What better start for this new section than one of the rituals that best define the ancient Roman world:The Baths .
Origin :There is a lot of topic in the public baths of ancient Rome. Like many other cultural achievements, the idea is not properly Roman, but Greek. It is true that in classical Greece there were no baths in use, but there were spaces dedicated to the cult of the body and its correct molding and hygiene, such as stadiums, exercise arenas and worship centers associated with the therapeutic properties of water. The baths do not take on their public and popular dimension until a much more pragmatic nation than the scattered Greeks assumes hegemony in the Mare Nostrum.
The first hot springs :They were much more austere and simple than the images of the great imperial baths that many of us have in mind. In principle they consisted of a small hall where the slaves in charge of collection and maintenance attended to the clients. That small hall gave way to a changing room (Apodyterium), a small rectangular room full of niches in its walls and a bench running under them for customers to undress and leave their belongings safely. A full bath in Caesar's time could cost between a couple of aces or a sestertius (depending on the place and the attention)
From the locker room one went to the hot room (Caldarium), where a small rectangular bathtub with access steps on one of its long sides was used for the first immersion (Labra). Near this bathtub was the font (Paten) in which a stream of fresh water was used to drink and cool off. The atmosphere in this room was quite suffocating as it was close to the oven that kept the water in the room hot.
We can still see these types of primitive baths in Pompeii and Valentia. The first baths of the Turius colony date back to the founding period (2nd century BC) and are one of the oldest in all of Hispania. In the attached photo you can see the staircase leading to the bathtub (Labra) and the warm bath room for applying massages (Tepidarium and Unctarium) adjoining the main room (Caldarium)
The classical republican and high-imperial baths :They provide a substantial change to the previous enclosure. The floor is not scale mosaic as in the Valentia ones, but rather is made of fired clay and is supported by brick pillars between which hot air circulates from the little oven room (praefurnium). This hot air distribution system between the walls and floors of the baths through pipes designed by the brilliant engineer Cayo Sergio Orata became very popular among Roman architects and is known as hypocaust. The oven equally heats the water in the Caldarium bath, the "sauna" then called Laconicum, and acts as central heating throughout the building. It worked really well, heating the floor so much that wooden sandals were rented to avoid stepping barefoot and getting burned.
In big cities a large bathtub (Natatio) was included in the cold room (Frigidarium), the equivalent of our outdoor swimming pools , where the last restorative cold bath was carried out after sweating, exfoliating the skin with a sharp sickle-shaped instrument (scraper) and massaging it with aromatic oils.
Of course, already in the days of the Empire, the degree of popular attention to these enclosures multiplied and the architects and designers of these highly demanded public spaces began to exploit the thermal resources of mother nature and dress them in marble and porphyry. This is the case of the Bath baths, where the thermal spring is used to supply hot and medicinal water to the swimming pool.
The great crisis of the classical world also affected the baths. When the imperial treasury of the provinces was emptied due to the serious economic problems that shook the Empire from the second half of the 3rd century AD, many public buildings were abandoned. This is the case of the thermal baths of Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), others were destroyed during the Germanic invasions and were not rebuilt (Valentia) or were simply consumed after the total abandonment of the city (Lucentum)
With the great megalomaniacs came the great venues. Trajan, Caracalla or Diocletian erected true monuments. The baths went from being a small neighborhood bath to wash and talk placidly among fellow citizens to lavish palaces of noble stones, full of luxuries, statuary, corridors, hundreds of slaves, different rooms with all kinds of baths, as well as attached and complementary businesses. to satisfy all the appetites of the clients; Libraries, taverns and brothels came together in harmony in these "spas" of ancient Rome.
Conclusion:The baths reflect the flavor of the ancient world. Open from noon to dusk, they established female and male shifts (only a few mixed baths are known in Rome itself) It became more political in the stillness of those bathtubs than in the chairs of the Curia, and the ladies found out everything that it happened in his city only frequently attending the baths. At the exit of the hot springs there was always a fast food establishment with which to appease the appetite... but that is another custom that we will see the next day...
Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló.