Note 260 — SECOND SECTION. Influences which served to hinder to a greater or less degree the inception of Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Plutarch, Cato Major ch. 39., συλλούσασθαι δὲ μηδέποτε· καὶ τούτου κοινὸν ἔθος ἔοικε Ῥωμαίων εἶναι. καὶ γὰρ πενθεροῖς γάμβροι ἐφυλάττοντο συλλούεσθαι, δυσωπούμενοι τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν καὶ γύμνωσιν· εἶτα μέντοι παρ’Ἑλλήνων, τὸ γυμνοῦσθαι μαθόντες αὐτοὶ πάλιν τοῦ καὶ μετὰ γυναικῶν τοῦτο πράσσειν ἀναπεπλήκασι τοὺς Ἑλλήνας. (And never bathed together; indeed the common habit of doing so appears to be of Roman origin. For at first sons-in-law used to guard against bathing with fathers-in-law, feeling shame at such exposure and stripping naked. Later on however having learned the habit of stripping naked from the Greeks, they again in their turn have taught the Greeks that of doing so along with women). The balnea virilia (men’s baths) are mentioned in Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. X. 3., where he shows that they were also used by women.