Ml BATAVI. 



loft their native district, Mid settled, according to Tacitus (' Hist' iv. 

 I. 1 , Ccnu.' 129), "on the extreme borders of Gaul, mich as they 

 found destitute of iuhabiunU," but chiefly on MI island formed by the 

 iu.rth.-ni arm of the Rhine (or Rhine of Leyden), the VahalU, or Waal, 

 and the Moaa or Haas after their junction, and the ocean; which 

 inland now constitute* part of the province of South Holland. The 

 first mention of them is by CMar (' De Bell. Gall.' iv. 10), who call* 

 their country by the name of Insula Batavoruin, and appears to 

 "r it a* belonging to Germany, and not to Gaul ; the limit! of 

 Gaul on that <le being placed at the BOH them branch of the 

 e, or Waal, after its junction with the Mom, or Haas. Cnaar 

 .li.l not carry the war into the country of the Batavi. Under 

 Auguitu* the Batavi became allies of the Romans ; they were exempted 

 from taxes, and they furnished cavalry to the Roman armies on the 

 Lower Rhine and in Britain, where detachments of them long con- 

 tinued to be stationed. Drusua, the brother of Tiberius, resided for 

 a time among them, and dug a canal, Fossa Drusiana, which con- 

 nected the Rhine with the modem Ysuel. Besides the Batavi there 

 was another people on the same island, probably in its north-western 

 extremity, called by the Roman historians Canninefates. They were 

 of the same origin as the Batavi (Tacitus, ' Hist.' iv. 15), but not 

 so numerous, and their name became gradually lost in that of the 

 larger tribe. Tacitus speaks highly of the bravery of both these 

 tribes, and " for Germans " of their mental capacity. 



The chief place of the Canninefates was Liigdunum Batavoniui, now 

 Leyden ; and that of the Batavi waa Batavoduruin, afterwards called 

 Noviomagus, and now Nymegen. This is Mamiert's opinion, though 

 others have placed Batavodurum at Duurstede, and made it a dill, rent 

 place from Noviomagus. The other towns of the Batavi were Arena - 

 cum, generally supposed to be Arnheim, but placed by others near 

 Werthuysen ; Carvo, on the northern branch of the Rhine, probably 

 Amheim ; Grinnes, near the junction of the Waal with the 

 i ; Trajectum, the modern Utrecht ; and Forum Uadriani, in the 

 m part of the island near the sea. The name of the Batavi 

 can be traced even now in that of Betuwe, which is a district of the 

 ancient Batavonmi Insula, between the Rhine, the Waal, and the Lek. 

 Beyond the northern branch of the Rhine, and between that and the 

 Flevium, or Ysscl, in the province now called North Holland, wen- 

 the Frisii and the Frisiaboni, tribes belonging to the great Frisian 

 stock which inhabited the land north-east of the YaseL Pliny places 

 two other tribes, the Sturii and the Harsucii, on the islands off the 

 western coast at the mouth of the Mosa, which islands now form part 

 of Zealand. 



After the death of Galba, the army of the Rhine having proclaimed 

 Vitellius, and followed him on his way to Italy, the Batavi took the 

 opportunity of rising against the Romans, whose alliance had become 

 very burthensome to them. Claudius Civilis, a man belonging to one 

 of their principal families, though bearing a Latin name, acted as their 

 leader. At one time the insurrection seems to have spread among the 

 neighbouring tribes of Germans aa well as of Belgian Gauls, but the 

 speedy return of the legions suppressed the movement. Civilis 

 'achieved many successes, and the Batavi, with their allies, fought 

 bravely, but were at last subdued. According to Tacitus, however, 

 they preserved their privilege of being exempt from taxation ; they 

 were a portion of the Roman empire ; or, as he says, " free from all 

 imposition and payments, and only set apart for the purposes of 

 lighting, they are reserved wholly for the wars, in the same manner 

 as a magarine of weapons and armour." (Gordon's transL ' Uerui.'} 

 As tools of this description they served under Hadrian in Mrcsia, 

 where they are stated to have swum across the Rhine in full armour. 

 At this time, or as early as the reign of Trajan, the Roman domina- 

 tion was probably more complete, as we find in the Antonine Itinerary 

 and the Peutinger Table, two Roman roads across the country, one 

 from Liigdunum eastward to Trajectum, and following the course of 

 the northern Rhine to its separation from the Vahalis, and another 

 from Lugdunum southward across the island to the Mom, and then 

 eastward along the bank of that river and the Vahalis to Noviomagus. 

 We also find places named after the emperors, such as Forum Hmiriani^ 

 and fortified camps, such as Contra Batava, which some, however, 

 suppose to have been the same as Batavodurum. (See Mannert, 

 ' Geographic der Griechen und Homer.') There was another place in 

 Upper Germany, or, more properly, in Noricum, called also Castra 

 Batara, near the confluence of the Inn and the Danube, which was 

 oolbnued by Batavi, apparently in conformity with the policy whii-h 

 led the Romans to transplant their subjects awl allies from their 

 homes to foreign countries. The Batavi were employed by Agricola 

 in his wars in Britain. (Tacit. ' Agric.' xxxvi.) In some inscriptions 

 they are called " friends and brothers of the Roman people," or of the 

 " Roman emperors." Tm> date of one of these inscriptions is deter- 

 I by the name of the Emperor Aureliu*. (Gruter. bud.) 



In the latter part of the 3rd century, during the civil war which 

 desolated the empire, the Salian Franks invaded the country of the 

 lUtavi, and established themselves in it They armed pirate vessels, 

 which were encountered and defeated at sea by Carausius. Con- 

 "tantius sad ConsUnUne waged war against the Franks of the BaUvian 

 inland, but could not drive them out of it. The Franks lost it, how- 

 ever, under Julian, by an irruption of Frisians, who came from the 

 northern country near the Zuiderzee, and drove the Salian Franks 



BATH. 



art of 



beyond the Maas. After this the Insula BaUvoruin for 

 the country called Fresia, which, in the time of the M 

 extended southward as far as the Scheldt Under Charlemagne t 

 formed a duchy bearing allegiance to the eini 

 usque ad Mosam." It afterwards became divided into Western ' 

 called Fresia tfaereditaria, which was subject to hereditary counts; 

 and Eastern Frisia, or Fresia Libera, which remained independent. 

 The Yssel formed the division between the two. About the llth 

 century we first find Western Fresia called by the name of Holland, 

 some say from IfM land, " a low hollow land," and its counts took 

 the name of Count.- '.f Hollund. The country of the ancient Batavi 

 formed the southern part ft f their dominions ; but the islands at the 

 mouth of the lisas, and between it and the Scheldt, were the subject 

 of frequent contentious and wars between them and the Counts of 

 Flauder*. (D'Anville, ' Etata formes en Europe apris la Chute de 

 1'Kmpire Romain;' Meyer, 'Res Flandrioc.') Although the name 

 Batavi has fallen into disuse, it has always been employed by modem 

 authors writing in Latin, to signify the Dutch or Hollanders generally. 



BATH, a place for the purpose of washing the body, either with 

 hot, warm, or cold water : the word is derived from the Saxon ban. 

 The Greek name is balaneion (/SaAorttor), of which the Hi.m.tn 

 balineum, or balntum, is only a slight variation : the element* M and 

 '/'/ in the Greek and English words are evidently related. The public 

 baths of the Romans were generally called Thrrtntr, which literally 

 means " warm waters." 



The bath was also in common use among the Greeks, though we are 

 not well acquainted with the construction and economy of their 

 bathing-places. Homer often refers to the practice of lothinp, but he 

 speaks of the warm-bath as an unmanly habit (' Odyss.' vi, 

 this view of the effeminacy of warm bathing was that held in thr timr 

 of Demosthenes (I'olyc.) At Athens there were both private and public 

 baths: the public baths appear to have been the property of indi- 

 viduals, who kept them for their own profit or let them to others. 

 (See Isccus, ' On the Inheritance of Diooogenes,' cap. vi. ; ditto ' of 

 Philoctemon,' cap. vi.) Lucian, in his 'Hippias' (vol.iii. cd. Hem.t< -rh.i, 

 has given a description of a magnificent bath. Though he does not 

 tell us whether it was built in the Roman or the Greek style, we may 

 safely conclude that he is speaking of a bath in a Greek city. His 

 description is not precise enough to render it certain that this bath in 

 its details agrees with those of Rome and Pompeii ; but the general 

 design and arrangement appear to be nearly the same. 



We learn from Seneca that the Roman baths were very simple, 

 even mean and dork, in the time of Scipio Africanus ; and it was not 

 until the age of Agrippa, and the emperors after Augustus, that they 

 were built and finished in a style of luxury almost incredible. Seneca 

 (' Epist.' Ixxxvi.), who inveighs against this luxury, observes that 

 " a person was held to be poor and sordid whose baths did not shine 

 with a profusion of the most precious materials, the marbles of Egypt 

 inlaid with those of Numidia ; unless the walls were laboriously 

 stuccoed in imitation of painting ; unless the chambers were covered 

 with glass, the basins with the rare Thasian stone, and the water con- 

 veyed through silver pipes." These, it appears, were the luxuries of 

 plebeian baths. Those of freedmen had "a profusion of statues, a 

 number of columns supporting nothing, placed as an ornament merely 

 on account of the expense : the water murmuring down steps, and 

 the floor of precious stones." (Sen. ' Epist.' Ixxxvi.) These baths of 

 which Seneca speaks were private baths. 



Ammianus Marcellinua reckons sixteen public baths in Rome. The 

 ilii.f were those of Agrippa, Nero, Titus, Domitian, Antoninus 

 Caracalla. and Diocletian. These edifices, differing, of course, in 

 magnitude and splendour, and in the details of the arrangement, M . iv 

 all constructed on a common plan. They stood among extensive 

 gardens and walks, and were often surrounded by a portico. The main 

 building contained large halls for swimming and bathing, some for 

 conversation, others for various athletic and manly exercises, and some 

 for the declamation of poets and the lectures of philosophers ; in a 

 word, for every species of polite and manly amusement. These noble 

 rooms were lined and pavod with marble, adorned with the most 

 valuable columns, paintings, and statues, and furnished with colic. 

 of books for the studious who resorted to them. (See ' Pompeii,' 

 published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. i.) 

 These baths, which were called Thernur, are now all in ruins. The 

 best preserved are those of Titus, Diocletian, and Antoninus ( 'aracalla. 

 (See ' Life of Anton. Caracal!.' by JEl. Spartianus.) We here subjoin 

 a plan of the baths of Caracalla, which were finished, according to 

 Eusebius, in the fourth year of that emperor's reign. These baths 

 were among the most magnificent structures in existence. Mr. Fer- 

 gusson says, that " even allowing for their being almost wholly of brick, 

 and being disfigured by the bad taste inseparable from everything 

 Roman, there is nothing in the world which for nize and grandeur e;m 

 compare with these imperial palaces of recreation." And he adds a 

 comparison which will enable the ordinary English reader to form .1 

 better estimate of their size and character than he can readily do from 

 mere description. He says : " St. George's Hall in Liverpool is the 

 most exact copy in modern times of a part of them; bathe. '!'!,. !,.,!! 

 itself is a reproduction both in scale and design of the central hall of 

 Caracalla's baths, but improved in detail and design, having five bays 

 instead of only three. \V ith the two courts at each end, it make/ a 



