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Thermae

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
For other uses, see Thermae (disambiguation).
"Roman baths" redirects here. For other uses, see Roman Baths (disambiguation).
This article is about buildings used for Roman recreation and cleaning. For the activity in general, see Ancient Roman bathing.
Roman public baths in Bath, England. The entire structure above the level of the pillar bases is a later reconstruction.
Roman public baths in Bath, England. The entire structure above the level of the pillar bases is a later reconstruction.
Bulla Regia, inside the thermal baths
Bulla Regia, inside the thermal baths

In ancient Rome, thermae (from Greek θερμός thermos, "hot") and balneae (from Greek βαλανεῖον balaneion) were facilities for bathing. Thermae usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while balneae were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.[1]

Most Roman cities had at least one – if not many – such buildings, which were centers not only for bathing, but socializing and reading as well. Bathhouses were also provided for wealthy private villas, town houses, and forts.[2] They were supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or within cities by aqueduct. The water would be heated by fire then channelled into the caldarium (hot bathing room). The design of baths is discussed by Vitruvius in De architectura (V.10).

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Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

In modern historiography, Ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.

Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Because of these events, along with the gradual Hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire, historians distinguish the medieval Roman Empire that remained in the Eastern provinces as the Byzantine Empire.

Roman villa

Roman villa

A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions.

Domus

Domus

In Ancient Rome, the domus was the type of town house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. It was found in almost all the major cities throughout the Roman territories. The modern English word domestic comes from Latin domesticus, which is derived from the word domus. The word dom in modern Slavic languages means "home" and is a cognate of the Latin word, going back to Proto-Indo-European. Along with a domus in the city, many of the richest families of ancient Rome also owned a separate country house known as a villa. Many chose to live primarily, or even exclusively, in their villas; these homes were generally much grander in scale and on larger acres of land due to more space outside the walled and fortified city.

Castra

Castra

In the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the Latin word castrum, plural castra, was a military-related term.

Caldarium

Caldarium

A caldarium was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.

Vitruvius

Vitruvius

Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled De architectura. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas. These principles were later widely adopted in Roman architecture. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci.

De architectura

De architectura

De architectura is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect and military engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects. As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It contains a variety of information on Greek and Roman buildings, as well as prescriptions for the planning and design of military camps, cities, and structures both large and small. Since Vitruvius published before the development of cross vaulting, domes, concrete, and other innovations associated with Imperial Roman architecture, his ten books give no information on these hallmarks of Roman building design and technology.

Terminology

Mosaic bath sign from Sabratha, Libya, showing bathing sandals, three strigils, and the slogan SALVOM LAVISSE, "A bath is good for you"[3]
Mosaic bath sign from Sabratha, Libya, showing bathing sandals, three strigils, and the slogan SALVOM LAVISSE, "A bath is good for you"[3]

Thermae, balneae, balineae, balneum and balineum may all be translated as 'bath' or 'baths', though Latin sources distinguish among these terms.

Balneum or balineum, derived from the Greek βαλανεῖον[4][5] signifies, in its primary sense, a bath or bathing-vessel, such as most persons of any consequence among the Romans possessed in their own houses,[6] and hence the chamber which contained the bath,[7] which is also the proper translation of the word balnearium. The diminutive balneolum is adopted by Seneca[8] to designate the bathroom of Scipio in the villa at Liternum, and is expressly used to characterize the modesty of republican manners as compared with the luxury of his own times. But when the baths of private individuals became more sumptuous and comprised many rooms, instead of the one small chamber described by Seneca, the plural balnea or balinea was adopted, which still, in correct language, had reference only to the baths of private persons. Thus, Cicero terms the baths at the villa of his brother Quintus[9] balnearia.

Balneae and balineae, which according to Varro[10] have no singular number, were the public baths, but this accuracy of diction is neglected by many of the subsequent writers, and particularly by the poets, amongst whom balnea is not uncommonly used in the plural number to signify the public baths, since the word balneae could not be introduced in a hexameter verse. Pliny also, in the same sentence, makes use of the neuter plural balnea for public, and of balneum for a private bath.[11]

Thermae (Greek: Θέρμαι, Thermai, 'hot springs, hot baths',[12] from the Greek adjective thermos, 'hot') meant properly warm springs, or baths of warm water; but came to be applied to those magnificent edifices which grew up under the empire, in place of the simple balneae of the republic, and which comprised within their range of buildings all the appurtenances belonging to the Greek gymnasia, as well as a regular establishment appropriated for bathing.[13] Writers, however, use these terms without distinction. Thus the baths erected by Claudius Etruscus, the freedman of the Emperor Claudius, are styled by Statius[14] balnea, and by Martial[15] Etrusci thermulae. In an epigram by Martial[16]—subice balneum thermis—the terms are not applied to the whole building, but to two different chambers in the same edifice.

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Africa (Roman province)

Africa (Roman province)

Africa was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, and the coast of western Libya along the Gulf of Sirte. The territory was originally inhabited by Berber people, known in Latin as Mauri indigenous to all of North Africa west of Egypt; in the 9th century BC, Phoenicians built settlements along the Mediterranean Sea to facilitate shipping, of which Carthage rose to dominance in the 8th century BC until its conquest by the Roman Republic.

Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Liternum

Liternum

Liternum was an ancient town of Campania, southern central Italy, near "Patria lake", on the low sandy coast between Cumae and the mouth of the Volturnus. It was probably once dependent on Cumae. In 194 BC it became a Roman colony. Although Livy records that the town was unsuccessful, excavation reveals a Roman town existed there until the 4th century AD.

Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

Quintus Tullius Cicero

Quintus Tullius Cicero

Quintus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman and military leader, as well as the younger brother of Cicero. He was born into a family of the equestrian order, as the son of a wealthy landowner in Arpinum, some 100 kilometres (62 mi) south-east of Rome.

Hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the Hymns of Orpheus. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by Phemonoe, daughter of Apollo and the first Pythia of Delphi.

Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo, better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him.

Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Because of these events, along with the gradual Hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire, historians distinguish the medieval Roman Empire that remained in the Eastern provinces as the Byzantine Empire.

Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire, Rome's control rapidly expanded during this period—from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.

Gymnasium (ancient Greece)

Gymnasium (ancient Greece)

The gymnasium in Ancient Greece functioned as a training facility for competitors in public games. It was also a place for socializing and engaging in intellectual pursuits. The name comes from the Ancient Greek term gymnós, meaning "naked" or "nude". Only adult male citizens were allowed to use the gymnasia.

Claudius

Claudius

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Nonetheless, Claudius was an Italian of Sabine origins.

Martial

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis was a Roman poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these short, witty poems he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. He wrote a total of 1,561 epigrams, of which 1,235 are in elegiac couplets.

Building layout

Plan of the Old Baths (Forum Baths) at Pompeii
Plan of the Old Baths (Forum Baths) at Pompeii

A public bath was built around three principal rooms: the tepidarium (warm room), the caldarium (hot room), and the frigidarium (cold room). Some thermae also featured steam baths: the sudatorium, a moist steam bath, and the laconicum, a dry hot room much like a modern sauna.

By way of illustration, this article will describe the layout of Pompeii's Old Baths, otherwise known as the Forum Baths, which are among the best-preserved Roman baths. These baths were connected to the forum at Pompeii, hence the name. The references are to the floor plan pictured to the right.[17]

This specific complex consists of a double set of baths, one for men and one for women. It has six different entrances from the street, one of which (b) gives admission to the smaller women's set only. Five other entrances lead to the men's department, of which two (c and c2), communicate directly with the furnaces, and the other three (a3, a2, a) with the bathing apartments.

Palaestra

Passing through the principal entrance, a (barely visible, right side, one third of the total length from above), which is removed from the street by a narrow footway surrounding the building and after descending three steps, the bather would find a small chamber on his left (x) with a toilet (latrina), and proceed into a covered portico (g, g), which ran round three sides of an open court (palaestra, A). These together formed the vestibule of the baths (vestibulum balnearum),[18] in which the servants waited.

Use of the palaestra

This palaestra was the exercise ground for the young men, or perhaps served as a promenade for visitors to the baths. Within this court the keeper of the baths (balneator), who exacted the quadrans paid by each visitor, was also stationed. The room (f) which runs back from the portico, might have been appropriated to him; but most probably it was an oecus or exedra, for the convenience of the better classes while awaiting the return of their acquaintances from the interior. In this court, advertisements for the theatre or other announcements of general interest were posted, one of which, announcing a gladiatorial show, still remains. At the sides of the entrance were seats (scholae).

The 1898 edition of Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities provided illustrations envisioning the rooms of the Old Baths at Pompeii:

Apodyterium and frigidarium

Main articles: Apodyterium and Frigidarium

A passage (c) leads into the apodyterium (B), a room for undressing in which all visitors must have met before entering the baths proper. Here, the bathers removed their clothing, which was taken in charge by slaves known as capsarii, notorious in ancient times for their dishonesty.[19] The apodyterium was a spacious chamber, with stone seats along three sides of the wall (h). Holes are still visible on the walls, and probably mark the places where the pegs for the bathers' clothes were set. The chamber was lighted by a glass window, and had six doors. One of these led to the tepidarium (D) and another to the frigidarium (C), with its cold plunge-bath referred to as baptisterium (more commonly called natatorium or piscina), loutron, natatio, or puteus; the terms natatio and natatorium suggest that some of those baths were also swimming pools. The bath in this chamber is of white marble, surrounded by two marble steps.

Tepidarium

Main article: Tepidarium
Pompeian interior, The Thermae by Forum by Joseph Theodor Hansen (1848–1912)
Pompeian interior, The Thermae by Forum by Joseph Theodor Hansen (1848–1912)

From the apodyterium the bather who wished to go through the warm bath and sweating process entered the tepidarium (D). It did not contain water either at Pompeii nor at the Baths of Hippias, but was merely heated with warm air of an agreeable temperature, in order to prepare the body for the great heat of the vapour and warm baths, and, upon returning, to prevent a too-sudden transition to the open air. In the baths at Pompeii this chamber also served as an apodyterium for those who took the warm bath. The walls feature a number of separate compartments or recesses for receiving the garments when taken off. The compartments are divided from each other by figures of the kind called atlantes or telamones, which project from the walls and support a rich cornice above them in a wide arch.

Three bronze benches were also found in the room, which was heated as well by its contiguity to the hypocaust of the adjoining chamber, as by a brazier of bronze (foculus), in which the charcoal ashes were still remaining when the excavation was made. Sitting and perspiring beside such a brazier was called ad flammam sudare.[20]

The tepidarium is generally the most highly ornamented room in baths. It was merely a room to sit and be anointed in. In the Forum Baths at Pompeii the floor is mosaic, the arched ceiling adorned with stucco and painting on a coloured ground, the walls red.

Anointing was performed by slaves called unctores and aliptae. It sometimes took place before going to the hot bath, and sometimes after the cold bath, before putting on the clothes, in order to check the perspiration.[21] Some baths had a special room (destrictarium or unctorium) for this purpose.

Caldarium

Main article: Caldarium

From the tepidarium a door opened into the caldarium (E), whose mosaic floor was directly above the furnace or hypocaust. Its walls also were hollow, behind the decorated plaster one part of the wall was made from interconnected hollow bricks called tubuli lateraci, forming a great flue filled with heated air. At one end was a round basin (labrum), and at the other a quadrangular bathing place (puelos, alveus, solium, calida piscina), approached from the platform by steps. The labrum held cold water, for pouring upon the bather's head before he left the room. These basins are of marble in the Old Baths, but we hear of alvei of solid silver.[22] Because of the great heat of the room, the caldarium was but slightly ornamented.

Laconicum

Main article: Laconicum

The Old Baths have no laconicum, which was a chamber still hotter than the caldarium, and used simply as a sweating-room, having no bath. It was said to have been introduced at Rome by Agrippa[23] and was also called sudatorium and assa.

Service areas

A three-tiered water boiler (miliarium)
A three-tiered water boiler (miliarium)

The apodyterium has a passage (q) communicating with the mouth of the furnace (i), called praefurnium or propigneum and, passing down that passage, we reach the chamber M, into which the praefurnium projects, and which is entered from the street at c. It was assigned to the fornacatores, or persons in charge of the fires. Of its two staircases, one leads to the roof of the baths, and one to the boilers containing the water.

There were three boilers, one of which (caldarium) held the hot water; a second, the tepid (tepidarium); and the third, the cold (frigidarium). The warm water was filled into the warm bath by a pipe through the wall, marked on the plan. Underneath the hot chamber was set the circular furnace d, of more than 7 ft. in diameter, which heated the water and poured hot air into the hollow cells of the hypocaustum. It passed from the furnace under the first and last of the caldrons by two flues, which are marked on the plan. The boiler containing hot water was placed immediately over the furnace; as the water was drawn out from there, it was supplied from the next, the tepidarium, which was raised a little higher and stood a little way off from the furnace. It was already considerably heated from its contiguity to the furnace and the hypocaust below it, so that it supplied the deficiency of the former without materially diminishing its temperature; and the vacuum in this last was again filled up from the farthest removed, which contained the cold water received directly from the square reservoir seen behind them. The boilers themselves no longer remain, but the impressions which they have left in the mortar in which they were embedded are clearly visible, and enable us to determine their respective positions and dimensions. Such coppers or boilers appear to have been called miliaria, from their similarity of shape to a milestone.[24]

Behind the boilers, another corridor leads into the court or palaestra (K), appropriated to the servants of the bath.

Women's bath

The adjoining, smaller set of baths were assigned to the women. The entrance is by the door b, which conducts into a small vestibule (m) and from there into the apodyterium (H), which, like the one in the men's bath, has a seat (pulvinus, gradus) on either side built up against the wall. This opens upon a cold bath (J), answering to the natatio of the men's set, but of much smaller dimensions. There are four steps on the inside to descend into it.

Opposite to the door of entrance into the apodyterium is another doorway which leads to the tepidarium (G), which also communicates with the thermal chamber (F), on one side of which is a warm bath in a square recess, and at the farther extremity the labrum. The floor of this chamber is suspended, and its walls perforated for flues, like the corresponding one in the men's baths. The tepidarium in the women's baths had no brazier, but it had a hanging or suspended floor.

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Pompeii

Pompeii

Pompeii was an ancient city located in what is now the comune of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Caldarium

Caldarium

A caldarium was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.

Frigidarium

Frigidarium

A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or thermae, namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool.

Laconicum

Laconicum

The laconicum was the dry sweating room of the Roman thermae, contiguous to the caldarium or hot room. The name was given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans admitted. The laconicum was usually a circular room with niches in the axes of the diagonals and was covered by a conical roof with a circular opening at the top, according to Vitruvius, from which a brazen shield is suspended by chains, capable of being so lowered and raised as to regulate the temperature.

Latrine

Latrine

A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground, or more advanced designs, including pour-flush systems.

Portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.

Palaestra

Palaestra

A palaestra was any site of an ancient Greek wrestling school. Events requiring little space, such as boxing and wrestling, took place there. Palaestrae functioned both independently and as a part of public gymnasia; a palaestra could exist without a gymnasium, but no gymnasium existed without a palaestra.

Quadrans

Quadrans

The quadrans or teruncius was a low-value Roman bronze coin worth one quarter of an as. The quadrans was issued from the beginning of cast bronze coins during the Roman Republic with three pellets representing three unciae as a mark of value. The obverse type, after some early variations, featured the bust of Hercules, while the reverse featured the prow of a galley. Coins with the same value were issued from other cities in Central Italy, using a cast process.

Oecus

Oecus

Oecus is the Latinized form of Greek oikos, used by Vitruvius for the principal hall or salon in a Roman house, which was used occasionally as a triclinium for banquets.

Exedra

Exedra

An exedra is a semicircular architectural recess or platform, sometimes crowned by a semi-dome, and either set into a building's façade or free-standing. The original Greek sense was applied to a room that opened onto a stoa, ringed with curved high-backed stone benches, a suitable place for conversation. An exedra may also be expressed by a curved break in a colonnade, perhaps with a semicircular seat.

Gladiator

Gladiator

A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing by appearing in the arena. Most were despised as slaves, schooled under harsh conditions, socially marginalized, and segregated even in death.

Apodyterium

Apodyterium

In ancient Rome, the apodyterium was the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing.

Purpose

Ruins of the enormous Baths of Caracalla, completed in 216 on a 25 hectare (33 acre) site
Ruins of the enormous Baths of Caracalla, completed in 216 on a 25 hectare (33 acre) site

The baths often included, aside from the three main rooms listed above, a palaestra, or outdoor gymnasium where men would engage in various ball games and exercises. There, among other things, weights were lifted and the discus thrown. Men would oil themselves (as soap was still a luxury good and thus not widely available), shower, and remove the excess with a strigil (cf. the well known Apoxyomenus of Lysippus from the Vatican Museum). Often wealthy bathers would bring a capsarius, a slave that carried his master's towels, oils, and strigils to the baths and then watched over them once in the baths, as thieves and pickpockets were known to frequent the baths.

The changing room was known as the apodyterium (from Greek apodyterion from apoduein 'to take off').

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Baths of Caracalla

Baths of Caracalla

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy, were the city's second largest Roman public baths, or thermae, after the Baths of Diocletian. The baths were likely built between AD 212 and 216/217, during the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla. They were in operation until the 530s and then fell into disuse and ruin.

Hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is about 0.405 hectares and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres.

Palaestra

Palaestra

A palaestra was any site of an ancient Greek wrestling school. Events requiring little space, such as boxing and wrestling, took place there. Palaestrae functioned both independently and as a part of public gymnasia; a palaestra could exist without a gymnasium, but no gymnasium existed without a palaestra.

Soap

Soap

Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are used as thickeners, components of some lubricants, and precursors to catalysts.

Shower

Shower

A shower is a place in which a person bathes under a spray of typically warm or hot water. Indoors, there is a drain in the floor. Most showers have temperature, spray pressure and adjustable showerhead nozzle. The simplest showers have a swivelling nozzle aiming down on the user, while more complex showers have a showerhead connected to a hose that has a mounting bracket. This allows the showerer to hold the showerhead by hand to spray the water onto different parts of their body. A shower can be installed in a small shower stall or bathtub with a plastic shower curtain or door. Showering is common due to the efficiency of using it compared with a bathtub. Its use in hygiene is, therefore, common practice.

Strigil

Strigil

The strigil is a tool for the cleansing of the body by scraping off dirt, perspiration, and oil that was applied before bathing in Ancient Greek and Roman cultures. In these cultures the strigil was primarily used by men, specifically male athletes; however, in Etruscan culture there is some evidence of strigils being used by both sexes. The standard design is a curved blade with a handle, all of which is made of metal.

Apodyterium

Apodyterium

In ancient Rome, the apodyterium was the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing.

Cultural significance

In many ways, baths were the ancient Roman equivalent of community centres. Because the bathing process took so long, conversation was necessary. Many Romans would use the baths as a place to invite their friends to dinner parties, and many politicians would go to the baths to convince fellow Romans to join their causes. The thermae had many attributes in addition to the baths. There were libraries, rooms for poetry readings, and places to buy and eat food. The modern equivalent would be a combination of a library, art gallery, mall, restaurant, gym, and spa.[25]

One important function of the baths in Roman society was their role as what we would consider a “branch library” today. Many in the general public did not have access to the grand libraries in Rome and so as a cultural institution the baths served as an important resource where the more common citizen could enjoy the luxury of books. The Baths of Trajan, of Caracalla, and Diocletian all contained rooms determined to be libraries. They have been identified through the architecture of the baths themselves. The presence of niches in the walls are assumed to have been bookcases and have been shown to be sufficiently deep to have contained ancient scrolls. There is little documentation from the writers of the time that there did exist definitive public libraries maintained in the baths, but records have been found that indicated a slave from the imperial household was labelled vilicus thermarum bybliothecae Graecae ('maintenance man of the Greek library of the baths'). However, this may only indicate that the same slave held two positions in succession: "maintenance man of the baths" (vilicus thermarum) and "employee in the Greek library" (a bybliothecae Graecae). The reason for this debate is that, although Julius Caesar and Asinius Pollio advocated for public access to books and that libraries be open to all readers, there is little evidence that public libraries existed in the modern sense as we know it. It is more likely that these reserves were maintained for the wealthy elite.[26]

Baths were a site for important sculpture; among the well-known pieces recovered from the Baths of Caracalla are the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules and over life-size early 3rd century patriotic figures, (now in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).

The Romans believed that good health came from bathing, eating, massages, and exercise. The baths, therefore, had all of these things in abundance. Since some citizens would be bathing multiple times a week, Roman society was surprisingly clean.[27] When asked by a foreigner why he bathed once a day, a Roman emperor is said to have replied "Because I do not have the time to bathe twice a day."[28] Emperors often built baths to gain favour for themselves and to create a lasting monument of their generosity. If a rich Roman wished to gain the favour of the people, he might arrange for a free admission day in his name. For example, a senator hoping to become a Tribune might pay all admission fees at a particular bath on his birthday to become well known to the people of the area.

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Baths of Trajan

Baths of Trajan

The Baths of Trajan were a massive thermae, a bathing and leisure complex, built in ancient Rome and dedicated under Trajan during the kalendae of July 109, shortly after the Aqua Traiana was dedicated.

Baths of Caracalla

Baths of Caracalla

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy, were the city's second largest Roman public baths, or thermae, after the Baths of Diocletian. The baths were likely built between AD 212 and 216/217, during the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla. They were in operation until the 530s and then fell into disuse and ruin.

Baths of Diocletian

Baths of Diocletian

The Baths of Diocletian were public baths in ancient Rome. Named after emperor Diocletian and built from 298 CE to 306 CE, they were the largest of the imperial baths. The project was originally commissioned by Maximian upon his return to Rome in the autumn of 298 and was continued after his and Diocletian's abdication under Constantius, father of Constantine.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Farnese Bull

Farnese Bull

The Farnese Bull, formerly in the Farnese collection in Rome, is a massive Roman elaborated copy of a Hellenistic sculpture. It is the largest single sculpture yet recovered from antiquity. Along with the rest of the Farnese antiquities, it has been since 1826 in the collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Napoli in Naples, inv. no. 6002, though in recent years sometimes displayed at the Museo di Capodimonte across the city. The sculpture in Naples is much restored, and includes around the base a child, a dog, and other animals not apparently in the original composition, which is known from versions in other media.

Farnese Hercules

Farnese Hercules

The Farnese Hercules is an ancient statue of Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD and signed by Glykon, who is otherwise unknown; the name is Greek but he may have worked in Rome. Like many other Ancient Roman sculptures it is a copy or version of a much older Greek original that was well known, in this case a bronze by Lysippos that would have been made in the fourth century BC. This original survived for over 1500 years until it was melted down by Crusaders in 1205 during the Sack of Constantinople. The enlarged copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, where the statue was recovered in 1546, and is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The heroically-scaled Hercules is one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity, and has fixed the image of the mythic hero in the European imagination.

Museo di Capodimonte

Museo di Capodimonte

Museo di Capodimonte is an art museum located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italian schools of painting, and some important ancient Roman sculptures. It is one of the largest museums in Italy. The museum was inaugurated in 1957.

Naples

Naples

Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's administrative limits as of 2022. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately 20 miles.

Tribune

Tribune

Tribune was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the authority of the senate and the annual magistrates, holding the power of ius intercessionis to intervene on behalf of the plebeians, and veto unfavourable legislation. There were also military tribunes, who commanded portions of the Roman army, subordinate to higher magistrates, such as the consuls and praetors, promagistrates, and their legates. Various officers within the Roman army were also known as tribunes. The title was also used for several other positions and classes in the course of Roman history.

Location

Virtual historical reconstruction of the Roman Baths in Weißenburg, Germany, using data from laser scan technology
Virtual historical reconstruction of the Roman Baths in Weißenburg, Germany, using data from laser scan technology

Baths sprang up all over the empire. Where natural hot springs existed (as in Bath, England; Băile Herculane, Romania or Aquae Calidae near Burgas and Serdica, Bulgaria) thermae were built around them. Alternatively, a system of hypocausta (from hypo 'below' and kaio 'to burn') were utilised to heat the piped water from a furnace (praefurnium).

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Hot spring

Hot spring

A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma or by circulation through faults to hot rock deep in the Earth's crust. In either case, the ultimate source of the heat is radioactive decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements in the Earth's mantle, the layer beneath the crust.

Băile Herculane

Băile Herculane

Băile Herculane is a spa town in Romanian Banat, in Caraș-Severin County, situated in the valley of the Cerna River, between the Mehedinți Mountains to the east and the Cerna Mountains to the west, elevation 168 meters. Its current population is approximately 5,000. The town administers one village, Pecinișca.

Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a predominantly temperate-continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km2 (92,046 sq mi), with a population of under 18.9 million inhabitants (2023). Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, followed by Iași, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Constanța, Craiova, Brașov, and Galați.

Aquae Calidae, Bulgaria

Aquae Calidae, Bulgaria

Aquae Calidae, also known as Therma and Thermopolis in the Middle Ages, was an ancient town in Thrace located in the territory of today's Bulgarian port city of Burgas on the Black Sea. It was built around thermal baths using the hot springs and became one of the most important spa centres of ancient times.

Burgas

Burgas

Burgas, sometimes transliterated as Bourgas, is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a population of 202,694 inhabitants, while 277,922 live in its urban area. It is the capital of Burgas Province and an important industrial, transport, cultural and tourist centre.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. Bulgaria covers a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), and is the sixteenth-largest country in Europe. Sofia is the nation's capital and largest city; other major cities are Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas.

Hypocaust

Hypocaust

A hypocaust is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm the upper floors as well. The word derives from the Ancient Greek hypo meaning "under" and caust-, meaning "burnt". The earliest reference to such a system suggests that the temple of Ephesus in 350 BC was heated in this manner, although Vitruvius attributes its invention to Sergius Orata in c. 80 BC. Its invention improved the hygiene and living conditions of citizens, and was a forerunner of modern central heating.

Remains of Roman public baths

Main article: List of remains of Roman public baths

A number of Roman public baths survive, either as ruins or in varying degrees of conservation. Among the more notable are the Roman baths of Bath and the Ravenglass Roman Bath House in England as well as the Baths of Caracalla, of Diocletian, of Titus, of Trajan in Rome and the baths of Sofia, Serdica and Varna.[29] Probably the most complete are various public and private baths in Pompeii and nearby sites. The Hammam Essalihine is still in use today.

In 1910, Pennsylvania Station was opened in New York City, with a Main Waiting Room that borrowed heavily from the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian, especially with the use of repeated groin vaults in the ceiling. The success of the design of Pennsylvania Station in turn was copied in other railroad stations around the world.

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Roman Baths (Bath)

Roman Baths (Bath)

The Roman Baths are well-preserved thermae in the city of Bath, Somerset, England. A temple was constructed on the site between 60 and 70 AD in the first few decades of Roman Britain. Its presence led to the development of the small Roman urban settlement known as Aquae Sulis around the site. The Roman baths—designed for public bathing—were used until the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century AD. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the original Roman baths were in ruins a century later. The area around the natural springs was redeveloped several times during the Early and Late Middle Ages.

Ravenglass Roman Bath House

Ravenglass Roman Bath House

Ravenglass Roman Bath House is a ruined ancient Roman bath house at Ravenglass, Cumbria, England. Belonging to a 2nd-century Roman fort and naval base, the bath house is described by Matthew Hyde in his update to the Pevsner Guide to Cumbria as "an astonishing survival". The still standing walls are 13 ft high, there are patches of the internal rendering, in dull red and white cement, and traces of the splayed window openings remain.

England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea area of the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Baths of Caracalla

Baths of Caracalla

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy, were the city's second largest Roman public baths, or thermae, after the Baths of Diocletian. The baths were likely built between AD 212 and 216/217, during the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla. They were in operation until the 530s and then fell into disuse and ruin.

Baths of Diocletian

Baths of Diocletian

The Baths of Diocletian were public baths in ancient Rome. Named after emperor Diocletian and built from 298 CE to 306 CE, they were the largest of the imperial baths. The project was originally commissioned by Maximian upon his return to Rome in the autumn of 298 and was continued after his and Diocletian's abdication under Constantius, father of Constantine.

Baths of Titus

Baths of Titus

The Baths of Titus or Thermae Titi were public baths (Thermae) built in 81 AD at Rome, by Roman emperor Titus. The baths sat at the base of the Esquiline Hill, an area of parkland and luxury estates which had been taken over by Nero for his Golden House or Domus Aurea. Titus' baths were built in haste, possibly by converting an existing or partly built bathing complex belonging to the reviled Domus Aurea. They were not particularly extensive, and the much larger Baths of Trajan were built immediately adjacent to them at the start of the next century.

Baths of Trajan

Baths of Trajan

The Baths of Trajan were a massive thermae, a bathing and leisure complex, built in ancient Rome and dedicated under Trajan during the kalendae of July 109, shortly after the Aqua Traiana was dedicated.

Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy. It is also the capital of the Lazio region, the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, and a special comune named Comune di Roma Capitale. With 2,860,009 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), Rome is the country's most populated comune and the third most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome, with a population of 4,355,725 residents, is the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Rome is often referred to as the City of Seven Hills due to its geographic location, and also as the "Eternal City". Rome is generally considered to be the "cradle of Western civilization and Christian culture", and the centre of the Catholic Church.

Pompeii

Pompeii

Pompeii was an ancient city located in what is now the comune of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Hammam Essalihine

Hammam Essalihine

Hammam Essalihine is an ancient Roman bath situated in the Aurès Mountains in the El Hamma District in the Khenchela Province of Algeria. As the Latin name suggests, it dates from the time of the Flavian Dynasty.

Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)

Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)

Pennsylvania Station, often abbreviated to Penn Station, was a historic railroad station in New York City, named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant. The station occupied an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. As the station shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station.

Groin vault

Groin vault

A groin vault or groined vault is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults. The word "groin" refers to the edge between the intersecting vaults. Sometimes the arches of groin vaults are pointed instead of round. In comparison with a barrel vault, a groin vault provides good economies of material and labor. The thrust is concentrated along the groins or arrises, so the vault need only be abutted at its four corners.

Source: "Thermae", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 10th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermae.

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Further Reading

Baths of Caracalla

Baths of Diocletian

Baths of Titus

Tepidarium

Caldarium

Baths of Trajan

Frigidarium

Laconicum

Baths of Agrippa

Ancient Roman bathing

Suburban Baths (Pompeii)

Roman Baths of Ankara

Roman Thermae (Varna)

Caliphal Baths

Baths at Ostia

Roman Baths, Beirut

Baths of Nero

Roman ruins of Pisões
See also
References

Citations

  1. ^ Harry B. Evans (1997). Water Distribution in Ancient Rome: The Evidence of Frontinus. University of Michigan Press. pp. 9, 10. ISBN 0-472-08446-1. Archived from the original on 2018-05-07.
  2. ^ Daily life in ancient Rome : a sourcebook. Brian K. Harvey. Indianapolis. 2016. ISBN 978-1-58510-795-7. OCLC 924682988.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ^ More literally, "It is a healthful thing to have bathed."
  4. ^ βαλανεῖον. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  5. ^ Varro, De Ling. Lat. ix. 68, ed. Müller (cited by Rich, 183)
  6. ^ Cicero, Ad Atticum ii. 3.
  7. ^ Cicero, Ad Fam. xiv. 20 (cited by Rich, 183).
  8. ^ Ep. 86 (cited by Rich, 183)
  9. ^ Ad Q. Frat. iii. 1. § 1 (cited by Rich, 183)
  10. ^ De Ling. Lat. viii. 25, ix. 41, ed. Müller (cited by Rich, 183)
  11. ^ Ep. ii. 17. (cited by Rich, 184)
  12. ^ Θέρμαι in Liddell and Scott.
  13. ^ Juv. Sat. vii. 233 (cited by Rich, 184)
  14. ^ Sylv. i. 5. 13 (cited by Rich, 184)
  15. ^ vi. 42 (cited by Rich, 184)
  16. ^ ix. 76 (cited by Rich, 184)
  17. ^ The following is adapted from the 1898 Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities entry edited by Harry Thurston Peck.
  18. ^ Pro Cael. 26 (cited by Peck)
  19. ^ Dig. xlvii. 17 (cited by Peck)
  20. ^ Suet. Aug. 82 (cited by Peck)
  21. ^ Galen. x. 49 (cited by Peck)
  22. ^ Plin. H. N.xxxiii. 152 (cited by Peck)
  23. ^ Dio Cass. liii. 27 (cited by Peck)
  24. ^ Pallad. i. 40; v. 8 (cited by Peck)
  25. ^ Garrett G. Fagan (2002). Bathing in Public in the Roman World. University of Michigan Press. p. 9. ISBN 0-472-08865-3. Archived from the original on 2018-05-07.
  26. ^ Dix, Keith (1994). "'Public Libraries' in Ancient Rome: Ideology and Reality". Libraries & Culture. 29 (3): 288.
  27. ^ Andrews, Cath. “Ancient Roman Baths: Cleanliness and Godliness under one roof.” Explore Italian Culture. Web. 4/22/12.
  28. ^ "NOVA Online | Secrets of Lost Empires | Roman Bath | A Day at the Baths". Pbs.org. Archived from the original on 2012-11-13. Retrieved 2012-08-24.
  29. ^ http://www.ancient-bulgaria.com/2008/05/09/the-roman-thermae-in-varna/

Sources

Further reading
  • Bruun, Christer. 1991. The water supply of ancient Rome: A study of Roman imperial administration. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica.
  • DeLaine, Janet. 1997. The Baths of Caracalla: A Study In the Design, Construction, and Economics of Large-Scale Building Projects In Imperial Rome. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
  • DeLaine, Janet, and David E Johnston. 1999. Roman Baths and Bathing: Proceedings of the First International Conference On Roman Baths Held At Bath, England, 30 March-4 April 1992. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
  • Fagan, Garrett G. 2001. "The genesis of the Roman public bath: Recent approaches and future directions." American Journal of Archaeology 105, no. 3: 403–26.
  • Manderscheid, Hubertus. 2004. Ancient Baths and Bathing: A Bibliography for the Years 1988-2001. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
  • Marvin, M. 1983. "Freestanding sculptures from the Baths of Caracalla." American Journal of Archaeology 87: 347–84.
  • Nielsen, Inge. 1993. Thermae Et Balnea: The Architecture and Cultural History of Roman Public Baths. 2nd ed. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
  • Ring, James W. 1996. "Windows, baths and solar energy in the Roman Empire." American Journal of Archaeology 100: 717–24.
  • Rotherham, Ian D. 2012. Roman Baths In Britain. Stroud: Amberley.
  • Roupas, N. 2012. "Roman bath tiles." Archaeology 65, no. 2: 12.
  • Yegül, Fikret K. 1992. Baths and bathing in classical antiquity. New York: Architectural History Foundation.
  • --. 2010. Bathing In the Roman World. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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