Republican Terrace Baths, Baiae
About
The lowest, oldest terrace of the Baiae baths dates to the 2nd century BCE, when the hot springs first drew Roman bathers, a generation before Sulla or Caesar set foot there. Small barrel-vaulted rooms and plain plunge basins from this phase underlie the grander domed halls the site is now known for. Strabo already described Baiae as crowded with bathing establishments by the late Republic. By 117 CE these rooms were folded into a larger complex, their walls still standing as its oldest core.
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 →