Baths+&+Bathing



The Roman bathing houses had served for much more than just the a bathing room. These rooms had served as a social gathering point much like a nightclub or community center. The idea of bathing with one another would be frowned upon today, but back then it gave people a sense of bonding and brought them closer together. The heating that would go within the bathing centers is not too complex. It consisted of a raised bath that had colums holding them off the ground. This is what you would sit in to take your bath. The open space below the Bath would serve as a pocket for hot air to raise and heat the bottom of the bath. They would burn coals or wood underneath the baths and use the hot air to heat the water that they had been swimming in. They had been the first people to construct something like todays sauna. These saunas had been placed next to the various rooms that had held baths. They would pour water on the steaming coals that had lined the walls and this let off a hot steam and this is how the Romans used the sauna rooms. The also had a main bathing room where is had been directly under the furnace and this is where the hottest water had been located. Then there would be a cold bath in the corner of the room not connected to the furnace at all for a refreshing splash on the face or dip in the cool pool after the hot bath. The bathhouses also had the first public latrines which had been the first flush toilets. They had marble seats and with a continuously flowing water channel underneath them they had been a "flushable" toilet none the less.