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Baths of Constantine
About
Built in the early 4th century CE for Constantine's imperial residence at Arelate, these baths still preserve a soaring brick hall and a row of tall arched windows that once lit the hot room. Alternating bands of stone and brick decorate the surviving exterior walls in red and grey. The complex was abandoned by the early 6th century as the city's fortunes declined. In 117 CE this riverside quarter had no baths at all — Constantine wouldn't be born for another century and a half.
What happened here
The furnaces are lit before dawn and the water is hot by the eighth hour, which is when the town arrives. The circuit is a habit: undress and hand your clothes to an attendant who may or may not be watching them, exercise in the courtyard, sweat in the hot room, scrape the oil and dirt off with a curved bronze strigil, then the warm pool and the cold plunge. Entry costs a coin small enough that almost nobody is priced out, and on a benefactor's birthday it is free. There is food, drink, ball games, gambling, hair-plucking, business and shouting; a writer complaining about the noise from the flat above is complaining about all of it. Men and women bathe at different hours, or in separate wings.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →