hours), we unthinkingly set beside it the shiny marble of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome or the splendor of Cluny in Paris and imagine this as a sign of grand Roman civilization. There was an element of this, of course; who would not have been impressed with the grandest of these establishments? But this should not blind us to the reality that for the ordinary and elite alike the baths offered not only social interaction but a dangerous lack of hygiene shocking even to contemplate. We do not know how often the water was changed, but there is no indication that this happened frequently. There was no ‘prewash’; rather, the lathering with oil and then scraping off of the same as a cleansing action prior to bathing just meant that the removed material was swept by some bath maintenance person into the pool. Although latrines were sometimes available, apparently some folks just used the pool:

The most dangerous and dreaded thing of all would be to defecate in the temple of a god or in the marketplace or in a public street or bath. For this portends the wrath of the gods and great disgrace and severe loss. In addition often the person who dreams becomes the object of hatred, and his hidden things are revealed.
(Dreams
2.26)

In short, whatever dirt, grime, bodily fluids, expulsions, and germs people brought with them to the baths, the water quickly shared with
other bathers. Especially in the warm bathing room the bacterial count must have been astronomical. Although this entire combination surely spread contagious diseases, there is no indication that anyone realized any danger at all. In fact, a standard recommendation by doctors was to ‘take the baths,’ so diseased persons were actually encouraged (as we know now) to spread their afflictions to others, all the while acquiring new illness from the waters meant to cure them. Although on occasion even emperors shared the public baths with ordinary people, one at least probably stayed away. Marcus Aurelius caught the ugliness of the bathing process when he wrote:

What does bathing look like to you? Oil, nasty refuse, sludgy water, everything disgusting.
(Meditations
8.24)

The scene at the baths was also loud and chaotic. Artemidorus notes that dreaming of singing in the baths is bad luck; dreaming of baths themselves some thought was bad luck too, because all the raucous noise indicated turmoil in life. The elite Seneca eloquently complains of this as he imagines trying to work in an apartment above a public bath:

Behold! On every side all kinds of uproar sound. I live above a public bathing establishment. Imagine now for yourself all the wide range of noises that are enough to make me sorry my ears can hear at all. One time I hear body-builders exercising, pumping their arms, holding heavy lead weights, sweating it out – or pretending to; I hear grunts and groans at the lift, whenever they stop holding their breath, I hear wheezes and sharp breathing. Then I have to endure some lazy fellow, happy with his cheap oil rub-down; I hear the noise of hands smacking his shoulders, the varying sounds as now the flat, now the cupped hand slaps away. Yet more – if the ball player adds to the bedlam by starting to count his score at the top of his lungs, it’s all over! Add to this the vulgar people shouting at each other, the thief caught in the act, and that fellow who just loves to hear his singing resonate through the bathhouse – along with other singers, too, who at least have decent voices. And still more! Those fellows who cannonball into the pool, hitting the water with an horrendously loud splash! Besides, just think about those slaves who pluck armpits going about advertising themselves with their continuous, squeaky, shrill shouts – they never stop, unless actually plucking an armpit – and making someone
else
scream instead. And amid all this are the mixed and confused shouts of the many vendors – the cake seller, the sausage hawker, the confectioner, and food purveyors, all pushing their wares with distinctive cries. [Meanwhile, outside the apartment, I mark] carriages rattling by, clangs from a neighboring workshop, a nearby saw-sharpening service at work, and to top it all off, a pipe and flute seller who can’t sing, so he just shouts everything out.
(Letters
56.1, 2)

Trying to put this reality out of our heads, I return to the main point: the baths were social gathering places for ordinary men and, indeed, for their families as well. Children could and did frequent at least some baths with their parents. An epitaph from Rome tells a sad story:

Daphnus and Chryseis, freedpersons of Laco, set this gravestone up to their dear Fortunatus. He lived 8 years. He perished in the pool at the Baths of Mars. (
CIL
6.16740)

And it is probably echoed in another, made, sadly, by the stone carver himself:

I, most unlucky father, carved this for my boy who, poor soul, perished in the pool. He lived 3 years and 6 months. (
CIL
9.6318, Chieti, Italy)

Although this was not the norm by any means, women even sometimes bathed with the men. Pompeius Catussa set up a touching epitaph:

To the Gods of the Underworld and the everlasting memory of Blandinia Martiola, a most pure girl who lived 18 years, 9 months, and 5 days. Pompeius Catussa, a Sequanian citizen, a plasterer, set this monument up to an incomparable wife, most kind to me, who lived with me 5 years, 6 months and 18 days without any base reproach, and to himself while still alive. You who read this, go to the Baths of Apollo to bathe, a thing which I did with my wife. How I wish I could do it still! (
CIL
13.1983 =
ILS
8158, Lyon, France)

Leaving home or an association meeting or the baths, the ordinary man went out into the street expecting to enter a busy, noisy world. Much of his life was spent outside, as was the life of everyone else in society. He found what he needed, especially food, in the stalls or spread out on mats which were set up not only in the few open spaces, but along any street; these complemented the relatively few actual shops where goods were sold. Weaving in and out of the crowds, beggars accosted him, street musicians played or sang for handouts, teachers tried to keep the attention of their pupils amid the loud hum, street philosophers, soothsayers, magicians, and assorted accosters plied their trade.

And we often see how even in the midst of a very great turmoil and throng the individual is not hampered in carrying on his own occupation; but, on the contrary, the man who is playing the flute or teaching a pupil to play it devotes himself to that, often holding school in the very street, and the crowd does not distract him at all, or the din made by the passers-by; and the dancer likewise, or dancing master, is engrossed in his work, being utterly heedless of those who are fighting and selling and doing other things; and so also with the harper and the painter. But here is the most extreme case of all: The elementary teachers sit in the streets with their pupils and nothing hinders them in this great throng from teaching and learning. And I remember once seeing, while walking through the Hippodrome, many people on one spot and each doing something different: one playing the flute, another dancing, another doing a juggler’s trick, another reading a poem aloud, another singing, and another telling some story or myth; and yet not a single one of them prevented anyone else from attending to his own business and doing the work that he had in hand. (Dio Chrysostom,
Discourses
20.9–10/Cohoon)

The society of the street was crucial. Even if one had a business, and certainly if, as was very widely the case, a person was underemployed and had lots of time on his hands on a regular basis, visits to the local tavern were a daily affair. One vignette must suffice. Wall paintings from the Tavern of the Seven Sages in Ostia illustrate the humor of the men in such places. The tavern was an unexceptional ‘local’; there were no pretensions to architectural or other grandeur. The Seven Sages were
favorites of the elite; they were often illustrated with busts, quotations, and so on in house decoration. But the paintings in the tavern have the Seven Sages of antiquity uttering scatological advice; the humans who are painted relieving themselves mimic this in earthy pictorial language. Education was one of the marks of the elite, along with birth and wealth. Although education was accessible to the ordinary man – and the sayings of the Seven Sages had permeated to the level of popular philosophy – nevertheless, ridicule of ‘highfalutin’ education clearly struck a chord. On the vault of the tavern, expensive wines are illustrated. Obviously, ostentatious wealth is the target of the humor. Although ‘birth’ is not singled out for ridicule, it went hand in glove with the other two marks of the elite. I am reminded of the fable of the Battle of the Mice and the Weasels; illustrations of this fable were a favorite decoration of taverns, as Phaedrus tell us. In it, weasels and mice were constantly at war, with the weasels always winning. The mice decided that what they needed was an elite leadership, so they chose the strongest, wisest, bravest, and those of noblest blood to take over and train the mouse army. Once the new elite had done its best in reorganizing and training their army, the mice declared war on the weasels. The mouse generals bound their heads with straw to stand out from the common herd. Immediately as it began, the battle turned against the mice, who broke rank and fled en masse for the protection of their underground homes. Unfortunately, the large straw ‘plumes’ of the leaders kept those mice from disappearing into mouseholes – they were to a mouse caught and eaten by the weasels (Babrius 31, Phaedrus 4.6). This fable’s content, surely known to the viewers, mocked the arrogance, not to say stupidity and uselessness, of those of high birth.

Life in the bars and taverns was lively. There was food as well as drink, and women were often available. Dice games broke out there or on the street; conversations with neighbors and strangers about local events and politics and gossip entered the general hubbub. This personal interaction kept a man connected with his community and up to date (whether with good or bad information) on situations and events that might affect him.

The street also provided the venue for learning and making use of what was learned. With books being mostly an expensive luxury of the wealthy, literature of all levels was purveyed orally. Poets on corners
and in parks recited to anyone who would listen. All of this provided men with opportunities for entertainment ranging from the crazy on the corner to discussion of serious politics, at least in the first centuries of the empire when many towns elected their magistrates. While the local elite controlled these offices and the local council made up of ex-magistrates, their actions affected ordinary people. Besides day-to-day interactions, these men and especially the aediles were responsible for public benefactions such as bread distribution, and putting on public entertainments such as gladiatorial shows and theatrical productions. So for both economic and social reasons, people were invested. However, just as in Rome itself the popular voting assemblies ceased to have real power during the empire, so, too, in towns the local assemblies lost out to an increasingly powerful entrenched ruling class.

Despite this long-term trend, in the moment many ordinary men were involved in political campaigning and voting. The many electoral graffiti from Pompeii vividly demonstrate the political life of men, both their seriousness and their sense of humor about it:

I ask that you make Gaius Julius Polybius Aedile. He supplies good bread! (
CIL
4.429 =
ILS
6412e)

(Vote for) Marcus Casellius Marcellus, a good Aedile who puts on terrific games.
(CIL
4.999)

Proculus, make Sabinus Aedile and he will make you one too.
(CIL
4.635 =
ILS
6436)

Other notices show a bit of humor:

The pickpockets want Vatia as Aedile (
CIL
4.576 =
ILS
6418f)

I beg you to elect Marcus Cerrinius Vatia Aedile. The late drinkers all ask it! Florus and Fructus wrote this. (
CIL
4.581 =
ILS
6418d)