Originally Posted by
Gamerprinter
Are public bath's the hotbed for disease? I'm not sure of the proper bathing procedure in a Roman Bath, but have to consider that Turkish bath's still exist and public bath's in Japan, today, are still very common.
There was no standard plan to ancient bathhouses, and many of the ruins preserved to this day appear to have been modified after their initial construction. And while the large imperial baths in Rome are laid on symmetrical plans, asymmetric bathhouses might actually have been more common. On the subject of bathing procedure, I quote Peter Connolly:
"Roman bath buildings may vary in detail, but they have a number of characteristic features in common. They are all planned so as to allow logical progression from one room to another. [...] From [the palaestra] he would progress to the tepidarium, perhaps via the frigidarium, and then go on to the caldarium. After some time sitting in the steam and immersing himself in the hot-water plunge pools, he would scrape off the oil, along with the dirt and dead skin, using a metal implement called a strigil. [...] He would then make his way back to the frigidarium and the natatio, where he might take a cold plunge."
- Peter Connolly: The Ancient City, pages 245 & 247
According to the book, there were 856 small baths and 11 large imperial ones in the city of Rome alone, by the early 5th century. Needless to say, most of these baths have not been preserved to this day, and much of what is left for modern archaeologists to study is on the bigger facilities. I also wonder if there might exist a connection between Turkish and Roman baths; the Turks were originally a nomadic people who used to live in tents before they conquered and settled into the area of modern Turkey, which had been part of the Eastern Roman Empire for a millennium or so.
Originally Posted by
Larb
I'm not saying every public bathhouse in Rome was like that, but some have been described by folk at the time as such.
This interests me. Any chance for translations of such descriptions being found online?