Historical story

A place of fun and delight. This is where the ancient Romans spent their most pleasant moments

They provided every pleasure. You could exercise there, scrape off dirt, soak in hot water, exchange rumors or show off with courtesans. But they also had their dark side ...

Roman Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. A place known to Polish tourists mainly because of the bronze doors designed by Igor Mitoraj. The church itself was built according to the plan of Michelangelo. Visiting the temple, however, we learn that the vault above our heads is ... seventeen hundred years old!

This is so, because where today some people are whispering prayers and others are snapping photos, once lived the real life of imperial Rome . The Baths of Diocletian were located here.

In theaters and circuses, the Romans played occasionally, from holidays. On the other hand, the daily places of relaxation and social meetings were precisely the thermal baths . These were not ordinary swimming pools or some ancient aqua parks. They are huge complexes with rooms for various baths, at the same time offering libraries, meeting rooms and dice rooms, sports fields, buffets and even gardens.

Inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli (author:G.dallorto, license:CC BY-SA 2.5 it).

People spent their days there, meeting their friends, gossiping, doing business, reading, walking among the trees, exercising, having cosmetic treatments, indulging in all possible ways ...

The baths opened at 10 am at the earliest, and closed at midnight at the latest. They were noisy, always full of people (Seneca, who lived next door, complained about the noise around a certain bathhouse). The imperial thermal baths resembled modern shopping malls the most. Certainly not the church, although they had some spiritual aspect: reflected the state of mind of the Romans . They were even a symbol of the Roman empire.

Giant investments

Observed by the Greeks and appreciated later on the Tiber, baths were created wherever Roman legionaries came. In 33 B.C.E. there were 170 small baths in Rome alone; in the fifth century already over 850 - both public and private. They differed in size and comfort.

The aforementioned imperial baths were the most impressive - a dozen or so large recreational complexes funded by rulers, including Trajan and Diocletian. Some of them were several hectares in size. More than 1,500 people could use the gigantic complex named after Caracalla !

The rich could not only take a bath in the thermal baths, but also feast, play dice and visit the library (author:Alberto Fernandez Fernandez, license:CC BY-SA 2.5).

How did these crowds look after their hygiene? Ancient authors recommended that, in line with the slogan "A healthy mind in a healthy body", a visit to thermal baths should be as follows:first you had to exercise a little (for example, during wrestling). Then it was good to sweat in the so-called dry bath. From there go to caldarium , where thanks to hot water you could clean yourself of dirt and sweat. Then through the less hot tepidarium it was time to go to frigidarium to take a dip in a cold water pool.

For all of this to work, the thermal baths had to be marvels of technology and engineering at the time. Water was supplied from aqueducts. Its temperature was increased thanks to a warm air heating system with stoves placed under the floors. Slaves, of course, fought with them. In some rooms it was beating so hot from the floor that you had to put on wooden clogs to avoid burns.

Gentlemen and Servants

Slaves were also useful when washing:the Romans used to oil their bodies and remove dirt along with the exfoliated skin with special scrapers. But it was hard to do it yourself. It was different when you came with a slave (carrying dishes with oils, a sheet and a scraper) or you had money to use the local staff.

Emperor Hadrian once noticed in the thermal baths a bizarrely behaving old man who was rubbing his back against the wall . It turned out to be a poor veteran who simply could not afford a servant to scrape him. The generous emperor handed him the money right away.

The result, however, was easy to predict:on Hadrian's next visit, not one old man was rubbing against the wall, but a whole bunch of them. Everyone was counting on the ruler's gesture. The Emperor, however, replied swiftly that there were enough of them to scratch each other.

The rulers founded baths and visited them to please the people. Sometimes they even sponsored free access to the thermal baths for commoners (because the visit to the baths was free only for children, and women had to pay even more for this pleasure than men!).

Other important people from the imperial milieu and local bonzos in the provinces also willingly paid for public baths to show their grand gesture. In addition, they took care of the chic decor of the complexes. That is why the thermal baths were full of columns, sculptures and water cascades. Suffice it to say that Laocoon's famous group originally adorned the Baths of Trajan.

As for women, there were smaller baths only for ladies, but more often they used the same facilities as the men. Of course, this raised moral objections. Usually the ladies could not use the thermal baths at the same hours as the gentlemen - it was rather indicated that they should come in the morning.

The famous group of Laocoon originally adorned the Baths of Trajan (source:public domain).

Even when these restrictions were lifted, self-respecting Roman women made sure to use private rooms. And what if someone would confuse them with those "disrespectful"? Ancient authors indicate that meetings with courtesans were on the agenda in these churches (frolicking on the spot or having a "finish" near the thermal baths), adultery in marriages and trysts of sexually stimulated youth. For example, the famous poets Ovid and Marcjalis pointed out that a visit to thermal baths is connected with carnal temptations.

Cleaning up the latrine

For many staunch Romans, it was equally scandalous when ladies appeared on the playgrounds next to the baths, practicing wrestling. Well, the disgusted ones could just take a bath at home. But only wealthy Romans had high-level bathrooms. The rest, if anything, could wash their hands and feet at home. Besides, the sanitary level differed from time to time.

Rome at the end of the Republic was not quite as clean and tidy a city as you might think from modern movies and TV shows. Few of the houses had any kind of sanitary system. Most people used public toilets or dumped excrement in large buckets straight into dedicated pits - writes Ben Kane in the afterword to his "Road to Rome".

For many staunch Romans it was outrageous when ladies practicing wrestling appeared on the playgrounds by the baths (author:M. Disdero, license:CC BY-SA 2.5).

It was better during the empire. Home toilets were usually located next to the kitchen, thanks to which they were serviced by a common water supply system, and flushing water was always at hand. Most often, just a jug or a bucket were used for this purpose.

The paper did not clog the sewage system, because the Romans did not know paper, they used a sponge on a stick. Apart from sewage pits - a kind of septic tanks to which the waste was discharged and the emptying of which the owners had to pay - there were also public sewage collectors. After centuries, they have become a repository of knowledge for ... archaeologists. Thanks to the research of ancient cesspools, for example in legionnaires' camps, scientists reconstructed the diet of soldiers who conquered the world with Roman eagles.

There were a lot of public toilets in Rome - decorated freely, without booths - but you had to be careful, because they also used caps. The poet Lucan, who hated Nero, once allowed himself to comment on the loud fart of one of the users with a quote from the emperor's work: You would say that it thundered underground!

The entire toilet immediately emptied. And Lucan got the better of him:soon, in 65 CE, he was forced to commit suicide for his alleged involvement in the anti-imperial conspiracy of Piso. The poet slashed his veins while taking a hot bath…

Dangers of bathing

Roman orders - and a way of life - even reached the British Isles. And there, in the baths of the city of Bath, once known as Aquae Sulis, archaeologists discovered something unusual:dozens of lead strips filled with curses were thrown into the water. This proves that the visits to the thermal baths were enjoyable, but not always so pleasant.

Well, an unpleasant disappointment could await a relaxed Roman in apodtery - that is, the cloakroom where he left his things before entering the bathhouse. It may have turned out that the servants were not vigilant enough and someone had robbed his locker!

If the gods had listened to the curses cast by the robbed, the fate of the thieves would be unenviable. As long as a slave or a free man, who is silent, though he has stolen a ring or witnessed the theft, let his blood, eyes and whole body be cursed, and his insides devoured - we read in one of the curses.

The surviving Roman Baths in Bath, southern England (by Diliff, license:CC BY 2.5).

From another we can see that the victims often donated lost items to the deity in order to punish the culprits: Goddess Minerva, I am giving you a bathing tunic and a cloak. Let him who has hurt me, male or female, slave or free, shall not be able to sleep or be healed, if he does not reveal himself and bring these things to your temple .

So the baths were not just a nice and pleasant place. But what to do, trouble can wait even in your own home! The hated Emperor Commodus - a well-known purgatory, who was able to appear in the bathhouse even eight times a day and funded his own thermal baths - died during a night bath in the palace. He was choked by a wrestler hired by enemies.

Selected bibliography:

  1. Michał Bardel, Hadrian in the bath, or as much about hygiene as about the social life of the Romans , "Mark" No. 632/2008.
  2. Jerome Carcopino, Everyday Life in Rome, PIW 1966.
  3. Peter Connolly, Hazel Dodge, Ancient Cities , RTW Publishing House 1998.
  4. Garrett G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World , University of Michigan Press 2002.
  5. Lidia Winniczuk, People, customs and customs of ancient Greece and Rome , PWN 1988