Product Code Database
In ancient Rome, thermae (from Greek θερμός , "hot") and balneae (from Greek βαλανεῖον ) were facilities for bathing. Thermae usually refers to the large Roman Empire public bath, while balneae 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 Roman villa, domus, and castra. (2025). 9781585107957 ISBN 9781585107957 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).
Balneum or balineum, derived from the Greek language βαλανεῖον.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 balnearium. The diminutive balneolum is adopted by SenecaEp. 86 (cited by Rich, 183) to designate the bathroom of Scipio Africanus 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 balnea or balinea 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) balnearia.
Balneae and balineae, 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 balnea is not uncommonly used in the plural number to signify the public baths, since the word balneae could not be introduced in a hexameter verse. Pliny also, in the same sentence, makes use of the neuter plural balnea for public, and of balneum for a private bath.Ep. ii. 17. (cited by Rich, 184)
Thermae (Greek: Θέρμαι, , '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 Roman Empire, in place of the simple balneae of the Roman 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) balnea, and by Martialvi. 42 (cited by Rich, 184) Etrusci thermulae. In an epigram by Martialix. 76 (cited by Rich, 184)—subice balneum thermis—the terms are not applied to the whole building, but to two different chambers in the same edifice.
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.
The 1898 edition of Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities provided illustrations envisioning the rooms of the Old Baths at Pompeii:
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 ad flammam sudare.Suet. Aug. 82 (cited by Peck)
The tepidarium 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 bath, before putting on the clothes, in order to check the perspiration.Galen. x. 49 (cited by Peck) Some baths had a special room ( destrictarium or unctorium) for this purpose.
There were three boilers, one of which (caldarium) held the hot water; a second, the tepid (tepidarium); and the third, the cold (frigidarium). 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 tepidarium, 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 miliaria, 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.
Opposite to the door of entrance into the apodyterium is another doorway which leads to the tepidarium ( G), which also communicates with the thermal chamber ( F), on one side of which is a warm bath in a square recess, and at the farther extremity the labrum. The floor of this chamber is suspended, and its walls perforated for flues, like the corresponding one in the men's baths. The tepidarium in the women's baths had no brazier, but it had a hanging or suspended floor.
The changing room was known as the apodyterium (from Greek from 'to take off').
One important function of the baths in Roman society was their role as what we would consider a "branch library" today. Many in the general public did not have access to the grand libraries in Rome and so as a cultural institution the baths served as an important resource where the more common citizen could enjoy the luxury of books. The Baths of Trajan, of Caracalla, and Diocletian all contained rooms determined to be libraries. They have been identified through the architecture of the baths themselves. The presence of niches in the walls are assumed to have been bookcases and have been shown to be sufficiently deep to have contained ancient scrolls. There is little documentation from the writers of the time that there did exist definitive public libraries maintained in the baths, but records have been found that indicated a slave from the imperial household was labelled vilicus thermarum bybliothecae Graecae ('maintenance man of the Greek library of the baths'). However, this may only indicate that the same slave held two positions in succession: "maintenance man of the baths" (vilicus thermarum) and "employee in the Greek library" (a bybliothecae Graecae). The reason for this debate is that, although Julius Caesar and Asinius Pollio advocated for public access to books and that libraries be open to all readers, there is little evidence that public libraries existed in the modern sense as we know it. It is more likely that these reserves were maintained for the wealthy elite.
Baths were a site for important sculpture; among the well-known pieces recovered from the Baths of Caracalla are the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules and over life-size early 3rd century patriotic figures, (now in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).
The Romans believed that good health came from bathing, eating, massages, and exercise. The baths, therefore, had all of these things in abundance. Since some citizens would be bathing multiple times a week, Roman society was surprisingly clean.Andrews, Cath. "Ancient Roman Baths: Cleanliness and Godliness under one roof". Explore Italian Culture. Web. 4/22/12. When asked by a foreigner why he bathed once a day, a Roman emperor is said to have replied "Because I do not have the time to bathe twice a day." Emperors often built baths to gain favour for themselves and to create a lasting monument of their generosity. If a rich Roman wished to gain the favour of the people, he might arrange for a free admission day in his name. For example, a senator hoping to become a Tribune might pay all admission fees at a particular bath on his birthday to become well known to the people of the area.
In 1910, Pennsylvania Station was opened in New York City, with a Main Waiting Room that borrowed heavily from the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian, especially with the use of repeated in the ceiling. The success of the design of Pennsylvania Station in turn was copied in other railroad stations around the world.
|
|
