Note (15) — BOOK I.
James Greive translation
15. A dinner also.) Mercurialis conjectures that the custom among the Romans of making but one set meal in the day, arose from their spending so much time in cleaning their bodies, and going through the several processes at the baths, that they had hardly time left even for one meal; considering that besides all these operations, they had each his own private business to transact, and their bathing was too sacred to be omitted. Hieron. Mercurial. de Art. Gymnast. lib. i. cap. 11.