BY SIRI SCULL
 

Bathing, in ancient Roman times, was not the mundane and functional experience as we know it today.  In fact, bathing was a communal activity deeply embedded into the social and cultural framework of the day.  Mornings were spent working, while most afternoons    were devoted to light exercise and time spent in the baths.  Bathing was seen as a time to relax, enjoy, socialize, intellectualize, and maintain a healthy composure.  It was a way for the individual to be a part of society and integrate community into their lives.  The baths were a completely democratic meeting ground, in the sense that people from every class, sex, race, or religion were welcome, providing that they could afford the very small entrance fee.

In addition to the cultural impact, the Roman baths were significant because they demonstrated extremely advanced and sophisticated methods of architecture, heating systems, water transport ion, and art for their time.  People today still marvel at the Roman technical and artistic accomplishments related to the baths.
 
 
 
 

Basic Features of Roman Baths
The variety amongst Roman baths is extensive which makes it difficult to generalize and attribute characteristics to all.  Some baths, known as Thermae which were owned by the state or city, were huge and public, while others known as Balnae  were privately owned and more limited in what they had to offer.  While some centered around a large courtyard or Palaestrae, others surrounded a central hot room so that the heat could radiate outward.  However, rather than continuing on and on about their distinctions, I will focus on what most Thermae shared in common, and then specifically on the Thermae of Caracalla.
 

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  Women's apodyterium from Forum Baths, Herculaneum

Thermae consisted of a series of rooms, courtyards, hallways and baths.  The rooms varied in size and purpose, varying from gymnasiums for athletic activities such as ball playing, to libraries for intellectualizing.  The baths themselves consisted of a series of different sized pools of water, ranging in temperature.  The caldarium was the room with the hottest pool, and many times, the largest.  The tepidarium was the room with lukewarm baths, and the frigidarium was where one would take the final cold plunge.  There were also various "sweat" rooms in which hot air temperatures would cause one to perspire.  A sweat room was known as the laconicum or sudatorium, depending on how wet or dry the heat was.  Soaking in the baths was preceded by light exercise in the gymnasium, though usually not enough to break a sweat because Romans thought it unhealthy to exhaust oneself.  They undressed in a special room called the apodyterium. (as shown above).  The baths were then visited usually in the order mentioned, and sometimes followed by oils rubbed over the body and massage.  Contrary to many modern conceptions of ancient Roman baths, bathers were most often clothed, possibly with small wraps around the private region.  Many Thermae had separate baths for the men and women, or else separate allotted times for each to visit.  Others were co-ed, giving rise to condemnation of the sexual looseness within these baths.  The architecture and layout of the baths were extremely varied from bath to bath, demonstrating a freedom which classical architecture did not allow.  This freedom was facilitated by the extensive use of concrete which made archways, vaults, groin vaults, and domes easier to construct, leaving very few ceilings flat.  The baths were highly decorated with marble carvings, mosaics and tiles covering the concrete, sculptures of important political figures or Gods, trophies, inscriptions, and more.
 
 

Neptune mosaic from frigidarium at Ostia
 
 
 

Origins and Dating of Roman Baths

The origins of Roman baths have been thought to go back to traditions of folk medicine in central Italian villages.  There was the belief that sweating from the heat of the stove aided in the treatment of colds, flus, and joint pains.  Sometimes a small room was built right off of the kitchen, for the purposes of "medicinal sweating".  This idea of the health benefits of warmth continued as Romans began building small domestic baths in the early second century b.c. and eventually, large public Thermae with the invention of the hypocaust heating system in 100 b.c.  The tremendous influence that Greek culture had on the Romans cannot be ignored either.  We know less about Greek baths than Roman ones; although, we do know that they did have communal baths that were associated with the gymnasium.   Unlike Roman Thermae, however, the Greeks placed much more emphasis on the athletic activities than they did on the baths.  However, in the Hellenistic times, they too began to shift their emphasis away from the athletic ideal to intellectualizing, causing the baths to gain in popularity.  The Greek baths were much simpler than the those of the Romans; they were composed of small rectangular rooms surrounding a circular central room.  They did not have a hypocaust heating system, and would simply heat the water in a big cauldron over a fire.  It is clear, though, that the Romans were certainly influenced by the Greek idea of the gymnasium and the baths coexisting in the same building.

Roman Gymnasium
 
 

Heating of Baths
What makes Roman baths so technically extraordinary for their time is their hypocaust heating system which was able to heat such large quantities of water and space in rooms.  Obviously with no electricity, the Romans were able to manipulate the heat generated from a simple wood fire to heat the baths.  Most Thermae contained more than one wood fire or furnace, and some had as many as 12.  The furnaces were located underground and the hot gases would flow through the archway opening  of the furnace or praefurnium and into the underground passages, heating baths from below.  In order to be able to construct the baths above hollow canals, ingenious engineering was required.  The would build up columns a couple of feet high by stacking brick-like tiles and then regularly space them with a small enough distance between them to be able to support the structure above.  The layers on top began with a layer of of large tiles that were held up with a column at each corner.  A thicker layer of concrete was poured on top of the tiles, followed by a layer of mortar and then whatever tile or marble would be used to line the baths.  The hypocaust was a very effective means of maintaining a continuous temperature in the baths, although the floor was known to get very hot so sandals were recommended.  It was more efficient to keep a constant low fire burning than to rehear the baths each day, and so the baths were kept warm throughout the night.
 
 

In addition to the hypocaust system, hot water was heated in a bronze broiler on a fire and then distributed to the baths.  Another huge breakthrough in their heating systems was wall heating which was basically and extension of the hypocaust system throughout the walls.  Walls would have a hollow space within them, either by use of pipes within the walls or studs to maintain the space between the layers of wall.  These canals within the walls would then open down to the praefurnium so hot air could circulate through them.  Wall heating meant that huge rooms could be hot, and temperatures could be adjusted by the number of wall canals opened to the heat source.  Some vaults were even known to have internal heating by means of constructing the vault from hollow voussoir tiles.  Roman methods of heating were really quite extensive and efficient, provided that there was enough firewood and people to tend the fires.
 
 

Drawing of praefurnium with bronze boiler
 
 
 

wall heating