Friday, September 22, 2006

this is actually seneca.
the roman public bath was, then, just the most terribly socially and otherwise active place!
pity casson doesn't say which letter of seneca's, and dated when, the following is from. seneca is recognisably seneca, though, i must say:

'I live right over a public bath. Just imagine every kind of human sound to make us hate our ears! When the muscular types work out and toss the lead weights, when they strain (or make believe they are straining) I hear the grunting,and whenever they let out the breath they've been holding in, there's the whistling and wheezing at maximum pitch. If it's a lazy type I'm up against, someone satisfied with the cheap massage given here, I have to hear the crack of the hand as it hits the shoulders, one sound when it's the flat of the hand, another when it's the cupped hand. But if a ball-player arrives on the scene and begins to count shots, then I'm done for. Add the toughs looking for a fight, the thieves caught in the act, and the people who enjoy hearing themselves sing in the bath-tub. Add also the people who dive into the pool with a deafening splash. On top of all these, who at least make ordinary sounds, don't forget the hair-removal expert forever forcing out that thin screech of his to advertise his services, and only shutting up when he's plucking a customer's armpit and can make someone else do the yelping for him. Then there's the drink-seller with his famous cries, the sausage-seller, the cake-seller, and all the managers of the restaurants, each hawking his wares with his own special intonation.'


and then there was also this little latin verse on a plaque in front of an inn. anonymous authorship, this one's:

'If you're clean and neat, then there's a house ready and waiting for you.
If you're dirty -- well, I'm shamed to say it, but you're welcome too.'


Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)

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