Transcript Baths

Baths and Bathing
By Gemma and Anna
Baths and Bathing
• For the Romans, the baths had an
important social and cultural function.
• They were a means to clean the body, but
also a source of entertainment and a
centre for social, political and economic
activity.
• Communal bathing was one of the
fundamental parts of every day life.
The Rooms in Roman Baths
• Vestibule; exercise yard with portico
• Apodyterium – Changing room with benches and
shelves or niches for clothes.
• Frigidarium – A vaulted chamber for cold baths,
containing one or more cold water pools. Normally
visited after the heating rooms.
• Tepidarium – A vaulted chamber designed to
acclimatize visitors passing from the apodyterium to
the caldarium, with benches where people could sit
to get used to the heat and/or wash themselves.
The Rooms in Roman Baths
• Caldarium – The principal bath chamber
for a hot-water or steam bath, containing
a communal pool and a basin (labrum,
which contained cold water).
• Laconicum – A small round room used as
a sweat bath, usually with dry heat. The
room was heated either by a fireplace,
hot stones or a brazier placed at the
centre of the room.
• Destrictarium – Scraping room, where oil
and sweat were removed from the body
with strigils.
Strigils could be made
from bone, bronze,
iron or silver and were
used after exercise or
bathing to clean off
perspiration.
Heating system
• Provided by a charcoal burning furnace located
at the back of the caldarium, between men’s and
women’s sections. Hot air circulated through the
interstices (Hypocastrum) under the marble floor
which was raised about 70 to 90 centimetres on
brick pillars (suspensure) and through air ducts
built behind the walls.
• To prevent condensation, the ceiling had
grooves in the plaster which collected and
channelled the condensation down the walls.
Strigils
Bathing tools from a house in Pompeii
including strigils.
Baths in Pompeii
• By AD79, there were 3 functioning public bath buildings
at Pompeii.
• There were two others that weren’t used, one that had
fallen out of use and another that was still under
construction at the time of the eruption.
• The three functions baths at Pompeii include; The
Stabian Baths, The Forum Baths and The Suburban
Baths. There was also the Sano baths, and a privately
run bath seemingly owned by Julia Felix.
• The one under construction was The Central Baths.
Baths in Herculaneum
• So far, two baths at Herculaneum have been
discovered and excavated. They are the
Suburban baths and the Forum baths.
Suburban Baths in Herculaneum
• These are probably the best
preserved baths and were more
than likely built later than the
Central Baths. They have an
outer portal leading to a square
vestibule illuminated by an
opening in the roof supported by
twin arches on top of four
columns. The Vestibule leads to
the various rooms of the Baths
which have marble floors, seats
and decorations. Some wooden
doors and even window frames
have also been preserved.
Vestibule in Suburban
baths
Forum Baths
• The Forum Baths were located
in Via delle Terme at the very
centre of Pompeii, in the
building opposite the Temple
of Fortuna Augusta.
• They were built in the first year
of the founding of the colony
with public funds.
• The damage suffered during
the earthquake of 62 A.D. was
immediately repaired, and they
were in fact the only baths in
use at the moment of the
eruption in 79 A.D.
Hypocaust - underfloor
heating system had hot
air heated from the
basement fires flowing
between the brick or
concrete columns
which support the
ground floor
Stabian Baths
• When the hypocaust was installed in
Pompeii, the Stabian Baths were refurbished
by Gaius Uulius and Publius Aninius.
• The Stabian baths, were located at the
junction of Pompeii’s 2 main streets.
• It was badly damaged at the time of the
earthquake of AD 62. Only the women’s
quarters were in use at the time of the
eruption.
• The Stabian Baths only received their final
form in the Augustan period, when water
began to be supplied by the town’s new
aqueduct.
Stabian baths in Pompeii
The Stabian
Baths in
Pompeii.
Activities
• Romans could;
• Enjoy the benefits of warm, hot or
cold baths, practice physical
exercise, play sport, enjoy a
massage, play sport, listen to music
and poetry recitals, read in the
library, conduct business and receive
invitations.
Layout and Décor
Forum baths of Pompeii
• The baths were divided
into sections for men
and women. If there
were no separate
sections, the men and
women attended at
different times.
• Although the décor may
have varied from bath
to bath, most were
vaulted, the walls and
ceilings covered in
elegant stucco work and
the floors in mosaic,
often with a marine
theme.
Sex
• Pornographic graffiti suggests
sexual activities occurred at the
baths. Apparently a masseur in
Pompeii was ‘accused of taking
liberties with women’ (M.Grant, Cities of
Vesuvius, p. 210) and at Herculaneum
‘pimps and prostitutes began to
make a nuisance of themselves.’
(Deiss, p. 110)
Opening hours
• The baths opened at midday after the
furnaces had been lit and an
afternoon visit became a daily
routine for many people.
• The discovery of hundreds of lamps in
the Forum and Stabian baths suggested
that complexes stayed open at night
for those unable to make it during
the day.
Seneca, (Epistles Vol IV, 1-65)
describes the noise –
• Here I am surrounded by all kinds of noise (my lodgings overlook a
bathhouse). Conjure up in your imagination all the sounds that
make one hate one’s ears. I hear grunts of musclemen exercising
and jerking those heavy weights around; they are working hard, or
pretending to. I hear their sharp hissing as they release their pent
breath. If there happens to be a lazy fellow content with a simple
massage I hear the slap of hand on shoulder; you can hear whether
it’s hitting a flat or hollow. If a ballplayer comes up and starts calling
out his score, I’m done for. Add to this the racket of a cocky bastard,
a thief caught in the act, and a fellow who likes the sound of his own
voice in the bath, plus those who plunge into the pool with a huge
splash of water. Besides those who just have loud voices, imagine
the skinny armpit-hair plucker, whose cries are shrill so as to draw
people’s attention and who never stops except when he’s doing his
job and making someone else shriek for him. Now add the mingled
cries of the drink pedlar and the sellers of sausages, pastries and
hot fare, each hawking his own wares with his own particular peal.
Slaves at the baths
• Many people were accompanied by their slaves at
the baths.
• Some, according to Juvenal’s Satires took a ‘mob of
rowdy retainers’ like ‘that show-off Tongilius’ who
was ‘such a bore at the baths’ with his ‘outsized oilflask of rhinoceros horn’.
• Slaves carried their masters oil, soda and strigil and
they may have helped their master or mistress
disrobe in the change room.