![]() ![]() In the story by the Roman historian Livy, she deceives her captors, gathers the female captives and swims them across the Tiber “amid a hail of enemy spears”. But swimming was also an important advantage in battle – not least for Cloelia, who was taken hostage during the siege of Rome. Pompeii had four public baths inside its walls and a fifth just outside them. This history of 10,000 years of swimming culminates in stories of athletic prowess, hi-tech fabrics and marginal Olympic gains, but it begins in earnest in ancient Greece, where, according to Plato: “A man is not learned until he can read, write and swim.” The Romans, too, were famous for their love of bathing. ![]() Britain lagged behind, with its Victorian prudery, horse-drawn bathing machines and flannel dresses ![]()
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