A Day at the Baths

A Day at the Baths Learning Goals: ● How would Ancient Romans clean themselves? ● What were public baths like? ● What tools and technology were used in the baths? ● What social, health, and public roles did bathing fill? ● How often did people bathe? ● How did gender and social status impact bathing? ● What major differences can we discern between modern bathing practices and ancient bathing practices? ● In what order would one proceed through the baths? Bath Vocabulary balneum, balnei exerceo, exercere, tepidarium, -i neut. bath exercui, exercitus neut. warm bath v. to exercise therma, thermae latrina, latrinae fem. bath complex apodyterium, -i fem. toilets (originally hot spring) neut. dressing room piscina, piscinae palaestra, palaestrae caldarium, -i fem. pool neut. hot bath fem. exercise yard strigilis, strigilis lavo, lavare, lavi, latus frigidarium, -i fem. strigil neut. cold bath v. to bathe "We quickly undressed, went into the hot baths and after working up a sweat, passed on to the cold bath. There we found Trimalchio again. His skin was glistening all over with perfumed oil. He was being rubbed down, not with ordinary linen, but with clothes of the purest and softest wool. He was then wrapped in a blazing scarlet robe, hoisted into a litter, and trundled off." Petronius. "I live over a public bath-house. Just imagine every kind of annoying noise! The sturdy gentleman does his exercise with lead weights; when he is working hard(or pretending to) I can hear him grunt; when he breathes out, I can hear him panting in high pitched tones. Or I might notice some lazy fellow, content with a cheap rub-down, and hear the blows of the hand slapping his shoulders. The sound varies, depending on whether the massager hits with a flat or hollow hand. To all of this, you can add the arrest of the occasional pickpocket; there's also the racket made by the man who loves to hear his own voice in the bath or the chap who dives in with a lot of noise and splashing." Seneca in AD 50 A Tour of the Baths Entrance Welcome to the Baths of Caracalla, one of the most elegant and massive Roman baths ever built. As late as the fifth century A.D., over 200 years after it was built, it still was ranked as one of Rome's wonders. If you were a Roman, you would know that the public baths were as much a way of life as they were a place to wash. By the early fifth century A.D., there were almost 900 baths in Rome alone. The typical bath had a mosaic of uses and served as a community center, restaurant, fitness center, bar, and also as a performance center, where a juggler, a musician, or even a philosopher might entertain. The most likely time you would have visited is in the afternoon, as the Roman workday for most ended by noon. If that time wasn't convenient, you could bathe in the morning or evening, when some baths were lit by torch. The Baths of Caracalla covered 27 acres and could accommodate 1,600 people at a time, so you would have had plenty of company. All would come: infants and elderly, men and women, healthy and ill, freemen and slaves, all of whom often bathed naked and together. At your service (if you had the money), would be masseurs and food vendors, bartenders and slaves, poets and musicians. The baths were a bustling place, and one man who roomed above one wrote a letter chronicling its noise, complaining of the "grunt" of a weight lifter, a masseur's "pummeling of a shoulder," the occasional "arresting of a pickpocket," and the "racket of a man who likes to hear his own voice." But his complaints were drowned out by most Romans, who were devotees of the baths. Roman affection for them was typified by the remark one Roman emperor made to a foreigner who asked why the emperor took the trouble to bathe once a day. "Because I do not have the time to bathe twice a day," he replied. Toilets It is most likely that you would have felt uncomfortable going to the bathroom at Caracalla—or any other Roman bath, for that matter. Romans were far less shy about bodily functions than we are. In general, the Roman Empire was a much more communal world than ours. Acts we consider private—bathing and going to the toilet—were done by the Romans in public and without shame. The seats of the toilets at Roman baths are close together. Some modicum of privacy was provided by the Roman's loose togas, since they were hiked up rather than pulled down. "However," points out Garrett Fagan, an authority on life in the Roman baths, "that doesn't preclude the kinds of noises and odors that would disgust us. For modern-day Westerners, it would be a very embarrassing place to be, but the Romans didn't seem to mind." Romans would wipe themselves using sponges on sticks. Before they left, they'd stop at a basin to wash their hands. The sewers passing underneath the baths—the last stop of water from the aqueducts—would wash their waste to the river. Apodyterium This is the changing room, your entry into the baths. An apodyterium had cubicles or shelves where you could tuck away your clothing and other belongings while you bathed. Leaving belongings behind unprotected was a risk, of course, for one of the most common visitors to the Roman baths apparently was thieves. Privately owned slaves, or one hired at the baths, called a capsarius, would watch your belongings while you enjoyed the pleasures of the baths. One Roman schoolbook quotes a wealthy young Roman schoolboy who entered the baths, leaving his slave behind in the apodyterium. Master reminded slave: "Do not fall asleep, on account of the thieves." If you were wealthy, you might even bring more than one slave along, as parading your slaves at the baths was a way to show your elevated social status. If you were a wealthy free man or woman, slaves carried your bathing paraphernalia: exercise and bathing garments, sandals, linen towels, and a toilet kit that consisted of anointing oils, perfume, a sponge, and strigils, curved metal instruments used to scrape oil, sweat, and dirt from the body. Slaves might also wash you or give you a massage. If you were robbed, you could respond by appealing to one of the Roman gods for retribution. A curse on the wrongdoer was written on tablets and offered up to the gods, who were asked to intervene. Many of these curse tablets were found at the spring at Bath, England. One of them reads: "Solinus to the Goddess Sulis Minerva. I give to your divinity and majesty [my] bathing tunic and cloak. Do not allow sleep or health to him who has done me wrong, whether man or woman, whether slave or free, unless he reveals himself and brings goods to your temple." Palaestra Before stepping into a series of baths, you and other visitors—young and old, male and female—exercised in open courtyards. The exercise was usually neither extremely vigorous nor competitive. It was done, instead, to maintain health, as was recommended by the Roman medical profession. Doctors believed that bathing, exercise, massage, and a good diet—all things that a bath provided—were the basic ingredients of good health. Exercise also worked up a light sweat recommended before a bath. If you were a man, your workout might consist of running, wrestling, boxing, or fencing. Ball games such as handball were also played. Women also partook in this prelude to bathing. Trochus, a game that consisted of rolling a metal hoop with a hooked stick, was considered a more appropriate woman's exercise, as was swimming. One Roman, Juvenal, mocked brazen society women who worked out with weights and dumbbells for infringing on a sport that he obviously considered solely part of the male domain. Romans strigiled away oil, dirt, and sweat. Tepidarium After changing in the apodyterium and working up a sweat in the palaestra, you would step into the tepidarium. This was the first stop on the way to the hot caldarium and then the cool-watered frigidarium. The tepidarium was the place where "strigiling" often took place, the Roman habit of using curved metal tools to wipe oil, and with it sweat and dirt. Instead of using soap, Roman bathers would cover their bodies with oil to loosen dirt and then wipe off the mixture with various strigil devices. This might have been done by your own slave, if you had one, or by one who worked at the baths, if you could afford one. Depilation was never fun. You could receive a massage here. That was definitely less painful than a depilation, which consisted of having your body hairs plucked out, as hairless bodies were fashionable during much of the Roman Empire. One man who lived above the baths complained of the "hair-plucker with his penetrating shrill voice—for purposes of advertisement—continually giving it vent and never holding his tongue except when he is plucking the armpits and making his victim yell." The often-gloomy Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius could have been describing a tepidarium when he said: "What is bathing when you think about it—oil, sweat, filth, greasy water, everything loathsome." The hypocaust system heated bath water and air. Caldarium This was the hottest room in a Roman bath. At the Baths of Caracalla, the room was 115 feet wide and crowned with a concrete dome.

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