Baths

In Rome cleanliness was a large part of their life, and made the citizens feel superior to other empires. Baths were a symbol of Rome itself to many citizens. There were bathhouses located in each provincial city. (Devillier Donegan Enterprises; Humphrey, 48) The bathhouses were very large with many rooms arranged symmetrically along intersecting axes. The standard bathhouse was based off of The Baths of Trajan and called thermae. (Humphrey, 48) They used the sun to their advantage and arranged the rooms to harness the heat. The rooms were also heated by furnaces under raised floors and steamed channeled through chambers in the floors and walls. (Devillier Donegan Enterprises) Most men of all age and social class would come to these bathhouses after work everyday to gossip, mingle, and relax. First they would visit the apodyteria, or the changing room, where they would change out of their daily clothes which the servants would watch over. Then they would move out onto the palastrae, or open-aired gymnasium. This is where they would exercise and have their bodies oiled. Third was the frigidarium for a cold plunge bath. After they would recover in the warm room called the tepidarium. The final room was the hot room, the caldarium, with the hot plunge bath, called a labrum. (Devillier Donegan Enterprises; Humphrey, 48) After the caldarium is visited, the servants scrape the oils off with a strigil. Then the rooms are visited in the opposite order. After the men finished their daily baths they went home and visited again the next day. (Devillier Donegan Enterprises) The Roman men were not the only ones to enjoy the bathhouses. The women also used these extravagant buildings to mingle and relax. The women used the bathhouses separately from the men. Most of the bathhouses in the rich provinces had two different sections, one for the men and one for the women. In the lesser provincial cities there were not separate spaces for men and women. This meant the men and women would take turns. The women went earlier in the day, leaving the most enjoyable time, the afternoon, for the men. (James, 24) The symbol of Rome, bathhouses grew and expanded just as the empire did. When the Roman Empire expanded into Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, the baths followed. This kept the cleanliness and the tradition going with the large empire. These bathhouses provided a place for all of the citizens, young, old, rich, or poor, to come together and live as one. (Devillier Donegan Enterprises)

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References __** James, Simon. __Ancient Rome__. New York: Viking Penguin, 1992.

Humphrey, John. __Ancient Technology__. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.

"The Roman Empire in the First Century". 2006. Devillier Donegan Enterprises. December 3, 2008 http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/baths.html.

"Roman Baths". 2008. Destination360. December 4, 2008 . "Ancient Roman Baths". Crystalinks. December 4, 2008 http://www.crystalinks.com/romebaths.html.