Text 4. Roman Baths

Match the following words and translations.

The large Roman towns had many bathhouses. The richest houses might have their own private ones, but going to the baths was a social activity; most people liked to go out to bathe. Roman baths were similar to the modern Turkish ones, still found in a number of Arab countries. By visiting one today it is possible to get a good idea of what it must have been like in Roman baths, nearly 2,000 years ago.

Roman baths were very unlike modern bathrooms, or even swimming pools. There was much more to them, not feast an exercise yard, where people could play ball games or do weight training. The bathhouses had the same role that bars do in Italy today; they were meeting places, where friends could talk and laugh or play board games under the shady colonnade.

The baths themselves were elaborate buildings, developed over many generations. They consisted of several vaulted rooms – cold, warm and hot, dry or humid – with changing rooms and other facilities.

Men and women bathed separately. Bigger bathhouses had a set of baths for each sex, but in smaller, poorer towns, which could only afford one bathhouse, people had to take turns. One inscription records that women went to the baths in the morning, to leave the favorite afternoon time for the men.

Bathhouses varied enormously in size and reputation. Some were small, dark,

seedy places, frequented by dubious characters. Even at the larger and more respectable baths, there was always the risk of thieves stealing clothes and money. Seneca’s words paint a wonderful picture of the echoing noise, much like a modern swimming pool, to which were added the cries of vendors selling snacks and drinks.

The greatest of all the baths were those built by the Emperors in the city of Rome. Those built by the Emperor Caracalla in the early third century covered 2 hectares! The baths of Diocletian, built a century later, were the greatest of all, and could hold about 2,000 people at a time. These establishments consumed huge quantities of fuel to keep them hot, and were so massive that it took weeks to heat them up.

This drawing is based on the Stabian baths at Pompeii. Here are the men’s baths with the roof removed. The women’s baths were to the right. Baths were complicated buildings, with a hypocaust, a floor raised on pillars. This allowed the hot gases from the heating fires to pass under the floors, and then through ducts in the walls and the concrete ceiling vaults. This meant that the heated rooms received warmth from the walls and ceiling as well as through the floors. Bathers had to wear wooden sandals to avoid getting burnt feet! The water in the warm pools was heated in a similar way.