Baths

Question 1

What could they do in the public baths?

Answer 1

Bathe, exercise, meet with friends and eat

Question 2

The exercise area was called the…

Answer 2

Palaestra

Question 3

Could the Romans enter the baths for free?

Answer 3

No, an admission fee had to be paid

Question 4

Describe the palaestra

Answer 4

An open space surrounded by a colonnade

Question 5

Give some examples of popular exercises

Answer 5

Throwing a large ball, wrestling and fencing

Question 6

Changing room =

Answer 6

Apodyterium

Question 7

What happened in the changing room?

Answer 7

The slaves took the Romans’ clothes after they changed and put them in recesses arranged in rows along the wall

Question 8

Warm room =

Answer 8

Tepidarium

Question 9

What happened in the warm room?

Answer 9

The Romans would sit in a warm, steamy atmosphere

Question 10

Hot room =

Answer 10

Caldarium

Question 11

Where did the Romans bathe?

Answer 11

In the Caldarium. At one end was a large rectangular marble bath stretching across the width of the room. It was filled with hot water and the Romans bathed here.

Question 12

What did they use as a substitute for soap?

Answer 12

Olive oil

Question 13

What happens after the romans finish bathing in the Caldarium?

Answer 13

The roman summons a slave to run him down with oil. For this, he lies on a marble slab while the slave runs the oil into the skin and then removes the dirt with a strigil. Then a masseur massaged the skin and muscles

Question 14

What is a strigil

Answer 14

A blunt metal scraper

Question 15

What does the roman do after his massage?

Answer 15

Goes to a large stone basin at the other end of the Caldarium for a rinse down with cold water

Question 16

Frigidarium =

Answer 16

Cold room

Question 17

What is in the Frigidarium?

Answer 17

After the Caldarium, the roman sits in a circular pool of unheated water

Question 18

Order of visit to the baths

Answer 18

Palaestra > apodyterium > tepidarium > Caldarium > Frigidarium

Question 19

What was the visit to the baths like?

Answer 19

Noisy and relaxed

Question 20

What had been the Greeks method of heating the water?

Answer 20

They heated water in tanks over a furnace and stood braziers in the tepidarium and the Caldarium to keep up the air temperature. The braziers weren’t efficient and they failed to heat the floor

Question 21

What were braziers

Answer 21

Portable metal containers in which wood was burnt

Question 22

When did the Romans invent the first central heating system

Answer 22

In the first century BC

Question 23

Describe the use of the first central heating system

Answer 23

The furnace was out below floor level; the floor was supported on small piles of bricks which left space for the hot air to circulate. This way, the floor was warmed from below. The hot bath was also placed near the furnace and so a steady temperature was maintained as hot air passed below.

Question 24

What were flues?

Answer 24

After the central heating system, channels were built into the walls and warm air from beneath the floor was drawn up through them

Question 25

What was the use of the flues also known as?

Answer 25

A hypocaust

Question 26

Where was the hypocaust used?

Answer 26

In both baths and private houses; particularly in colder parts of Rome.

Question 27

What was the fuel most commonly burnt in furnaces?

Answer 27

Wood

Question 28

Did Pompeians have their own baths?

Answer 28

Most did not, so they went to public baths

Question 29

Martial Epigrams: patrons and clients

Answer 29

“He will pick up and bring back from the dust the loose punch-ball, even though he has already bathed, and already put on his slippers”

Question 30

Seneca the younger letters

Answer 30

“I am living right above a public bath”
“On all sides noises of every sort resound around me”
“I hear the slap of a hand laid on his shoulders”
“I hear groans”
“If the scorer turns up and begins to count the balls, I am done for”
“Add those who jump into the pool with an enormous splash”
“Different shouts of drinks-seller and the sausage-seller and the pastry-seller”