The hot bathing pool in the caldarium. The pool is described in some detail by Vitruvius (5.10.4). It was a communal pool able to accomodate several individuals (Cic. Cael. 67).
Changing room. The term is attested in several ancient sources It appears to be taken over from a room in the Greek gymnasium
Terms denoting bath buildings. Used to refer to small city baths of the type found at Pompeii. An abundance of written evidence makes it clear that the Romans used these terms interchangeably with each other and with balneum to denote bath buildings, both public and private, and segregated and mixed.
The "bath-man," broadly defined. His role and duties are most unclear and appear to have varied from place to place. In some instances, the balneator seems to be the manager of a facility , in others he is a minister performing a host of tasks: collecitng money at the door (Cic. Cael. 62), pouring water over customers (CGL 2.561 §38), anointing (Plaut. Poen. 703-4), keeping the cloakroom (Dig. 16.3.1.8), and even stoking the furnaces (Pliny HN 18.156) and procuring (Dig. 3.2.4.2). What all of these notices take for granted, however, is that the balneator is very much on-the-spot, a visible representative of the management, if not the actual management.
This term applied is liberally in the written sources both to bath buildings, private and public, to the act of bathing itself, and to bathing tubs (see Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v.). In its purest form it seems to denote a private bath and the act of bathing, but it is often found in reference to public bathing establishments.
This was hottest room in regular sequence of bathing rooms. It is described in detail by Vitruvius (5.10.4, see also 8.2.4) and mentioned by Pliny (Ep. 5.6.25) who terms it a cella caldaria. Sidonius Apollinaris (Ep. 2.2.4) uses the term cella coctilium, the "room of the dry wood (for burning)."
A large pool, heated independently of the pools in the caldarium. An excellent example has been found in the Suburban Baths at Herculaneum. It appears to have been introduced to the city of Rome by Maecanas (Dio 55.7.6), and Pliny's Laurentine villa had one attached to the hot rooms (Ep. 2.17.11).
This was coldest room in the regular sequence of bathing rooms. The room has a variety of designations in original sources The earliest forms are represented in the small, isolated rotundas given over entirely to cold plunge pools found in the baths of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Gradually the room evolved into to the colossal cross-vaulted central chambers of the imperial thermae. The finest example of the latter variety of frigidarium still standing is that of the Baths of Diocletian, known today as the Basilica S. Maria D'Angeli. The modern visitor, entering the basilica on a hot summer's day, can immediately feel the effect of the high roofs and windows -- and most developed frigidaria would have had high roofs exactly for this effect. Occasionally, changing rooms (apodyteria) doubled as frigidaria, when cold pools were provided in them.
This was a basin that stood at hip- or waist-height somewhere in the caldarium. Its purpose was to provide sweating bathers with an opportunity to splash themselves with cold water. The labrum often stands in an apse specifically designed for it, termed the schola labri (Vitruv. 5.10.4). In more sophisticated and luxurious baths, the labrum was replaced with a multiplicity of heated pools, but it remained popular in smaller facilities.
This was a superheated sweat bath. A brazier would be set in the middle of the round laconicum and bathers would undergo an sauna-like experience (apparently in a dry heat). The laconicum is found more commonly in earlier baths, although examples are known in small facilities as late as the second century AD. In such facilities it was accessible directly from the tepidarium or the palaestra, offering the bathers an alternative and truncated bathing routine. At Pompeii and Herculaneum such a routine appears to have gone out of fashion, since the laconica of the Stabian Baths (Pompeii) and Forum Baths (Herculaneum) were later converted
Open-air swimming pool.
Term usually applied to exercise court; sometimes also called peristyle.
Furnace room.
Wooden sandals to protect bathers' feet from the hot floors.
Ball-playing court, either open court or roofed room.
Curved instruments, usually made of metal, wood, bone, or terracotta, used to scrape the product of exercise and anointing off the bather. This procedure took place either in the palaestra or the tepidarium.
Sweat-bath (humid); optional.
Medium-heated room in regular sequence of bathing rooms.
Term applied to bath buildings. Usually used to denote richly decorated establishments, especially large Imperial baths.
Testudo alvei ("The tortoise of the pool")
A remarkable device for ensuring that the heated water in hot pools was evenly distributed. It was a hollow metal receptacle, that sat directly over the fire in the furnace. It opened into the pool, and by the process of convection water circulated into it from the pool and, once heated, back out into the pool. A couple of complete examples are known -- one of lead from Cuicul, one of bronze from Künzig -- suggesting they were often hemi-tubes. Despite the scarsity of the device itself, emplacements for it are a regular feature of surviving remains of baths. The term is found in Vitruvius (5.10.1)
The Baths were heated by the hypocost system,
Click here for an illustration of it
CLICK HERE FOR A LAYOUT OF A BATH
The BASILICA and the Basilica Julia
The basilica was a rectangular building with a
central nave (wide open area) flanked by aisles on either side,
separated off by columns. It normally had two stories and was
lighted by windows in the upper walls of the nave. Sometimes (not
here) there is a recessed area, some times semicircular, the
apse, where an offical would preside. Here is the plan of
the Basilica Julia, which was built by Julius Caesar on the site
of the earlier Basilica Sempronia (basilicas were named after the
family of the builder) and completed by Augustus.
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Note the two side aisles flanking the nave and the row of offices or shops at the bottom of the plan. What remains of this basilica today is nothing but a foundation with stumps where columns had been.
The most common function of a basilica was as a
court house. The Basilica Julia housed the court of the
Centumviri (literally, one hundred men, although the number was
actually one hundred and eighty). Often the hundred and
eighty jurors were divided up into four groups of forty
five, separated by screens or curtains. One case in
particular, tried before the four panels acting together,
attracted many spectators, who lined the walls and filled the
upper galleries, hanging over the railings and making a lot of
noise. In this case, Pliny the Younger represented an
aristocratic woman whose eighty-year old father had disinherited
her ten days after he had taken a new wife. The Centumviral
court decided in favor of Pliny's client (Letters, 6.33).
The spectators who frequented the Basilica Julia whiled away the
time between trials by playing board games on boards inscribed
in the steps and aisles.
With time and the use of the arch, the basilica
became truly impressive, as seen in the Basilica of Maxentius
(left). With the onset of Christianity, the basilica plan was
used for churches, as can be seen in the Basilica of St. Peter in
Rome and St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.
Thermopolia were essentially hot tables where you could grab a
some Roman 'fast food'. Here are the remains of one from Pompeii
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