Blog #6

My blog today ties together two places I have visited in the last week as well as another blog post I have previously written.

Yesterday we visited the Bath of Caracalla. In blog post #5, I talked about the Forum Baths at Pompeii. The baths we saw yesterday were similar in layout to Pompeii, although on a much grander scale. The Baths of Caracalla were so big that they have been said to hold 10,000 people at one time!  The reason these baths interest me as much as the ones from Pompeii are because people didn't just come to the baths to get clean.

When we entered into the Baths we walked into a big open space that was used as an exercise space. People would come here and throw exercise balls or do whatever form of exercise they desired really.

Along with exercise, many people came to the baths for massages, grooming treatment which seem like normal things to do in the bath. However, people could also hear poetry readings, lectures and gossip and it has been said maybe even sex! The baths essentially became a social gathering for people. 

This Bath ties into another place we visited in Naples called the Archaeological Museum. In this Museum, there was a giant statue of Hercules that once decorated the Baths of Caracalla. It might not look that large in the picture but i'm telling you, this thing is HUGE. Hercules was loved by the Severus Family and therefore was portrayed in the baths, more than once.

Hercules in the Museum that was once in the Baths

Another part of the Baths of Caracalla that I did not get to see in the Forum Baths was a part called Isotterranei. It is basically the underground chambers where they burned the wood to keep the baths warm. Hundreds of tons of wood was burned each week. Attendants would be in this underground tunnel putting more and more wood into the ovens and stoves to keep the bath water warm. There was also a elaborate pipe system that ran underground for abduction and distribution of water. Pretty cool to see how the inner workings of this giant bath worked!

Where they burned the wood, now used to display artifacts from the Baths

Little more perspective on how big the Baths were