Thermae Traiani
About
The first of Rome's monumental 'imperial' bath complexes, built on the Oppian Hill over part of the buried Domus Aurea; designed by Apollodorus of Damascus and formally inaugurated on 22 June (Kalends of July) 109 CE. Covering roughly 330 x 340 m, it was operating at full scale in 117 CE.
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
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 →