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. Baths were extremely important for Romans. They stayed there for several hours and went daily. Wealthier Romans were accompanied by one or more slaves. After paying a fee, they would strip naked and wear sandals to protect their feet from heated floors. Slaves carried their masters' towels and got them drinks. Before bathing, patrons exercised. They did things such as running, mild weight-lifting, wrestling, and swimming. After exercising, servants covered their masters in oil and scraped it off with a strigil (a scraper made of wood or bone) which cleaned off the dirt.
Roman bath-houses were also provided for private villas, town houses and forts; these were also called thermae. They were supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or more normally, by an aqueduct. The design of baths is discussed by Vitruvius in De Architectura.
Terminology
Thermae, balneae, balineae, balneum and balineum are all commonly translated as "bath" or "baths"; but in the writings of the earlier Roman authors these terms are used with discrimination.
Balneum or balineum , which is derived from the Greek βαλανείον signifies, in its primary sense, a bath or bathing-vessel, such as most persons of any consequence amongst the Romans possessed in their own houses (Cic. Ad Alt. ii. 3), and hence the chamber which contained the bath, which is also the proper translation of the word balnearium . The diminutive balneolum is adopted by Seneca to designate the bathroom of Scipio, in the villa at Liternum, and is expressly used to characterise 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 Quintus balnearia . Balneae and balineae , which according to Varro 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 an hexameter verse. Pliny also, in the same sentence, makes use of the neuter plural balnea for public, and of balneum for a private bath.
Thermae (borrowing from the Greek adjective thermos , hot) meant properly warm springs, or baths of warm water; but came to be applied to those magnificent edifices which grew up under the empire, in place of the simple balneae of the 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. Writers, however, use these terms without distinction. Thus the baths erected by Claudius Etruscus, the freedman of the Emperor Claudius, are styled by Statius balnea , and by Martial Etrusci thermulae . In an epigram by Martial — subice balneum thermis —the terms are not applied to the whole building, but to two different chambers in the same edifice.
Building layout
A public bath was built around three principal rooms: the caldarium (hot bath), the tepidarium (warm bath) and the frigidarium (cold bath). Some thermae also featured steam baths: the sudatorium , a moist steam bath, and the laconicum , a dry steam bath much like a modern sauna.
By way of illustration, this article will describe the layout of the Old Baths adjoining the forum at Pompeii, which are among the best-preserved Roman baths. The references are to the floor plan pictured to the right.
The whole building comprises a double set of baths, one for men and the other 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 male department, of which two ( c and c2 ), communicate directly with the furnaces, and the other three ( a3, a2, a ) with the bathing apartments.
Atrium
Passing through the principal entrance, a , which is removed from the street by a narrow footway surrounding the building and after descending three steps, the bather finds upon his left hand a small chamber ( x ) which contained a water closet ( latrina ), and proceeds into a covered portico ( g, g ), which ran round three sides of an open court ( atrium, A ). These together formed the vestibule of the baths ( vestibulum balnearum ), in which the servants waited.
This atrium was the exercise ground for the young men, or perhaps served as a promenade for visitors to the baths. Within this court the keeper of the baths ( balneator ), who exacted the quadrans paid by each visitor, was also stationed. The room f , which runs back from the portico, might have been appropriated to him; but most probably it was an oecus or exedra , for the convenience of the better classes while awaiting the return of their acquaintances from the interior. In this court, advertisements for the theatre, or other announcements of general interest, were posted up, one of which, announcing a gladiatorial show, still remains. At the sides of the entrance were stone seats ( scholae ).
Apodyterium and frigidarium
A passage ( e ) leads into the apodyterium ( B ), a room for undressing in which all visitors must have met before entering the baths proper. Here, the bathers removed their clothing, which was taken in charge by slaves known as capsarii , notorious in ancient times for their dishonesty. The apodyterium was a spacious chamber, with stone seats along two sides of the wall ( h, h ). Holes are still visible on the walls, and probably mark the places where the pegs for the bathers' clothes were set. The chamber was lighted by a glass window, and had six doors. One of these led to the tepidarium ( D ) and another to the frigidarium ( C ), with its cold plunge-bath (referred to as loutron, natatio, natatorium, piscina, baptisterium or puteus ; the terms "natatio" and "natatorium" suggest that some of those baths were also swimming pools). The bath in this chamber is of white marble, approached by two marble steps.
Tepidarium
From the frigidarium the bather who wished to go through the warm bath and sweating process entered the tepidarium ( D ). It did not contain water either at Pompeii or at the baths of Hippias, but was merely heated with warm air of an agreeable temperature, in order to prepare the body for the great heat of the vapour and warm baths, and, upon returning, to prevent a too-sudden transition to the open air. In the baths at Pompeii this chamber also served as an apodyterium for those who took the warm bath. The walls feature a number of separate compartments or recesses for receiving the garments when taken off. The compartments are divided from each other by figures of the kind called Atlantes or Telamones , which project from the walls and support a rich cornice above them.
Three bronze benches were also found in the room, which was heated as well by its contignity 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 .
The tepidarium is generally the most highly ornamented room in baths. It was merely a room t
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