Scrubbidy dub dub

[Fulvia]

I just completed a course this last semester on Roman baths and bathing and was quite enlightened to this area of Roman life. I was wondering if anyone had some good on-line resources I could use to lull my curiosity on the subject, or wanted to discuss?

[Northern Neil]

I just completed a course this last semester on Roman baths and bathing and was quite enlightened to this area of Roman life. I was wondering if anyone had some good on-line resources I could use to lull my curiosity on the subject, or wanted to discuss?

Here's a couple:

http://archive.cyark.org/sites.php?p=WRB&a...SNPMAodfE2HLA#1

 

and

 

http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/

 

From two famous sites, Weissenburg and Bath.

Edited May 18, 2008 by Northern Neil

[Faustus]

Here's a couple:

http://archive.cyark.org/sites.php?p=WRB&a...SNPMAodfE2HLA#1

and

http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/

 

From two famous sites, Weissenburg and Bath.

 

These are both great, NN. but the second brings perspective and a life-like view to Aqua Sullis I, for one, had never seen before!

 

Faustus

[Klingan]

May I ask where you are from? If you are interested (And can read Swedish) I wrote and essay on Roman baths from a technological point of view which was very fruitful. It's published at Xerxes (Lund).

[Fulvia]

Thank you very much for those links- I'll have lots of fun searching them out.

 

May I ask where you are from? If you are interested (And can read Swedish) I wrote and essay on Roman baths from a technological point of view which was very fruitful. It's published at Xerxes (Lund).

 

I'm from Canada and can't read Swedish, unfortunately. But I'd be very interested if you were willing to summarize it!

 

I did my own paper on the baths as a Romanizing agent in Judaea at the time of Herod the Great. I am still but an undergrad in many subject areas of Rome and I have to admit that I was quite betaken by the significant exchanges of ideas and technology that passed between the Herodians and the Augustan circle and very significantly in the direct importation of Roman baths.

[Klingan]

May I ask where you are from? If you are interested (And can read Swedish) I wrote and essay on Roman baths from a technological point of view which was very fruitful. It's published at Xerxes (Lund).

 

I'm from Canada and can't read Swedish, unfortunately. But I'd be very interested if you were willing to summarize it!

 

I did my own paper on the baths as a Romanizing agent in Judaea at the time of Herod the Great. I am still but an undergrad in many subject areas of Rome and I have to admit that I was quite betaken by the significant exchanges of ideas and technology that passed between the Herodians and the Augustan circle and very significantly in the direct importation of Roman baths.

 

If you're willing to wait a little, I may bet time to translate at least a part of it after June 13th when my semester is over. Unless some other project catch me

[Kosmo]

After playing some tennis on scoria I've discovered that the roman way of bathing, rubbing the wet skin, it's good when you have a lot of dust on you.

Our use of soap relies on chemicals to dissolve dirt while they simply removed it thru mechanical action. Their way was not very efficient especially with sweat so I'll still use soap

[Fulvia]

From my own limited experiences, I've found scraping to feel better than soap anyway. Leaves that pristine clean feel. Maybe a rival of the old ways should happen....

 

May I ask where you are from? If you are interested (And can read Swedish) I wrote and essay on Roman baths from a technological point of view which was very fruitful. It's published at Xerxes (Lund).

 

I'm from Canada and can't read Swedish, unfortunately. But I'd be very interested if you were willing to summarize it!

 

I did my own paper on the baths as a Romanizing agent in Judaea at the time of Herod the Great. I am still but an undergrad in many subject areas of Rome and I have to admit that I was quite betaken by the significant exchanges of ideas and technology that passed between the Herodians and the Augustan circle and very significantly in the direct importation of Roman baths.

 

If you're willing to wait a little, I may bet time to translate at least a part of it after June 13th when my semester is over. Unless some other project catch me

I can wait a bit longer I suppose.

 

 

How about the hygienics of the baths. The impression I have been left with is that they were simply nasty gross with all the medical treatments going on, the lack of concern/knowledge about germs and whatnot. However, I have a difficult time imagining many of the rich elite settling themselves to bathe in an atmosphere even ancient Romans must have often found appalling on some level just the same. Yet our sources tell that rich and poor bathed together, especially in the thermae. A consul stepping on a slave's dirty sweat just strikes me as odd particularly where Rome was so obsessed about rank and file.

[Klingan]

My conclusion of the baths were that they certainly wasn't clean as we think of baths today. Since people who were ill were recommended by some doctors to take baths (public for the overwhelming majority of the population), people who had worked out bathed at the same place it can't have been too healthy. Also imagine how much algae there must have been at the baths that didn't have a huge water supply. (Think about the Stabian baths in Pompeii that for a very long time only had a well with a paternoster system.

 

On the other hand was it probably healthier then never taking a bath.

[Northern Neil]

Also imagine how much algae there must have been at the baths that didn't have a huge water supply.

That is a very interesting observation, which I, for one, have never considered. There is a Gallo Roman Bathouse in a place called Samois Sur Seine, 60km south of Paris, which is stillfunctional. It has a shallow plunge bath which is stillintact and supplied by a spring. There is no algae at all, but I wonder if this is because of local maintainance workers with an array of chemicals to hand. Also, the bath has running water going through it at all times. However, I suspect it was probably the Tepidaria and the Calidaria, with their intermittant supplies of tepid and warm water, which probably had the algae. Maybe the Romans finished their baths in the Frigidarium because it was the part of the complex free of algae?

Edited May 23, 2008 by Northern Neil

[Kosmo]

My conclusion of the baths were that they certainly wasn't clean as we think of baths today. Since people who were ill were recommended by some doctors to take baths (public for the overwhelming majority of the population), people who had worked out bathed at the same place it can't have been too healthy. Also imagine how much algae there must have been at the baths that didn't have a huge water supply. (Think about the Stabian baths in Pompeii that for a very long time only had a well with a paternoster system.

 

On the other hand was it probably healthier then never taking a bath.

 

The water was exposed to sunlight? Algae do not develop if not enough light (and nutrients)

[Klingan]

The water was exposed to sunlight? Algae do not develop if not enough light (and nutrients)

 

That would depend on what bathhouse but in general at least to a point almost all rooms had so be exposed to sunlight. It's very expensive to keep a room with sufficient artificial light all the time. Here are some pictures from the Stabian baths in Pompeii:

 

 

And here is one from the roman bath at Bath, England:

 

Now that would never have happened at the place during roman times because of natural circumstances, but one thing is sure, roman baths were not immune to algae.

 

It's also important to remember that there also were the Natatio that normally wasn't covered due to it's size.

 

I have done tests on how algae reacts on lead but it have so far been fruitless maybe mostly beacuse of poor conditions. I'm right no awaiting midsummer for more sun.

[Kosmo]

I have some experience with algae problems in my fish tanks. At low light its unlikely to have lots of algae and puting the light off usually kills them (and your aquatic plants too). A limiting factor it's also the quantity of nutirients in water that the algae are feeding of. In a fishtank one has soil and fertilizers for plants, fish food and fish waste. A pool made out from stone will have less nutrients while the constant change of water will keep nutrients even lower.

The undergound roman cisterns I've seen in Istanbul had some fish in them but little algae made by the lights needed for toursits. In normal use, full and underground with no fish, the water would have been clean of algae.

In a bath thay will have had maybe some brown slimy algae in the more sunlight pools. Not in the heated pool and probably not in the coolest one that had less light. Algae are very persistent and hard to fight against.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Excavations of farms in North Africa very often find private homes with heated baths. Seems like some of the problems reported for the public baths (e.g., use by the ill, algae) might have been minimized for these private baths.

[Fulvia]

I was under the impression that most, if not all, of the baths had problems with stale water. I believe I read that no plugs/drains were found in the baths so that there was no continual flow of water. Undoubtedly this would have furthered the algae problem. There were windows in most of the various rooms which of coarse would seriously help the algae growth. Depending on the quality of the establishment I suppose would determine the level of algae allowed to grow....did the Romans find any practical use for algae? They did for the left over sweat/dirt scrapings...