A Day at the BathsBy Izzy

My name is Apulia. Here I am on the right. My mistress is called Flavia. We live in the settlement of Aquae Sulis in Britannia.

Here is a picture of us with Izzy at the Thermae.

Thermae is our name for the Baths.My mistress comes here every so often.

Let me tell you about our day.

I help my mistress get changed. She steps into the first pool. It is called a Tepiderium. The Tepiderium is a pool filled with warm water from the hot spring that

comes up near the Thermae.

My mistress moves to the Caldarium. It is very hot. It's heated by a fire under the floor. The floor is held up by stacks of tiles. This is called a hypocaust.

The floor is so hot my mistress has to wear wooden shoes to keep her feet from burning.

I massage my mistress with expensive oils. They make her smell lovely.The only problem is that then I have to scrape off all the oil and dirt from

her skin with a special tool called a strigil. Yuk!

The Frigidarium is a very cold pool. Mistress Flavia doesn’t spend very long in here at all.She only has a quick plunge like the other Roman citizens.

We need to go to Temple now to worship Sulis Minerva. First I must help my mistress with her hair and makeup. The picture below shows how I do her

hair up from the back. I use vermillion and rose petals for lipstick and kohl for her eyes. Sometimes I use malachite for green eye shadow.

This is the front of the roof of the Temple to Sulis Minerva at Aquae Sulis.We worship Sulis Minerva in this temple.

She is goddess of wisdom and if you ask for her help, she will punish those who do you wrong.

Flavia has decided that it is time to return to our Villa.She told Izzy that she is having Roasted Dormouse for her evening meal.

Vale !