Facilities in the baths
The baths opened in the morning, around 10 AM, the fifth hour. The ideal time for bathing was the early afternoon, the eighth hour. The Forum Baths and the Stabian Baths in Pompeii could apparently also be used after dark: over a thousand oil lamps were found in each building. The situation may have varied from place to place and from time to time. Alexander Severus "donated oil for the lighting of the baths, whereas previously these were not open before dawn and were closed before sunset", but the Emperor Tacitus "gave orders that all public baths should be closed before the hour for lighting the lamps" (SHA Alexander Severus, 24,6 and Tacitus, 10,2).
Snacks and drinks were sold in and near the baths, light food, because the bathing hours were normally before dinner. A price list of food and drink was found on an outer wall of the Suburban Baths in Herculaneum: "nuts, drinks - 14 (coins); pork rinds - 3; three (loaves of) bread - 51; three cutlets - 12; four thyme-flavoured sausages - 8" (EDR154177; translation Ancient Graffiti Project).
A service of a very different kind was prostitution, also documented by graffiti in Herculaneum. Baths could also be crimes scenes. Clothes and valuables could be stolen. "Thieves who steal in baths" are mentioned explicitly in Roman civil law. The bath-keeper (vilicus or, more specifically, balneator) had slaves who, for a fee, took care of the clothes (capsarii). They were not always to be trusted. They could simultaneously be prostitutes (Digesta 47.17.1; 1.15.3.5; 3.2.4.2).
The baths could be used for cultural activities, such as reading poetry and making music. Two halls in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome have been interpreted as libraries. One incription from Rome might document a Greek library in baths, but this evidence is disputed (EDR162338; ZPE 114 (1996), 205-208).
Various performances will have taken place in the palaestra, by jugglers and mimes for example. A funerary inscription from Rome, from the reign of Hadrian, begins as follows: "Ursus am I, who was the first citizen to play gracefully the glass ball game with my fellow players, while the people approved with clamorous applause in the Thermae of Trajan, in the Thermae of Agrippa and of Titus, and frequently in Nero's (if only you believe me)" (EDR093381). Inscriptions document the presence of a guild of professional athletes in the Baths of Trajan in Rome. In the Baths of Caracalla a famous, polychrome mosaic of athletes was found.
Many sources show that the baths were linked by the visitors to good health. Medical writers, such as the second century physician Galenus, prescribe bathing or recommend avoiding the baths. Similar ideas are found in non-medical writers. Statues of Asclepius and Hygieia, deities of health, are among the most frequent in baths (together with Bacchus and Venus). It seems that the sick actually bathed together with the healthy. A ruling of Hadrian suggests that he wanted to separate the two groups: "None but invalids were allowed to bathe in the public baths before the eighth hour of the day" (SHA Hadrianus 22,7). Scribonius Largus, a court physician of Claudius, recommended a certain wound plaster, because "it sticks, so that bandages are unnecessary; and it will not fall off in the bath" (Compositiones 214). The water in the pools will not always have been very clear anyway, because of the scraping off of dirt and olive oil. Marcus Aurelius wrote: "What is bathing when you think about it - oil, sweat, filth, greasy water, everything loathsome" (Meditations 8,24). It is not clear whether physicians held office in the baths. Bronze objects have been found that could be medical instruments, but equally well cosmetic tools.
Mosaic from baths in Sabratha, Libya, with bathing shoes and strigiles.
The Latin text must mean something like "You have bathed, so you are fine".
Photo: Wikimedia, Hakeem.gadi.
