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especially in a time of foreign rule. The original meaning and local tradition of the Finnish word sauna is wooden bathhouse, but this is only distantly related to what this term has come to mean internationally. In the end, not only does the Greek fire bath go down in history as the Roman laconicum, but over the centuries, as European bathing practices evolve, this Greek invention also assumes the role of an interpreter, serving as mediator, negotiator, explainer, and translator in the original Latin sense of the word. One thing is certain: by the fifteenth century the Church puts a temporary end to these wet, frolicking escapades, for nearly three centuries Western Christian civilization must, for the most part, get by without the public bath and the pleasure of communal bathing.
Pranz Kiechle, Lakonien und Sparta - Untersuchungen zur ethnischen Struktur und zur politischen Entwicklung Lakoniens und Spartas bis zum Ende der archaischen Zeit, Munich 1963. Vitruvius (Morris Hicky Morgan, trans.), The Ten Books on Architecture, Carnbridge 1914. Marga Weber, Antike Badekultur, Munich 1996. Stefano Bianca, Hofhaus und Paradiesgarten - Architektur und Lebensformen in der Islamischen Welt, Munich 1991. Leo Rosten, Jiddisch - Eine kleine Enzyklopädie, Munich 2002.