LTC3 Hygenic Roman Baths

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by Bruno

That seems... I mean, it doesn't matter if you don't have a clue about disease theory, but wouldn't the water start to be mostly stewed sweat and assorted gunge, rather than water, after a while? Humans don't LIKE that smell, as a group. So how would they change the water when it started smelling like old socks?

Remember old Rome was a slave culture.

I'd guess that when the water temperature reached that point, for a small bath-basin some burly slave would show up with a bucket and bail the sludge into the city cloaca.

For larger baths: From antiquarian William Smith: "In the cold bath of Pompeii the water ran into the basin through a spout of bronze, and was carried off again through a conduit on the opposite side." http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...*/Balneae.html. And from , describing various baths: "The fourth, E, was provided with a hot-water bath at its west end. The contiguous walls which p98formed three sides of this alveus were lined with vertical flue-tile communicating with the hypocaust below, the opposite wall of the chamber being also similarly lined. The bottom was of a single flag which rested upon the hypocaust pillars, and its sides were of red stucco, with a drain at the south end." [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...5*.html#baths]

So while some units may not have had drains others did.