Roman Baths

Roman civilisation, from the Republic to the Empire, lasted over 600 years. One of the many extraordinary things about the Romans was their "think big" approach to things.This is very evident in the massive public buildings they erected during their supremacy. The Colosseum held more people than our ANZ Stadium in Brisbane and some of Rome's public baths were immense in their scale and grandeur. For example, the Baths of Caracalla covered an area of 28 acres.

These huge complexes, called thermae, were an early form of an urban Leisure Centre and embraced more activities than simply the process of bathing. More common were the balneae, smaller public baths dedicated to the benefits and pleasures of the bath itself.  

 From the baths of Caracalla

Use of the Bath

Various famous Roman writers such as Seneca, Cicero, Pliny, Vitruvius and Galen have given us a lot of information about the design and the use of the bath. All orders of society used the baths. Generally, sexes were separated. Entrance was a low fee if not free. The baths opened at sunrise and generally closed at sunset. When the water was ready, a bell sounded notice (one of these bells was found in the Diocletian thermae).

Bathing involved the use of one or many rooms with specific purposes. The apodyterium was an undressing room. The frigidarium had a cold water pool. The tepidarium, warm room, quite often did not have a pool and could serve as an undressing room for those taking the warm bath. The calidarium contained the warm bath and was sealed off by a door that closed under its own weight. The last, hottest chamber was the laconicum that produced perspiration by its dry, hot atmosphere.

The Roman writers vary as to the preferred order of taking the baths. A typical sequence might begin with a workout in the palestra (courtyard) or a game with a small leather ball. Undressing in the apodyterium, the bather might then relax in the tepidarium while being anointed with oils.He or she might then move on to the calidarium and soak in the warm bath. In the Pompeii balneae, there was a centre space (sudatio) between the warm bath and the laconicum for gymnastic exercises or weight-lifting. After a short stay in the very hot laconicum, the bather would then scrape off the perspiration with an instrument called strigiles, its quite sharp edge softened by the application of oil dispensed from a small, narrow-necked bottle called a guttus. Finally, the bather might choose a cold dip in the frigidarium to close the pores.

Technology of the Bath

Drawing of a hypocaust

Credits Barbara McManus

By the late 4th Century AD no less than 14 aqueducts coming into Rome from considerable distances supplied an estimated 11 public baths, 900 private baths and about 1350 fountains in a monumental city that had a population of 1 million.

In both the large (thermae) and the smaller (balneae) bathing complexes, the principle of water heating was the same. From the aqueduct, water flowed initially into a holding pool, piscina, or copper. Then into an intermediate container and finally into the container placed directly above the log-fired furnace. To heat the air in the bath, Roman engineering ingenuity came up with the hypocaust method by which the furnace drove hot fumes through chambers under suspended marble floors and through flues built into walls and finally out through chimneys in the roof. It was so effective that on occasion bathers had to wear shoes to protect their feet from the blistering floor.

Secrets of the construction of the Pantheon continue to

elude architects

Large, open areas in the bath accommodating hundreds of bathers would not have been possible without another achievement in Roman engineering- the vaulted ceiling. The Pantheon in Rome has the largest existing cupola built in brickwork up to our time, 1 metre wider than that of St Paul's Cathedral in London. As can be seen from the cutout drawing (left), the base of the vault is much thicker than the top. This technique, combined with the use of progressively lighter aggregate in the cement approaching the top and the use of coffered walls, resulted in a lighter cupola capable of spanning a greater ground area.

Unlike the extensive ruins of the thermae of Titus, Caracalla and Diocletian, the Forum Baths of Pompeii are a time capsule...

Even the money box for holding the entrance fee (quadrans) was found in the Vestibule (3).

The layout of the baths followed the rules laid down by the chief ancient authority on the principles of bath construction, Vitruvius.

A Bath in detail

(Refer to the plan above). The block, called an insula by the Romans, fronted the forum of Pompeii and as you can see shops surrounded most of the baths. Going through the main entrance (F), the bather would descend 3 steps and pass a little room on the left containing a convenience, latrina. He proceeds into a covered portico (2) which ran around 3 sides of an open court, an atrium (3). The portico and atrium were the vestibule of the baths where people waited and where advertisements for the theatre or other announcements were posted. (4) may have been where the better classes might have awaited return of acquaintances from the interior.

Pompeii - Forum civile

The bather passed along (7) and (8) to gain the interior. The entrance at (E) is similar to that at (F). The chamber (8) served as an apodyterium, undressing room. It was accessible from entrance (D) and the little niche in the corridor (9) was probably another fee-collection place. At this point in (8), the bather was expected to take off all his clothes. The chamber (8) was vaulted and spacious and had stone seats along 2 sides of the wall. Holes in the walls might have served for pegs to hang clothes.

The cold bath (10) is coated with white marble, is 12 feet 10 inches in diameter and about 3 feet deep. It has 2 marble steps for descent and a seat surrounding to allow bathers to sit while washing themselves. A marble platform surrounds the bath. The ceiling is vaulted with a window in the centre for light. Water ran into the bath through a spout of bronze and was carried off by a conduit on the opposite side. The small room (11) might have been for shaving and storing unguents or strigiles.

Frigidarium- Pompeii Forum Baths

Credits: Barbara McManus

The bather passed then into the tepidarium (12). This chamber did not contain water and was designed to prepare bathers for the great heat of the calidarium and laconicum (13). It served also as an apodyterium for those taking the warm baths only. The air was heated not only by proximity to the hypocaust but also by a brazier of bronze in which the charcoal ashes were still remaining when the excavation was made. The tepidarium was also a place of anointing performed by slaves. The common people used oil, sometimes scented, and the wealthier classes were very extravagant in regard to their unguents and perfumes.

Tepidarium- Pompeii Forum Baths

The tepidarium opened into the calidarium (13) through a door that closed by its own weight to keep the hot air in. In conformity with the stipulation of Vitruvius, this large chamber contains the warm bath, balneum, at one end and the vapour-bath, laconicum, at the other. The centre space, sudatio, is exactly twice the length of its width to give room for gymnastic exercises. The warm-water bath was a square basin of marble ascended from the outside by 2 steps raised from the floor. Around it ran a platform where people perhaps waited for their turn. Bathers could sit down on a step and wash themselves. The laconicum at Pompeii followed the rules of Vitruvius. The cell was circular so that warm air from the hypocaust could circulate more freely and its width was equal to its height (from the suspended floor to the beginning of the cupola). In the middle was a flat marble vase, labrum, with piped water- its purpose is not clear.

Calidarium- Pompeii Forum Baths

Credits: Barbara McManus

(e) and (f) mark the furnace and the boilers and are in the chamber (15) that has an entrance from the street at (B). This chamber (15) was for the use of those looking after the fires and had 2 staircases in it. One led to the roof of the baths and the other to the 3 coppers containing the hot, warm and cold water supply. Behind the coppers, a corridor (16) leads into an atrium for the servants of the bath and connected with the street by a door at (C).

The women's baths were much smaller. The entrance at (A) led to a small vestibule (18) and on into the apodyterium which has a seat on either side built up against the wall. This opens on a cold bath (20) with 4 steps of descent on the inside. A doorway then leads to the tepidarium (21) which leads on to the thermal chamber (22). In the thermal chamber is a warm bath in a square recess to the side and at the end the laconicum with its labrum. The floor of this chamber is suspended and its walls with flues inbuilt like the corresponding thermal room in the men's baths.

Sketch of the boilers- Pompeii Forum Baths

Reconstruction of the 3rd century Baths of Caracalla by architect Italo Giamondi

The thermae were a Roman adaptation of the Greek gymnasium.

An elaborate system of baths at the core of the complex was surrounded by sports halls, arenas, gardens, shaded walks, fountains, exedrae (open meeting places), porticoes, vestibules, libraries and decorated with the finest objects of art.

There were about 9 Imperial thermae. The best preserved were those of Titus (81 AD), Caracalla (217 AD) and Diocletian (305 AD)

The ruins of the Baths- an opposite view to that of the reconstruction above

The Baths of Caracalla

(Please refer to the reconstruction above). The baths were begun in 212 AD and completed after Emperor Caracalla's death by following emperors 20 years later. They became abandoned in the 6th century, were reduced to ruins by Saracen raids in the 11th century and became a quarry of marble and building materials in the Middle Ages.

They had an outside measurement of 368 yards wide and 369 yards long occupying 28 acres and had 1600 marble seats for the bathers.

Frigidarium

The central area was dedicated to baths of all the standard Roman types while the periphery consisted of rooms for physical exercises, sweating rooms, libraries, gymnasia and rectangular halls forming a portico. Magnificent columns supported galleries adorned with statues from which spectators could view the bathers in the vast rectangular hall used for cold baths (frigidarium).

On 3 sides of the external enclosure came a magnificent stadium with trees and gardens. This is where a branch of the Aqua Marcia aqueduct carried water into the complex from 90 kilometres away. It is estimated that 15-20,000 cubic metres of water were used per day. 

The principle of cold water descending from the piscina into tepid containers and then into hot containers was followed (as in the Pompeii Forum Baths). 32 large cells, with parting walls inbuilt with flues, were arranged in 2 rows over the hypocaust all communicating with each other. Over these hot cells, a similar number of tepid cells was similarly arranged. When the water was sufficiently warm, it was turned on to the baths through pipes conducted through flues and the vacuum was supplied by tepid water from the range of cells above.

Tepidarium

Excavations have found 3 miles of tunnels intersecting beneath the baths. One network distributed the water, a second drained and the third was used to store the vast quantities of logs needed to fire over 50 furnaces (praefurnia).

Please follow this link to see a plan of the Baths of Caracalla with detailed descriptions of the various sections. Plan

Calidarium