baths & water supply

Stabians Baths

Pompeii, 1st century BC

layout: separate gender sections, paleastra with portico offering shade

construction: concrete and brick with stucco

function: oldest public bath in Pompeii

aqueduct: Aqua Augusta (1st century BC)

Forum Baths

Ostia, 2nd century AD

Layout: sequence of bathing rooms with cool heating system

Construction: Brick-faced concrete and marble column

Decoration: Mosaics depicting Nilotic and oceanic scenes of tritons, hippocampi, and dolphins

Baths of Caracalla

Rome, 211 to 216 AD

Layout: Huge, symmetrical plan

Construction: Concrete vaulting, marble and brick.

Decoration: Marble floors and baths, wall mosaics

Function: built by Emperor Caracalla as a statement of imperial power and to cement his position

Aqueduct: Aqua Marcia (114-140 BC)

Apodyterium

Changing room (where patrons would leave their clothes under the watch of slaves)

Frigidarium

cold room

Tepidarium

warm room

Caldarium

hot room

Sudatorium

sweating room (used to open up the pores and ‘sweat it out’.

Heliocaminus

Sun room (little heating and large windows, may have been used for sunbathing in warm weather

What was the roman drainage system called?

Cloaca Maxima