This article is an extract from the Figaro Hors-Série “Pompéi”, available here in paper or digital format.
Le Figaro
Life cannot be conceived without baths. A Pompeii would deprive himself of a garum or a moray eel, even red mullet, rather than giving up this rite which is also an art. And the sweetest pleasure! You have to be a Barbarian to ignore it! Or a fool.
Read also: Pompeii: carpe diem
The most luxurious residences even have private thermal baths and a circular swimming pool with stepped steps. But the notables, whether landowners or merchants, in no way disdain public baths. We even know some who spend whole days there being scratched, rubbed, massaged, anointed and perfumed after a warm or very hot bath.
The thermal baths of Stabies and those of the forum are not only essential buildings for the hygiene of the body and its well-being. These are places of meeting, conviviality and meeting. Women, in the section reserved for them, discuss the latest fashions
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