Ostia - Facilities in the baths

The visitors to the baths brought clean clothes, towels, oil and ointments, and strigiles for scraping off the dirt and oil. Some of the bronze objects have been excavated.

	Top. Bronze bathing accessory: a ring and chains for suspending little vessels. Inv. nr. 15689. Photo: CGBC 1200064950 and 1200064951. Bottom left. Bronze vessel for ointments (unguentarium) with a chain for suspension. Inv. nr. 3575. Photo: ICCD E027272A. Bottom right. Bronze strigiles. Inv. nrs. 4472-4473. Photo: Karivieri 2020, cat. nr. 87.

A painting in the Baths of the Seven Sages has depictions of a few objects used in the baths, including some balls: a large one with a net-pattern and two small ones. The balls were used in games in the palaestra. In a number of baths mosaics have been found of professional athletes, characterized as such by their gear (such as spiked boxing gloves), a special lock of hair (cirrus), symbols of victory (crowns, palm branches), and tables with prizes. Presumably they could be admired in the palaestra of the three large thermae. Most of the mosaics are black-and-white (Baths in the Imperial Palace, Baths of Neptune, Baths of the Trinacria, Baths of the Marine Gate), those in the Baths of Musiciolus are polychrome.

In the brick piers of porticoes flanking the Baths of the Forum are rows of small travertine blocks. In the blocks metal hooks were inserted. It could be that ropes were suspended from these hooks, used to form waiting queues. This possibility is discussed in the preliminary interpretation of small travertine stones in the facades of buildings.

A funerary inscription from Ostia links baths, wine and Venus, the goddess of love:

D(is) M(anibus) C(ai) DOMITI PRIMI HOC EGO SV(m) IN TVMVLO PRIMVS NOTISSI MVS ILLE VIXI LVCRINIS POTABI SAEPE FA LERNVM BALNIA VINA VENVS MECVM SENVERE PER ANNOS HEC EGO SI POTVI SIT MIHI TERRA LEBIS ET TAMEN AD MA NES FOENIX ME SERBAT IN ARA QVI ME CVM PROPERAT SE REPARARE SIBI L(ocus) D(atus) FVN[e]RI C(ai) DOMITI PRIMI      A TRIBVS MESSIS HERMEROTE PIA ET PIO

For the souls departed. Of Caius Domitius Primus. I, the well-known and famous Primus, am in this tomb. I lived on Lucrine oysters; I often drank Falernian wine. Baths, wine, and Venus aged with me through the years. If I have been able to do this, may the earth be light on me. Yet with the spirits the phoenix keeps me in the altar, who rushes to renew itself along with me. Place given for the burial of C. Domitius Primus      by the three Messii: Hermeros, Pia, and Pius.

Found in 1783 along the Via Ostiense, about a mile from Ostia. Second half of the second century AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. EDR152251. Translation: after Fagan 1999, 320. Fagan notes that the phoenix was quite possibly represented on the man's tomb.

The combination of baths, wine and Venus is also found on a spoon from Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey), which has the text Balnea vina Venus faciunt properantia fata, "Baths, wine and Venus make death come faster" (EDCS-29100314). The same three words are found in an inscription from Rome:

V(ixit) AN(nis) LII D(is) M(anibus) TI(beri) CLAVDI SECVNDI HIC SECVM HABET OMNIA BALNEA VINA VENVS CORRVMPVNT CORPORA NOSTRA SET VITA FACIVNT B(alnea) V(ina) V(enus) KARO CONTVBERNAL(i) FEC(it) MEROPE CAES(aris) ET SIBI ET SUIS P(osterisque) E(ius)	He lived 52 years. For the souls departed. Of Tiberius Claudius Secundus. Here he has everything with him. Baths, wine, Venus ruin our bodies, but they are the essence of life, baths, wine, Venus. For her dear companion Merope, (slave) of Caesar, made (this tomb), also for herself and the family and descendants.
From Rome. Middle of the first century AD. Disappeared. EDR125875. Translation: after Fagan 1999, 319.

Bars are frequently found in and near the baths. In the Baths of the Seven Sages, in the room with depictions of the sages, is a painting of amphorae with the text FALERNVM, referring to the high-quality Campanian wine that is mentioned in the inscription from Ostia.

Paintings high up on the walls of the room of the Seven Sages, with an amphora and the text FALERNVM. Photo: Klaus Heese.

As to Venus, she is documented quite well in the baths in Ostia. In the Baths of the Seven Sages is a painting of Venus ermerging from the sea, in the Baths of the Lighthouse a painting of Venus carried by Tritons. A mosaic of Venus is not far from the private baths in the House of the Dioscures. Two statues of Venus seem to belong to the Baths of the Lighthouse (inv. nrs. 958 and 989). A statuette of Venus was found on Via della Foce, near the Baths of Mithras (inv. nr. 122). Two statues were found in the Baths of the Marine Gate (one in Ostia with inv. nr. 29781, the other in the British Museum), yet another seems to come from the Maritime Baths (also in the British Museum).

It seems that the baths evoked an atmosphere of a pleasant life, also in the face of adversity. In a Greek inscription the Baths of the Forum are called loutron alexiponon, "baths that drive away sorrow". This reminds us of a few sentences in Augustinus' Confessions (9,12,32). After the death of his mother Monica, in Ostia, Augustinus visited baths, "because I had heard baths were called balnea from the Greek balaneion, which means driving away care from the mind". Perhaps he had even seen the inscription.

The visitors also hoped that the baths would be beneficial to their health. In the early third century Minucius Felix wrote: "We agreed to go to that very pleasant city Ostia, that my body might have a soothing and appropriate remedy for drying its humours from the marine bathing, especially as the holidays of the courts at the vintage-time had released me from my cares". Several statues of the deities of health were found: of Asclepius in the Baths of the Forum (inv. nr. 1253), and of Hygieia in the Baths of the Forum (inv. nr. 1252), Baths of the Seven Sages (inv. nr. 115), and Baths of the Marine Gate (now in Kassel, Germany). One more statue of Hygieia is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was excavated in 1797 by Robert Fagan near Tor Boacciana, so near the ancient Tiber mouth. It was found below its niche, like a statue of Athena, in an unknown building, quite possibly baths.

Of particular interest is a group of rooms to the south of the palaestra of the Baths of the Forum (I,XII,8). Here a terracotta votive group was found, with the depiction of a snake, Aesculapius, and two goddesses on a couch, perhaps Ceres and Proserpina (inv. nr. 483). The group may be related to a lectisternium, a meal at which the gods were thought to be present, lying on a lectus, a dining couch. Ceres and Proserpina would be a reference to new life, and the relation that was made by the Romans between baths and health suggests that the meal was held during an epidemic. The object may belong to one of two small temples, nearby in the palaestra. Nevertheless, the rooms may have been a lecture hall or a school of medicine. This is suggested by a mosaic in the vestibule. In a black frame is a centaur (half man, half horse, with four legs), holding a bow. This could well be the ninth sign of the Zodiac, Sagittarius. A connection was made in antiquity between the centaur Chiron and the centaur-Sagittarius. Chiron was believed to be a righteous and wise centaur, a teacher, but also a healer.

The mosaic in the vestibule of building I,XII,8. Photo: SO IV, Tav. CXXXVII.

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