In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.
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. 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).
Terminology
, , , and may all be translated as 'bath' or 'baths', though Latin sources distinguish among these terms.
or , derived from the Greek .Varro, De Ling. Lat. ix. 68, ed. Müller (cited by Rich, 183) 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,Cicero, Ad Atticum ii. 3. and hence the chamber which contained the bath,Cicero, Ad Fam. xiv. 20 (cited by Rich, 183). which is also the proper translation of the word . The diminutive is adopted by SenecaEp. 86 (cited by Rich, 183) 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 or 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 QuintusAd Q. Frat. iii. 1. § 1 (cited by Rich, 183) .
and , which according to VarroDe Ling. Lat. viii. 25, ix. 41, ed. Müller (cited by Rich, 183) 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 is not uncommonly used in the plural number to signify the public baths, since the word could not be introduced in a hexameter verse. Pliny also, in the same sentence, makes use of the neuter plural for public, and of for a private bath.Ep. ii. 17. (cited by Rich, 184)
(Greek: , , 'hot springs, hot baths',. from the Greek adjective , '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 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.Juv. Sat. vii. 233 (cited by Rich, 184) Writers, however, use these terms without distinction. Thus the baths erected by Claudius Etruscus, the freedman of the Emperor Claudius, are styled by StatiusSylv. i. 5. 13 (cited by Rich, 184) , and by Martialvi. 42 (cited by Rich, 184) . In an epigram by Martialix. 76 (cited by Rich, 184)——the terms are not applied to the whole building, but to two different chambers in the same edifice.
Building layout
A public bath was built around three principal rooms: the tepidarium (warm room), the caldarium (hot room), and the frigidarium (cold room). Some also featured steam baths: the sudatorium, a moist steam bath, and the laconicum, a dry hot room.
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.The following is adapted from the 1898 Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities entry edited by Harry Thurston Peck.
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 (),Pro Cael. 26 (cited by Peck) 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 (), 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 ().
The 1898 edition of Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities provided illustrations envisioning the rooms of the Old Baths at Pompeii:
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.Dig. xlvii. 17 (cited by Peck) The 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 ), , , or ; the terms and 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
From the the bather who wished to go through the warm bath and sweating process entered the (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 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 .Suet. Aug. 82 (cited by Peck)
The 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, before dressing again, in order to assess the level of perspiration.Galen. x. 49 (cited by Peck) Some baths had a special room (destrictarium or unctorium) for this purpose.
Caldarium
From the a door opened into the (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 , forming a great flue filled with heated air. At one end was a round basin (labrum), and at the other a quadrangular bathing place (, , , ), approached from the platform by steps. The 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 of solid silver.Plin. H. N.xxxiii. 152 (cited by Peck) Because of the great heat of the room, the was but slightly ornamented.
Laconicum
The Old Baths have no laconicum, which was a chamber still hotter than the , and used simply as a sweating-room, having no bath. It was said to have been introduced at Rome by AgrippaDio Cass. liii. 27 (cited by Peck) and was also called sudatorium and .
Service areas
The has a passage (q) communicating with the mouth of the furnace (i), called or and, passing down that passage, we reach the chamber M, into which the projects, and which is entered from the street at c. It was assigned to the , 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 () held the hot water; a second, the tepid (); and the third, the cold (). 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 . 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 , 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 , from their similarity of shape to a milestone.Pallad. i. 40; v. 8 (cited by Peck)
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 (H), which, like the one in the men's bath, has a seat (, ) on either side built up against the wall. This opens upon a cold bath (J), answering to the of the men's set, but of much smaller dimensions. There are four steps on the inside to descend into it.