would not bathe with his father, nor even with his father-in-law. At a
later period, men and women, children and old folks, bathed pell-mell
together at the public baths, until the Emperor Hadrian, recognizing the
abuse, suppressed it.

Pompeii, or at least that portion of Pompeii which has been exhumed, had
two public bathing establishments. The most important of these, namely,
the Stabian baths, was very spacious, and contained all sorts of
apartments, side rooms, round and square basins, small ovens, galleries,
porticoes, etc., without counting a space for bodily exercises
(_palaestra_) where the young Pompeians went through their gymnastics.
This, it will be seen, was a complete water-cure establishment.

The most curious thing dug up out of these ruins is a Berosian sun-dial
marked with an Oscan inscription announcing that N. Atinius, son of
Marius the quaestor, had caused it to be executed, by order of the
decurions, with the funds resulting from the public fines. Sun-dials
were no rarity at Pompeii. They existed there in every shape and of
every price; among them was one elevated upon an Ionic column of
_cipollino_ marble. These primitive time-pieces were frequently offered
by the Roman magistrates for the adornment of the monuments, a fact that
greatly displeased a certain parasite whom Plautus describes:

"May the gods exterminate the man who first invented the hours!" he
exclaims, "who first placed a sun-dial in this city! the traitor who has
cut the day in pieces for my ill-luck! In my childhood there was no
other time-piece than the stomach; and that is the best of them all, the
most accurate in giving notice, unless, indeed, there be nothing to eat.
But, nowadays, although the side-board be full, nothing is served up
until it shall please the sun. Thus, since the town has become full of
sun-dials, you see nearly everybody crawling about, half starved and
emaciated."

The other thermae of Pompeii are much smaller, but better adorned, and,
above all, in better preservation. Would you like to take a full bath
there in the antique style? You enter now by a small door in the rear,
and traverse a corridor where five hundred lamps were found--a striking
proof that the Pompeians passed at least a portion of the night at the
baths. This corridor conducts you to the _apodyteres_ or _spoliatorium_,
the place where the bathers undress. At first blush you are rather
startled at the idea of taking off your clothes i