Roman Baths in Ostia and Herculaneum

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Forum baths in Ostia

  • The largest baths in Ostia, the forum baths had separate bath complexes for men and women. Its main entrance was on the west of the forum, with the hot rooms overlooking the palaestra to the south.
  • It is not known who built these baths, but a small inscription suggests it may have been Marcus Gavius Maximus, a praetorian prefect under Antoninus Pius.
  • The palaestra was irregularly shaped and was an area for people to exercise before entering the baths. This could include running, stretching, weight lifting, and swimming.  It was a very pretty, colonnaded area. There is a small temple to an unknown God in the palaestra.
  • The changing rooms were called the apodyteria, and were usually small, and situated near the entrance.
  • Bathing began in the tepidaria ~ warm rooms without a pool, used for socialising before moving any further. The tepidaria were heated with pipes in the walls and floors.
  • The window in one of the tepidaria at the Forum Baths has two rows of fixtures, suggesting it may have been double-glazed. Similar evidence has been found in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.
  • The caldarium was the hot room, and in the Forum Baths it was large, with three hot plunge baths. These baths were lined with ceramic pipes, up which hot air from the furnaces passed to keep the water and the room warm.
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Forum Baths in Ostia 2

  • The water in the caldarium passed into the baths via an arch in the centre of the wall. The hotter water rose to the top of the pool through convection while the cooler water sank and returned to the boiler room through the same arch.
  • The frigidarium was usually the largest room in the bath complex, and in the Forum Baths this is also true.
  • It was a long hall decorated with Corinthian columns, in which bathers could sit and talk. Cold plunge pools were also provided here.
  • The Forum Baths also had a sudatorium, a sweating room similar to a modern-day sauna. The sudatorium was next to the heliocaminos, or sun room.
  • Baths offered more than just bathing ~ they were also places of religious worship, as evidenced by the mosaics and statues found in the baths which portray religious figures. Massages were also available, and a popular treatment was to have olive oil rubbed into one's skin by a slave, and then scraped off with a strigil. It has been suggested that some baths may also have had places for sex.
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Mithras Baths in Ostia

  • These small baths were in the western corner of Ostia and were probably provided by a private benefactor under Hadrian.
  • Two carved shield portraits of imagines clipeatae of two unknown people are on the wall, probably representing the people who funded the baths.
  • The baths had a Mithraeum underneath, with a large statue of Mithras about to slay the bull, strategically positioned to be dramatically lit by natural light. Two rows of benches run either side of the Mithraeum, for the worshippers to sit at.
  • These baths also had two big water wheels, which would have been operated by slaves.
  • Because of the connection with Mithras, the baths were probably only used by men, or only members of the Mithras cult.
  • The Mithras Baths, like many buildings in Ostia, were built of opus testaceum.
  • These Baths were still used until the 4th century AD, when it seems they were used as a Christian baptismal font. This coincides with the general Christian takeover of Mithraism within the Empire.
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Public Lavoratory Near Forum Baths in Ostia

  • The central public lavatory is in the insula next to the Forum Baths in Ostia.
  • There are multiple seats all on a long, stone bench, with no partitions, so it was very much a public experience.
  • A long drain ran around the room beneath the seats, and was flushed by surplus water from the baths next door.
  • A double door gave entrance to the public lavatory, and beside this was a large basin where people could wash their hands.
  • The wall is made of brick-faced concrete, with opus testaceum mixing with opus reticulatum.
  • As people sat on the lavatory they would take a sponge on a stick, which may have been provided for the use of several people, thereby eliminating the inconvenience of having to bring a personal one, and rinse it in the channel that ran along the front of the seats.
  • The sponge stick would be used by inserting it through the large hole at the front of the seat and, when one had washed oneself, it could be rinsed again in the open channel before replacing it in the communal bowl.
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Suburban Baths at Herculaneum

  • These baths were right next to where the sea would have been at the time, so the bathers would have had a lovely view of the water from the tepidarium and caldarium, which overlooked it.
  • There is an inscribed tomb monument and statue honouring Marcus Nonius Balbus, who it is believed paid for the baths to be built, although no inscription can evidence this. He possibly lived in the House of the Relief of Telephus, as there is a private entrance to the baths from this house.
  • These baths are quite small, and there is only one bath complex here, but hairpins found in a basin suggest that women used it as well as men. There was also no palaestra as there was no room for one.
  • The building was extensively decorated with stucco figures of warrios, cupids, and motifs, painted walls, marble wall panels, marble floors, and marble seating.
  • The baths are believed to have been built in the early 1st century AD.
  • The main entrance is a portal with half columns supporting a tympanum. A flight of stairs leads down from here to the vestibule.
  • The vestibule was a tetrastyle atrium with four columns supporting the roof, and gave access to all areas of the baths. It also has a preserved herm of Apollo which acted as a fountain, pouring water into a basin below.
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Suburban Baths at Herculaneum 2

  • The apodyterium and frigidarium were combined in the Suburban Baths, in a room decorated in the fourth style, and had a dado of pavonazzetto marble panels, and a fine marble floor. A cold pool was provided.
  • The tepidarium walls were decorated with stuccoes of warriors framed in panels above a repeat of the dado from the previous room.Marble benches lined the walls.
  • The tepidarium was heated by the 'samovar' method ~ the boiler room was next door, and hot water bubbled out of the 'samovar' in the middle of the pool, thus heating the whole of the pool.
  • To the east of the tepidarium was a room with a large, heated swimming pool. This room had ribbed stucco, and the frescoed walls had another marble dado.
  • The laconicum led off from the room with the heated swimming pool, and was small and round.
  • The caldarium had a large labrum (basin), set in an apse on the south wall, while the north wall had the marble-lined hot pool. The walls of the caldarium were decorated with many small stuccoed panels above a multi-coloured marble dado and floor.
  • We know that these baths were popular because the inscription on Balbus' tomb monument states that it was erected there because it was a place frequented as much as possible.
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The Baths of Caracalla in Rome

  • These were the second largest baths in Ancient Rome, built between 212 and 219 AD by Emperor Caracalla.
  • It has been calculated that they used 15-20,000 cubic metres of water per day.
  • The baths were fed by a branch of the Aqua MArcia aqueduct, which brought pure water to Rome from springs in the hills near Subiaco, over 90 km away.
  • There was a huge network of tunnels beneath the baths, for filtering away the used water to the public drain, allowing the hot water to flow into the rooms of the bath complex, and also to store the enormous amount of wood needed to fuel the praefurnia (furnaces).
  • 1600 people could bathe in the caldarium alone at any one time.
  • The building had splendid ceilings, porticoes, pillared halls, fine statues, and colossal columns ~ even the baths were made of basalt, granite, and alabaster.
  • The Caracalla Baths were the second to have a public library within the complex. Like other public libraries in Rome, there were two separate and equal-sized rooms or buildings ~ one for Greek language texts and the other for Latin language texts. The libraries were located on the exhedrae on the east and west sides of the building.
  • The entire northern wall of the building was devoted to shops.
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The Baths of Diocletian in Rome

  • The Thermae Diocletiani were the grandest of the public baths, and were built between the years of 298 AD and 306 AD. The project was originally commissioned by Maximian in honour of co-Emperor Diocletian in 298 AD, and was continued after his and Diocletian's abdications under Contantius.
  • The Baths of Diocletian are unique because of their size. They are situated on the northeast summit of the Viminal, the smallest of the Seven Hills of Rome.
  • The water supply was provided by the Aqua Marcia Aqueduct, and Diocletian increased the supply of water to city in order to properly supply the baths. The baths may also have been supplied by the Aqua Antoniniana Aqueduct, whic was originally positioned to supply Caracalla's Baths.
  • The frigidarium consisted of a pool and a host of smaller baths connected to the main room.The water which exited the pool through the drains is thought to have been used to flush latrines within the complex.
  • The size of the frigidarium suggests it was also a social room, and this is evidenced by the presence of statues and elaborate niches along the walls.
  • The caldarium was rectangular in shape with many octagonal rooms found near it in the corner of the structure. It appears to be referencing the older baths of Nero and Titus in its design, but it is set apart from them by its sheer size.
  • Apodyteria were located on either side of the caldarium. Along the sides of the caldarium were also private rooms believed to have had multiple functions, including private baths, poetry readings, etc. Other areas attached to the caldarium were a garden, lounge rooms, gyms, and small halls.
  • Some rooms in the baths have been suggested to be libraries because of their similar set-up to those in the Baths of Caracalla. It has been demonstrated that the niches in these rooms could properly house books from the time.
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The Baths of Trajan in Rome

  • These baths were built starting from 104 AD and dedicated during the Kalends of July in 109 AD. They were commissioned by Emperor Trajan, and were located on the southern side of the Oppian Hill on the outskirts of what was then the main developed area of the city.
  • The architect of these baths is said to have been Apollodorus of Damascus. The baths were used as late as the early 5th century AD, and appear to have been abandoned around the time of the siege of Rome by the Goths in 537 AD.
  • The baths occupy a prestigious position because they were built on the former palace of the Emperor Nero. They were immense by ancient Roman standards, covering an area of approximately 330 x 215 metres.
  • There was a system of subterranean passageways and structures used by slaves and workers to service and maintain the facilities.
  • The massive cistern, also underground, was capable of storing 8 million litres of water.
  • There are several exhedrae on the eastern and western sides of the buildings, and, following archaeological analysis in 1997, it is thought that at least one of these served as a libary and a holding place for scrolls and manuscripts.
  • The 1997 excavations also discovered a large, frescoed, bird's eye view of a walled port city ~ a unique suvivor of such a subject, in a buied allery or cryptoporticus beneath the baths which predaed their construction but postdated Nero's Domus Aurea. Whether it represents the reogranisation of an actual port or an idealised one remains unknown.
  • Additionally, the discovery of a 32 foot mosaic was made in 2011, in what is believed to be a Musaeum, a place dedicated to the Muses, featuring a Nymphaeum (fountain room).
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