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In ancient Rome, thermae (from Greek θερμός thermos, "hot") and balneae (from Greek βαλανεῖον balaneion) were facilities for bathing. Thermae usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes , while balneae were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.
Caldarium from the Roman baths at Bath, England.The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor. A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.
Larger baths called thermae were owned by the state and often covered several city blocks. The largest of these, the Baths of Diocletian, could hold up to 3,000 bathers. Fees for both types of baths were quite reasonable, within the budget of most free Roman males.
Roman citizens came to expect high standards of hygiene, and the army was also well provided with latrines and bath houses, or thermae. Aqueducts were used everywhere in the empire not just to supply drinking water for private houses but to supply other needs such as irrigation, public fountains, and thermae. Indeed, many of the provincial ...
Within the frigidarium, the use of external buttresses for the cross vaults was considered by some to be the first example of the scientific system of thrusts and counter-thrusts in architecture. [2] Concerning the baths as a whole, it has been described as evoking the Imperial style, or a "Classical" image, which is the style of "manipulation ...
The succession of bathing activities in the thermae is not known with certainty, but it is thought that the bather would first go through the apodyterium, where he would undress and store his clothes, and then enter the elaeothesium or unctuarium to be anointed with oil. [1]
The Baths of Decius (Latin: thermae Decianae) were a thermae (baths) complex built on the Aventine Hill of Rome by the Emperor Decius in 249 [1] or 252. [2] Its site was between the present-day sites of the churches of Santo Alessio and Santa Prisca , on the Vigna Torlonia, under piazza del Tempio di Diana (named after the Temple of Diana ) and ...
Baths of Constantine (Latin, Thermae Constantinianae) was a public bathing complex built on Rome's Quirinal Hill, beside the Tiber River, by Constantine I, probably before 315. [1] Ancient Constantinople and Arles also had complexes known as Baths of Constantine.