Key Arguments

• Seneca carefully describes the old estate’s defensive, functional architecture and tiny, dark bath: 'the house, which is built of squared stone blocks; the wall surrounding the park; and the towers built out on both sides of the house for purposes of defence; the well, concealed among the greenery and out-buildings, with sufficient water to provide for the needs of a whole army; and the tiny little bath, situated after the old-fashioned custom in an ill-lit corner, our ancestors believing that the only place where one could properly have a hot bath was in the dark.'
• He emphasizes Scipio’s combination of military greatness and agrarian labour: 'In this corner the famous Terror of Carthage, to whom Rome owes it that she has only once in her history been captured, used to wash a body weary from work on the farm! For he kept himself fit through toil, cultivating his fields by his own labour, as was the regular way in the old days.'
• He highlights the modest surroundings ('dingy' ceiling, 'undistinguished' paving) that supported such a life: 'And this was the ceiling, dingy in the extreme, under which he stood; and this the equally undistinguished paving that carried his weight.'
• He then contrasts this with contemporary expectations that baths be lavishly decorated with costly materials and effects: 'We think ourselves poorly off, living like paupers, if the walls are not ablaze with large and costly circular mirrors, if our Alexandrian marbles are not decorated with panels of Numidian marble, if the whole of their surface has not been given a decorative overlay of elaborate patterns having all the variety of fresco murals, unless the ceiling cannot be seen for glass, unless the pools into which we lower bodies with all the strength drained out of them by lengthy periods in the sweating room are edged with Thasian marble ... unless the water pours from silver taps.'
• He notes that such extravagance is no longer confined to the elite but extends even to 'certain former slaves,' whose bath‑houses include 'arrays of statues' and purely ornamental columns: 'And so far we have only been talking about the ordinary fellow’s plumbing. What about the bath-houses of certain former slaves? Look at their arrays of statues, their assemblies of columns that do not support a thing but are put up purely for ornament, just for the sake of spending money.'
• He criticizes the craving for spectacle—cascades and precious flooring—and mocks the inability to tolerate modest, half‑lit rooms like Scipio’s with 'tiny chinks' for windows: 'Look at the cascades of water splashing noisily down from one level to the next. We have actually come to such a pitch of choosiness that we object to walking on anything other than precious stones. In this bathroom of Scipio’s there are tiny chinks – you could hardly call them windows – pierced in the masonry of the wall in such a way as to let in light without in any way weakening its defensive character.'
• He observes that modern people demand sun‑drenched bathing rooms with panoramic views, turning baths into venues for leisure and display instead of mere cleanliness: 'Nowadays ‘moth-hole’ is the way some people speak of a bathroom unless it has been designed to catch the sun through enormous windows all day long, unless a person can acquire a tan at the same time as he is having a bath, unless he has views from the bath over countryside and sea.'
• He underlines how quickly fashion renders prior luxury obsolete, amplifying the instability and vanity of such tastes: 'The result is that bath-houses which drew admiring crowds when they were first opened are actually dismissed as antiquated as soon as extravagance has hit on any novelty calculated to put its own best previous efforts in the shade.'

Source Quotes

So he gave way to her constitution and, proposing that the nation should be no less indebted to him for absence from the scene than for Hannibal’s, he went off into retirement at Liternum. I have seen the house, which is built of squared stone blocks; the wall surrounding the park; and the towers built out on both sides of the house for purposes of defence; the well, concealed among the greenery and out-buildings, with sufficient water to provide for the needs of a whole army; and the tiny little bath, situated after the old-fashioned custom in an ill-lit corner, our ancestors believing that the only place where one could properly have a hot bath was in the dark. It was this which started in my mind reflections that occasioned me a good deal of enjoyment as I compared Scipio’s way of life and our own.

It was this which started in my mind reflections that occasioned me a good deal of enjoyment as I compared Scipio’s way of life and our own. In this corner the famous Terror of Carthage, to whom Rome owes it that she has only once in her history been captured, used to wash a body weary from work on the farm! For he kept himself fit through toil, cultivating his fields by his own labour, as was the regular way in the old days. And this was the ceiling, dingy in the extreme, under which he stood; and this the equally undistinguished paving that carried his weight.

For he kept himself fit through toil, cultivating his fields by his own labour, as was the regular way in the old days. And this was the ceiling, dingy in the extreme, under which he stood; and this the equally undistinguished paving that carried his weight. Who is there who could bear to have a bath in such surroundings nowadays?

Who is there who could bear to have a bath in such surroundings nowadays? We think ourselves poorly off, living like paupers, if the walls are not ablaze with large and costly circular mirrors, if our Alexandrian marbles are not decorated with panels of Numidian marble, if the whole of their surface has not been given a decorative overlay of elaborate patterns having all the variety of fresco murals, unless the ceiling cannot be seen for glass, unless the pools into which we lower bodies with all the strength drained out of them by lengthy periods in the sweating room are edged with Thasian marble (which was once the rarest of sights even in a temple), unless the water pours from silver taps. And so far we have only been talking about the ordinary fellow’s plumbing.

And so far we have only been talking about the ordinary fellow’s plumbing. What about the bath-houses of certain former slaves? Look at their arrays of statues, their assemblies of columns that do not support a thing but are put up purely for ornament, just for the sake of spending money. Look at the cascades of water splashing noisily down from one level to the next.

Look at the cascades of water splashing noisily down from one level to the next. We have actually come to such a pitch of choosiness that we object to walking on anything other than precious stones. In this bathroom of Scipio’s there are tiny chinks – you could hardly call them windows – pierced in the masonry of the wall in such a way as to let in light without in any way weakening its defensive character.

In this bathroom of Scipio’s there are tiny chinks – you could hardly call them windows – pierced in the masonry of the wall in such a way as to let in light without in any way weakening its defensive character. Nowadays ‘moth-hole’ is the way some people speak of a bathroom unless it has been designed to catch the sun through enormous windows all day long, unless a person can acquire a tan at the same time as he is having a bath, unless he has views from the bath over countryside and sea. The result is that bath-houses which drew admiring crowds when they were first opened are actually dismissed as antiquated as soon as extravagance has hit on any novelty calculated to put its own best previous efforts in the shade.

Key Concepts

• the tiny little bath, situated after the old-fashioned custom in an ill-lit corner, our ancestors believing that the only place where one could properly have a hot bath was in the dark.
• In this corner the famous Terror of Carthage, to whom Rome owes it that she has only once in her history been captured, used to wash a body weary from work on the farm! For he kept himself fit through toil, cultivating his fields by his own labour, as was the regular way in the old days.
• this was the ceiling, dingy in the extreme, under which he stood; and this the equally undistinguished paving that carried his weight.
• We think ourselves poorly off, living like paupers, if the walls are not ablaze with large and costly circular mirrors, if our Alexandrian marbles are not decorated with panels of Numidian marble, if the whole of their surface has not been given a decorative overlay of elaborate patterns having all the variety of fresco murals, unless the ceiling cannot be seen for glass, unless the pools into which we lower bodies with all the strength drained out of them by lengthy periods in the sweating room are edged with Thasian marble (which was once the rarest of sights even in a temple), unless the water pours from silver taps.
• What about the bath-houses of certain former slaves? Look at their arrays of statues, their assemblies of columns that do not support a thing but are put up purely for ornament, just for the sake of spending money.
• We have actually come to such a pitch of choosiness that we object to walking on anything other than precious stones.
• Nowadays ‘moth-hole’ is the way some people speak of a bathroom unless it has been designed to catch the sun through enormous windows all day long, unless a person can acquire a tan at the same time as he is having a bath, unless he has views from the bath over countryside and sea.

Context

Early and middle parts of Letter LXXXVI, where reflection on Scipio’s simple country bath leads Seneca into a satirical comparison between ancient frugality and contemporary Roman luxury in public and private baths.