Roman Baths

The Roman baths involved several different temperature pools, excersising, eating, playing games, and much more. When you got to the baths you would first work out in a courtyard, this was so that you could become sweaty. You could also work out in the gymnasium, or in a swimming pool. Then you would enter the baths. Women and Men were never placed together in the Roman baths. First they would go into a pool filled with cold water. This was called the frigidarium. You can spend as much time as wanted in each pool, and if you wanted to eat you could go off into a seperate room, made for eating. There was also bathrooms. Your time in the pools if you were a women, would be spent gossiping.If you were a man your talk would be more about buisness and work life. After the frigidarium you would enter into a seperate room. This room would have a pool with lukewarm water. It was called the tepidarium. People would normally spend the whole day at the Baths. It was kind of like todays modern day spa's. It was a place where people go to relax. After the tepidarium you would go into a pool full with hot water called the caldarium. You may be wondering what they used to heat up the water in the caldarium. This was done by using a furnace and the hypocaust system carried the heat around the complex. Then after the caldarium you would go into a room like a sauna. Here a slave would rub sweet oil all over you. Then they would scrape it off with a tool called a strigil. A strigil was like a curved knife, without any sharp parts. The oil would help take, and get rid of the sweat and dirt from your body. That was the end of the Roman Bath experience. The Roman Baths were part of the Roman Culture. It wasn't very expensive to get into the Roman Baths, so everyone was able to go, except for some slaves. Many people loved the Roman Baths and thought it was a wonderful way to get clean and socialize. All though some didn't like it. In one mans diary he recorded how much he hates the baths, and why he hates it. His diary Entry is down below.

"I live over a public bath-house. Just imagine every kind of annoying noise! The sturdy gentleman does his exercise with lead weights; when he is working hard(or pretending to) I can hear him grunt; when he breathes out, I can hear him panting in high pitched tones. Or I might notice some lazy fellow, content with a cheap rub-down, and hear the blows of the hand slapping his shoulders. The sound varies, depending on whether the massager hits with a flat or hollow hand.
To all of this, you can add the arrest of the occasional pickpocket; there's also the racket made by the man who loves to hear his own voice in the bath or the chap who dives in with a lot of noise and splashing."

If he didn't live over the public bath house I think the man would have loved the baths. The problam is someone has to live over the Roman Baths, and it was him.

I hope you enjoyed this little essay about the Roman Baths.