Temple of Diana, Baiae
About
Baiae's largest dome, nearly 30 meters across, crowned a bath hall rather than any shrine to Diana, whose statue simply gave the ruin its later name. Engineers thinned the vault toward its crown and cut deep coffers into the ceiling to shed weight without losing span. Excavators credit its construction to the emperor Severus Alexander in the 220s CE. Built over a century after Trajan's death on 11 August 117 CE, it did not yet exist at this map's snapshot.
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 →