ROMAN AQUEDUCTS AND

THE ROMAN BATHS

Water had to be constantly supplied. In Rome this was done using 640 kilometers of aqueducts

The aqueducts

To get fresh water to the cities from the hills the Romans built aqueducts

These were a system of channels and bridges to transport the water to the public baths, water fountains and to the houses of the patricians

Lead piping was used to pipe the water around the cities (this caused lead poisoning!!)

WHY DIDN’T THEY USE THE WATER FROM THE RIVERS THAT FLOWED THROUGH THE CITIES?

Aqueducts

Bridging a deep valley Inside an aqueduct

Lead piping

Labelled Diagram of a Roman Aqueduct

Sanitation – toilets

Only the patricians had toilets in their houses Plebeians either did their business in pots and threw

them onto the street or they used the public latrines

Under ground tunnels and drains were dug under the city in order to carry the waste away and into the local rivers

Public baths

Nearly all Roman cities had at least one public bath

Both plebeians and patricians could use these

Women and men went at different times

There was a fee to use them but it wasn’t too expensive

Public baths were a place To clean Meet friends Exercise Do business Eat Play games Read Rest

Typical public bath houses There were cold, warm and hot baths

Cold room: cold plunge bath frigidarium Warm room: no bath tepdiarium Hot room: hot plunge pool caldarium

Water was heated by a boiler over a fire. This was located in the cellars under the bath houses

A Hypocaust system, under floor heating, was used to heat the bath houses. Hot air would pass underneath the floors

People could do weight lifting Public slaves could give you a massage People used oils instead of soaps Sticks called strigils were used to scrape dirt off the body

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Working Up A Sweat…

The Romans would work up a sweat in an exercise yard for wrestling and training.

The Romans did not have soap, so they would cover their bodies in oil.

The oil was then scraped off with a ‘strigil’.

A scraper made of wood or bone

Hypocaust: under floor heating system

Typical routine at the baths

A visitor, after paying his entrance fee, would strip naked and hand his clothes to an attendant. He could then do some exercising to work up a sweat before moving into the tepidarium which would prepare him for the caldarium which was more or less like a modern sauna. The idea, as with a sauna, was for the sweat to get rid of the body's dirt. After this a slave would rub olive oil into the visitor's skin and then scrap it off with a strigil. The more luxurious establishments would have professional masseurs to do this. After this, the visitor would return to the tepidarium and then to frigidarium to cool down. Finally, he could use the main pool for a swim or to generally socialise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zkbg9j6

Bath house of Caracalla (Rome)

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The Roman Baths The Romans went to the baths each day in the early afternoon.

They went to wash themselves and to meet friends and conduct business.

There were three different types of bathing room:

(i) the Caldarium

{ ___________ }

(ii) the Tepidarium { ___________ }

(iii) the Frigidarium { ___________ }

Group work

In groups can you think what are the commonalities between public baths and modern day leisure centres.