Ancient Roman Baths Essay, Research Paper

In the first century B.C., a typical Roman citizen?s day would include work in the morning and a leisurely afternoon at the public bath or thermae. Large cities and small towns alike had public baths. The baths were large buildings built for the citizens by rich emperors who wanted to impress their subjects. Sometimes, wealthy Romans who were trying to gain popularity with the people would pay the entry fee for anyone wishing to visit the baths for a whole day. There was a minimal fee so the lower classes and slaves could not attend.

Aqueducts or natural mountain springs supplied the water needed for the baths. The baths usually opened around 10:30 am and closed just before supper time. Men and women bathed separately. Women either bathed very early in the morning or at their own homes. Some of the baths for the higher classes were filled with wine for the men and milk for the women.

The baths were very elegant. A normal bath house would have mirror-covered walls, ceilings made of glass, and the pools lined with marble, and all sorts of artwork covered the floors. A Roman who visited the baths would enter the baths through the front porch whose roof was supported by marble pillars. He would enter into the main hall were he would pay his fee. From there, he would go to the locker rooms called apodyteriums. Here he would leave his clothes with his servant to guard. The bath house had many different rooms each with its own special use.

The tepidarium or warm room was filled with warm pools. Once undressed, you would go here to prepare yourself for the sauna-like room called the calidraium. These hot rooms where heated by the hypocaust. In this room, the Romans would rub oils onto their bodies and they would use a scraper called a strigil to scrape it off. They did this because soap was a rare luxury for the wealthy, higher classes of Rome only.

After soaking in the tepidarium for a while, you went on to the calidarium. This was a room that was not only extremely hot but very steamy as well, like a modern day Turkish bath. The floors of these rooms where heated by the hypocaust. The Roman baths used the Hypocaust system for heating the building and the pools. This underground heating system had hot air heated from the basement fires flowing between the brick or concrete columns, which supported the ground floor. The warm air flowed through the wall ducts into the rooms at the baths and quickly heated them. In some baths, the floors would be so hot that the bathers would have to wear wooden sandals to stop their feet from being burnt. The fires in the basement where stocked by slaves of the baths. Located in the calidarium also would be the laconium, which was also very hot and dry, like a sauna.

From the hot rooms you would go into a cooler room called frigidarium. The main function of the frigidarium was to close the pores after you where sweating in the hot rooms like the tepidarium or the calidarium. In the frigidarium you could expect to find a small pool of cold water to wash off all the sweat. If you enjoyed swimming, some baths had large swimming pools.

The earliest known Roman baths are the Stabian baths at Pompeii, built in the 2nd century B.C. Their arrangement is similar to the public baths found in other parts of the Roman Empire. Between the 1st and 4th centuries A.D., 952 thermae were built in Rome. Extensive ruins of three of these remain; the baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian. In addition to the bathing facilities found in Pompeii, these had shops, lecture halls, elaborate gymnasiums, gardens, and libraries.

The public baths were the center of social life and a place for relaxation and recreation. Many works of art were discovered in the ruins. Cicero probably visited the public baths at least once a day, to relieve the stress given to him by Catiline. These baths are now a major historical and tourist attraction around Eastern Europe.