Roman Baths
The Ancient Roman baths (thermae) were designed
along a central axis: the caldarium or hot bath; a smaller
area for the tepidarium or warm bath; the basilica, which
held the frigidarium or cold bath; and the natatio, an
open-air bathing pool. Symmetrically arranged on either side
of the baths were rooms for changing, massage, depilation,
and medicinal use. From the changing rooms (apodyteria), one
would go to the gymnasia (palaestrae) to exercise and from
there to a sauna (laconica) to induce an even greater sweat.
Then the bather passed to the caldarium, after which he
scraped his skin clean with a strigil, and to the tepidarium
for a cooler bath and, finally, to the frigidarium for a
bracing plunge in a cold bath.
Ancient Roman Baths - The
Daily Bath
The Daily Bath. To the Roman of early
times the bath had stood for health and decency only. He
washed his arms and legs every day, for the ordinary costume
left them exposed and he washed his body once a week.
He bathed at home, using a primitive sort of wash-room which
was situated near the kitchen in order that the
water heated on the kitchen stove might be carried into it
with the least inconvenience.
Roman Baths - The
Public Baths
By the last century of the
Republic the process of bathing at home changed. The bath
had become a part of the daily life. It was taken, too, by preference, in one
of the public bathing establishments which were by this time
operated on a large scale in all parts of Rome, in the
smaller towns of Italy, and even in the provinces. They were
often built where hot or mineral springs were found. These
public establishments offered all sorts of baths, plain,
plunge, douche and with massage (Turkish). In many Roman
Public baths features, borrowed from the Greek gymnasia,
included exercise grounds, courts for various games, reading and
conversation rooms, libraries, gymnastic apparatus,
everything in fact that athletic clubs or modern gyms now provide for
their members. The accessories had become really of more
importance than the bathing itself and justify the
description of the bath under the head of amusements. In
places where there were no public baths, or where they were
at an inconvenient distance, the wealthy fitted up bathing
places in their houses, but no matter how elaborate they
were, the private baths were merely a makeshift at best.
Ancient Roman Baths - The
Public Baths
The ruins of the public and private baths found all over the
Roman world. For the luxurious bath of
ancient times several elements were thought necessary:
To the simpler bathhouse of the
earlier times as well as to the bath itself was given the
name balneum (balineum). The more
complex Roman public baths of later times were called balneae,
and to the very largest, which had features derived from the
Greek gymnasia, the name thermae was finally given.
Ancient Roman Baths -
Rooms Required
All the facilities required might have been provided in
one room as all but the last are furnished in every modern
bathroom. However, in Ancient Rome at least three
rooms set apart for the bath in very modest private houses.
In the public establishments
this number might be multiplied several times. In the more
modest public baths space was saved by using one room for
several purposes. In the better
equipped baths the following rooms and facilities were provided:
-
a room for undressing and
dressing (apodyterium), usually unheated, but furnished with
benches and often with compartments for the clothes
-
the
warm anteroom (tepidarium), in which the bather waited long
enough for the perspiration to start, in order to guard
against the danger of passing too suddenly into the high
temperature of the next room (caldarium)
-
the hot room (caldarium)
for the hot bath
-
the cold room (frigidarium) for the
cold bath
-
the room for the rubbing and anointing with
oil that finished the bath (unctorium), from which the
bather returned into the apodyterium for his clothes.
Ancient Roman Baths -
Heating the Baths
Heating the Roman baths. The arrangement of the rooms, were
they many or few, depended upon the method of heating. This
in early times must have been by stoves placed in the rooms
as needed, but by the end of the Republic the furnace had
come into use, heating the rooms as well as the water with a
single fire. The hot air from the furnace was not conducted
into the rooms directly but was made to
circulate under the floors and through spaces around the
walls. The temperature of the room depending upon its
proximity to the furnace. The laconicum (sauna), if there
was one, was put directly over the furnace, next to it came
the caldarium and then the tepidarium; the frigidarium and
the apodyterium, having no need of heat, were at the
greatest distance from the fire and without connection with
it. If there should be two sets of baths in the same
building, as there sometimes were for the accommodation of
men and women at the same time, the two caldaria were put on
opposite sides of the furnace. There were really two floors; the first
was even with the top of the firepot, the second (suspensura)
with the top of the furnace. Between them was a space of
about two feet into which the hot air passed. On the top of
the furnace, just above the level, therefore, of the second
floor, were two kettles for heating the water. One was
placed well back, where the fire was not so hot, and
contained water that was kept merely warm; the other was
placed directly over the fire and the water in it, received
from the former, was easily kept intensely hot. Near them
was a third kettle containing cold water. From these three
kettles the water was piped as needed to the various rooms.
Ancient Roman Baths
- Facts and
Description of the Caldarium
The Caldarium. The hot-water bath was taken in the
caldarium (cella caldaria), which served also as a sweat
bath when there was no laconicum. It was a rectangular room.
In the public baths its length exceeded its width. One end was rounded off
like a bay window. At the other end stood the large
hot-water tank (alveus), in which the bath was taken by a
number of persons at a time. The alveus was built up two
steps from the floor of the room, its length equal to the
width of the room and its breadth at the top not less than
six feet. At the bottom it was not nearly so wide; the back
sloped inward, so that the bathers could recline against it,
and the front had a long broad step, for convenience of
descent into it, upon which, too, the bathers sat. The water
was received hot from the furnace, and was kept hot by a
metal heater (testudo), which opened into the alveus and
extended beneath the floor into the hot-air chamber. Near
the top of the tank was an overflow pipe, and in the bottom
was an escape pipe which allowed the water to be emptied on
the floor of the caldarium, to be used for scrubbing it. In
the apse-like end of the room was a tank or large basin of
metal (labrum, solium), which seems to have contained cool
water for the douche. In private baths the room was usually
rectangular, and then the labrum was placed in a corner. For
the accommodation of those using the room for the sweat bath
only, there were benches along the wall. The air in the
caldarium would be very moist, while that of the laconicum would be perfectly dry, so that the effect would
not be precisely the same.
Ancient Roman Baths -
Facts and Description of
the Unctorium
The final process, that of scraping,
rubbing, and oiling, was exceedingly important. The bather
was often treated twice, before the warm bath and after the
cold bath; the first might be omitted, but the second never.
The special room, unctorium, was furnished with benches and
couches. The scrapers and oils were brought by the bathers;
they were usually carried along with the towels for the bath
by a slave (capsarius). The bather might scrape (destringere)
and oil (deungere) himself, or he might receive a regular
massage at the hands of a trained slave. |
