topic 2 Aquae Sulis

Question 1

Which Romans had their own Baths?

Answer 1

Only the richest-most went to the public baths

Question 2

Who were the first to build public Baths?

Answer 2

The Greeks

Question 3

Why were Bath houses funded by the government?

Answer 3

Bathe were central to Roman life-it was in everybodies best interest for to ensure there was a basic level of cleanliness and hygiene to stop the spread of disease

Question 4

How much was entrance to bath houses?

Answer 4

Free or very little

Question 5

What were small bath houses called?

Answer 5

Balneae-they were opened up throughout the empire and were privatley owned but available for the public to use for a small fee

Question 6

What were the thermae?

Answer 6

Ther thermae were the imperial baths

Question 7

What did the imperial baths consist of?

Answer 7

They were far more than just baths. Some of these immense, lavishly decorated complexes included libraries, gardens, art galleries, gymnasia, restaurants and meeting places.

Question 8

Why were the entrances narrow?

Answer 8

The entrances to the thermae were narrow to control the thousands of people endeavouring to get in.

Question 9

What were the rooms like?

Answer 9

The high vaulted rooms were well lighted, airy, and highly decorated. Marble lined the pools, dressed the walls, and made up beautiful, towering colonnades. Elaborate and complicated mosaics decorated the floors of the various rooms. Gold gilding, coloured marble panels, and silver fittings further enhanced the splendour of the baths.

Question 10

What was a visit to the baths about?

Answer 10

A visit to the baths was as much, if not more, about socialising as about getting clean: they could chat with friends or acquaintances, exercise or buy snacks. It was possible to spend several hours at the baths. People would often meet there before going off to a friend’s house for dinner – the bathing experience was often a way of getting ready for an evening engagement.

Question 11

Where were Bath houses built?

Answer 11

The Romans built public baths throughout the empire, and there were more than 900 just in Rome.

Question 12

Did men and women bathe separately?

Answer 12

Sometimes women bathed at different times from men, but there is evidence to suggest that there were times when both bathed together. In some baths women had separate facilities from men or they went in the morning. Men usually went to the baths in the afternoon after they had finished their work for the day

Question 13

What did some men use the baths for?

Answer 13

Many men would conduct business meetings in the baths. It was a place to make contacts and show off one’s power – many rich men made a point of being escorted to the baths by as many slaves as possible to display their wealth and power.

Question 14

What were the two main sections of the Baths?

Answer 14

• palaestra - exercised the body

* thermae - cleansed the body

Question 15

What was the palaestra?

Answer 15

This was usually a large open grassy area surrounded by a colonnade.

Question 16

what activities would people do in the palaestra?

Answer 16

They would greet friends and engage in various sporting activities, including: throwing a discus , boxing, wrestling, ball games, long jump, bowling hoops, running and fencing with wooden swords.

Question 17

How were baths built generally?

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

What was the apodyterium?

Answer 18

Changing Room

Question 19

What happened in the apodyterium?

Answer 19

The bathers paid their money and left their clothes with the slaves supervising the cloakroom here. Your clothing would be placed in a small cubby hole in the wall or perhaps in a wooden chest or locker. It was not wise to leave your belongings unattended

Question 20

what could slaves be hired for/used for here?

Answer 20

You could take your own slave, or a slave could be provided, to carry your towels, oil flask and strigil.

Question 21

What was the tepidarium?

Answer 21

Warm Room

Question 22

What happened in the tepidarium?

Answer 22

This room had heated walls and floors and usually a small bathing pool.
Here people might spend an hour or so, sitting on the benches round the wall in the warm, steamy atmosphere, just relaxing and gently perspiring. This would allow their pores to open and prepare them for the higher temperatures in the next room, the caldarium.

Question 23

What was the caldarium

Answer 23

The hot room

Question 24

What happened in the caldarium?

Answer 24

This was the hottest room in the baths, and the floor was so hot that bathers were provided with special wooden sandals to protect their feet from its extreme heat.

Question 25

How was the caldarium adapted?

Answer 25

The ceiling had grooves to carry away the condensation caused by the heat. At one end of the room there was often a hot bath in which bathers could relax.

Question 26

What happened in the caldarium?

Answer 26

Now the bathers’ pores would be fully open, and the bathers could be massaged with oil or scraped clean by a slave. First a slave worked oil into the skin. Then he removed the oil and dirt with a strigil, a blunt metal scraper. Finally the bather might be rinsed down with cold water from the labrum (a large stone basin filled with cold water for rinsing).

Question 27

What happened in the frigidarium

Answer 27

(Cold Room) This was a colder room which contained a plunge pool where bathers could cool off, wash off sweat, and close their pores.

Question 28

Sudatorium (Sweating Room)

Answer 28

This was a room with heated air, rather like a sauna, which induced heavy perspiration

Question 29

Laconicum (Sweating Room)

Answer 29

Another room with heated air, like the sudatorium, but the heat in this room was always a dry heat.

Question 30

Unctorium (Anointing Room)

Answer 30

This was a room for the rubbing and anointing with oil that finished the bath and from which the bather returned into the apodyterium for his clothes

Question 31

Latrines

Answer 31

Bath houses also had large public latrines. They contained marble seats positioned above water channels. In front of the seats was located a smaller channel. Here, sponges attached to small sticks were provided for wiping oneself. Both channels had a continuous flow of water, thus “flushing” unclean waste away.

Question 32

Heating the Baths

Answer 32

Unless the baths were situated in a location with a natural hot spring (such as Aquae Sulis), water for the hot baths had to be heated. This was done by means of a hypocaust.

Question 33

How did hypocausts work?

Answer 33

A hypocaust was an underfloor heating system. A wood-burning furnace, stoked by slaves, was placed below floor level. Air from the furnace circulated between the brick pillars (pilae) which supported the floor. The hot air heated the floor and the tank of water for bathing above it. Flues in the walls enable heat to pass up through them as well.

Question 34

Water management

Answer 34

Many Roman towns were built near rivers or springs, ensuring a flow of fresh water. But where water was scarce or usage was high, it had to be brought in from a nearby source along an aqueduct. This consisted of a gently sloping conduit, running either on or just below the ground, through which water flowed under gravity into a large storage reservoir. Once in the reservoir, the water passed through a series of tanks to remove any impurities. It then flowed into the main city distribution tank and on through lead pipes into the public baths and elsewhere. As well as a regular supply of clean water, bath houses also had systems for draining away the dirty water before replacing it by clean.

Question 35

workers in the baths

Answer 35

Many different people worked in the baths to cater for the needs of the bathers. These included stokers for the furnaces, cleaners, doorkeeper, changing-room attendants, hot room attendants, masseurs, hair-pluckers, food-sellers, and, of course, the owner or his manager

Question 36

What objects were used?

Answer 36

Flasks containing oil were used instead of soap. Olive oil, possibly perfumed, would be worked into the skin and then removed, along with the dirt, by means of scraping with a strigil. A strigil was a blunt metal scraper used to remove oil, dirt and dead skin from the body.