The Great Bath, Bath
About
The Great Bath channeled over a million litres of naturally hot, mineral-rich water a day into a lead-lined pool 1.6 meters deep, sheathed in 45 sheets of Roman-cut lead that still line its floor today. Bathers descended four wide steps into steam rising off water heated by nothing but the earth itself. By 117 CE, the year Trajan died, the pool had already been drawing sick and hopeful travelers from across Britannia for two generations.
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
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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 →