Kids Learning Zone 

The Baths

The bath house was often the centre of the Roman city where people would meet to bathe, chat, get fit, do business, or just chill. Most Roman forts had a bath house as well as most cities which had several. Size varied as the city ones were very much larger than the military ones because of the volume of people that would use them. Towards the end of 300AD there were 900 bath houses in the empire.

Personal hygiene was very important as most people had no bathroom at home so public baths were essential. Bath complexes were amongst the most luxurious buildings in Roman towns with underfloor heating 'Hypocaust' marbled and mosaic floors. there were changing rooms, gym, exercise yard, various hot, cold and steam rooms as well as pools.
The largest bath houses in ancient Rome were those of Diocletian and Caracalla completed in 305AD and could accommodate up to 3000 bathers.

Most citizens used the baths in the afternoon with separate times for women. After the changing rooms you would visit the 'Tepidarium' a warm room followed by a visit to the 'Caldarium' which was a hot room where you sweated out the dirt from your skins pores then scrapped off the dirt with a 'Strigil' which is a metal hooked shaped tool used with oil scraping down the bodies limbs to remove the dirt and oil in the hot room. You would finally go into the 'Frigidarium' the cool room to cool off and close the pores. Food and drink was sold in the larger public baths to complete the experience and make it very pleasurable.

In Britain remains of bath house can be found both above and below ground in various Roman settlements and cities. In Scotland we are very fortunate to have two fully excavated and exposed bath house complexes. One is in Strathclyde park just along from the fun theme park and the other is near a sheltered housing complex in Bearsden, both are free to visit.