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Information about Thermae

Enlarge picture
Roman public baths in Bath, England. The entire structure above the level of the pillar bases is a later reconstruction.


This page is on buildings used for Roman bathing. For the activity in general, see Ancient Roman bathing.


The terms balnea or thermae were the words the ancient Romans used for the buildings housing their public baths.

Most Roman cities had at least one, if not many, such buildings, which were centers of public bathing and socialization.

Roman bath-houses were also provided for private villas, town houses and forts — these were also called thermae.

Etymology

The word thermae is Latin borrowing from the Greek adjective thermos, therme, thermon (hot).

cf. Thermopylae (the hot gates, gates of fire) thermae sc. aquae means "hot waters, hot springs".

Building layout

Within the building there were three rooms (or three within each wing - one for each gender - after Hadrian's decree of separation in bathing):
  • the caldarium (L. cal(i)dus, -a,-um "hot" cf. calor orig, calos, caloris m)
  • the tepidarium (L. tepidus,-a,-um "lukewarm" cf. L. tepeo)
  • the frigidarium (Latin frigidus,-a,-um "cold")
  • sometimes there were also steam baths: the sudatorium — a moist steam bath, and the laconicum — a dry steam bath much like a modern day sauna.
Enlarge picture
Caldarium from the Roman Baths at Bath, England. The floor tiles have been removed to expose the empty space through which hot furnace gases flowed, heating the tiles.

Purpose

The baths often included, aside from the three main rooms listed above, a palaestra, or outdoor gymnasium where men would engage in various ball games and exercises. There, among other things, weights were lifted and the discus thrown. Men would oil themselves (as soap was still a luxury good and thus not widely available), shower, and remove the excess with a strigil (cf. the well known Apoxyomenus of Lysippus from the Vatican Museum). Often wealthy bathers would bring a capsarius, a slave that carried his master's towels, oils, and strigils to the baths and then watched over them once in the baths, as thieves and pickpockets were known to frequent the baths.

The changing room was known as the apodyterium (Greek apodyterion, apo + duo "to take off" here of clothing).

Cultural significance

The baths were an important place in the lives of Romans. Built as public monuments, they were used by everyone, whether rich or poor, free or slave. A person could eat, exercise, read, drink, shop, socialize, and discuss politics. The modern equivalent would be a combination of a library, art gallery, mall, bar/restaurant, gym, and spa.[1]

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." [2]

Emperors often built baths to gain favor for themselves and to create a lasting monument of their generosity. If a rich Roman wished to gain the favor 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.

Location

Baths sprung up all over the empire. Where natural hot springs existed (as in Bath, England, and Băile Herculane) thermae were built around them. Alternatively a system of hypocausta (Greek hypocauston < hypo "below" + kaio "to burn") were utilized to heat the waters heated by a furnace (praefurnium)

Remains of Roman public baths

Algeria

  • Timgad
  • Guelma (ancient Calama)
  • Héliopolis
  • Hammam Meskoutine (ancient Aquae Tibilitanae)
  • Hammam Righa (ancient Aquae Calidae)

Bulgaria

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Remains of the Roman baths of Varna, Bulgaria

United Kingdom

France

Germany

Hungary

Italy

Romania

  • Băile Herculane

Spain

The Netherlands

Military bathhouses

UK

Villa bathhouses

UK

See also

References

External links

Bathing played a major part in Ancient Roman culture and society.

Of all the leisure activities, it was one of the most important, since it was part of the daily regimen for men of all classes, and many women as well.
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Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
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Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. Often the term public is misleading to some people, as they will have restrictions based upon who can use the facility — elite members of the culture, men only, religious only.
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For general context, see villa.


A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman Empire. The Empire contained many kinds of villas.
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domus was the form of house that wealthy families owned in ancient Rome and almost all the major cities of the Empire. (The middle classes and the poor were housed in crowded apartment blocks, known as insulae, while the country houses of the rich were known as villas).
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castra,[1] with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean any building or plot of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position.
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Latin}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Greek}}} 
Writing system: Greek alphabet 
Official status
Official language of:  Greece
 Cyprus
 European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
 European Union
 Italy
 Turkey
Regulated by:
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For other uses, see Cf.


cf. is an abbreviation for the Latin word confer, meaning "compare" or "consult". It is mainly used in common and statute law contexts as well as in academic writing.

Thus "cf.
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Thermopylae (IPA pronunciation: [θə(r)'mɒpəli]) (Ancient and Katharevousa Greek Θερμοπύλαι, Demotic
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Caldarium (also called a Calidarium, Cella Caldaria or Cella Coctilium) was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.

This was a very hot and steamy room heated by a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system.
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For other uses, see Cf.


cf. is an abbreviation for the Latin word confer, meaning "compare" or "consult". It is mainly used in common and statute law contexts as well as in academic writing.

Thus "cf.
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tepidarium was the warm (tepidus) bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system.

There is an interesting example at Pompeii; this was covered with a semicircular barrel vault, decorated with reliefs in stucco, and round the room a
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frigidarium is a large cold pool to drop into after enjoying a hot Roman bath. The Caldarium and the Tepidarium opened the pores of the skin. The cold water would close the pores. There would be a small pool of cold water or sometimes a large Swimming pool.
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Sudatorium, the term in architecture for the vaulted sweating-room (sudor, sweat) of the Roman thermae, referred to in Vitruvius (v. 2), and there called the concamerata sudatio.
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For the sports arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, see .


The palaestra was the ancient Greek wrestling school. The events that did not require a lot of space, such as boxing and wrestling, were practiced there.
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Simple Object Access Protocol, and lately also Service Oriented Architecture Protocol, but is now simply SOAP. The original acronym was dropped with Version 1.2 of the standard, which became a W3C Recommendation on June 24 2003, as it was considered to be misleading.
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strigil was a small, curved, metal tool used in ancient Greece and Rome to scrape dirt and sweat from the body, (in the age before effective soaps). First perfumed oil was applied to the skin, and then it would be scraped off, along with the dirt.
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Lysippos was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Lysippos, Skopas and Praxiteles are considered the three great sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic era.
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The Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani) are the public art and sculpture museums in the Vatican City, which display works from the extensive collection of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the 16th century.
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In ancient Rome, the apodyterium was the primary entry in the public baths, comprised of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing.
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For other uses, see Tribune (disambiguation).


Tribune (from the Latin: tribunus; Greek form tribounos) was a title shared by 2–3 elected magistracies and other governmental and/or (para)military offices of the Roman Republic
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hot spring is a spring that is produced by the emergence of geothermally-heated groundwater from the earth's crust. There are hot springs all over the earth, on every continent and even under the oceans and seas.
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Bath

Bath, Somerset ()
|240px|Bath, Somerset (

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hypocaust is an ancient Roman system of central heating. The word literally means "heat from below", from the Greek hypo meaning below or underneath, and kaiein, to burn or light a fire.
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State Party  Algeria
Type Cultural
Criteria ii, iii, iv
Reference 194
Region Arab States

Inscription History
Inscription 1982  (6th Session)
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Guelma (Arabic: قالمة) is the capital of Guelma Province (ولاية قالمة) in north-east Algeria, at about 40 kilometers from the coast.
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Heliopolis, meaning "sun city" in Ancient Greek, can refer to
  • Heliopolis (ancient), the ancient city in Egypt
  • Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb), a suburb in modern Cairo, Egypt
  • Heliopolis style, the architectural style of the modern Heliopolis Cairo suburb

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Kyustendil
Кюстендил

Province
(oblast) Kyustendil
Population 62,359 (2007-06-01)
Altitude 513 m
Postal code 2500
Area code 078
License plate
province code KH
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