Suburban Baths (Terme Suberbane)

This video piqued my interests in the Suburban Baths of Pompeii. Thus the topic for this week’s post.

The Suburban Baths were built at the end of the first century BC. They stood just outside the wall of the town, north of the Porta Marina Gate (see map). Because of this placement outside it is thought that the baths were probably used by people coming from out of town. There are mooring rings (large metal rings used to anchor boats and ships) set into stone bocks which suggested the baths were near a canal port. There are three levels to the baths, which are all visible now due to recent restoration. Despite the three levels, the bath complex its self was not very big. The entrance hall was on a terrace, and all the rooms had a window looking out over the Gulf of Naples. The layout was classically designed to fit the needs for the bathing chambers. Because of this, after the entrance hall, there is a changing room (apodyterium), then two rooms for cold baths (frididarium), followed by a heated chamber (tepiderium), the finally the hot water baths (calidarium). The heated room was there to allow bathers to acclimate to the heat before entering the not bath (like mentioned in the video). I imagine it being similar to a sauna.

The Suburban Baths. The area with all the poeple is the Marina Gate or Porta
 Marina with bath house to the left. The entrance is at the very left edge of the

 picture, the last square window.

The walls of the changing room are lavishly decorated and once again the erotic images are seen. Because of the eight fresco paintings that were highly erotic, the room was first thought to be a brothel annexed to the bath. However, this interpretation has been rejected for another theory. In this instance, the erotic frescos were probably a humorous method for customers to remember where they left their clothes. It is thought that the bathers were assigned a number and an amusing painting, which were different in each of the various chambers, because each painting is located above a numbered box, which may have been used as lockers. (If you really want to see the pictures you can find a few by searching Suburban baths (Pompeii) on Wikipedia but seeing as this blog is an assignment for a class, I will not post them here)

These erotic paintings are also important because scenes this explicit (group sex and oral sex) are not often found in other collections of erotic Roman art. Also, the presence of such paintings in a public bathhouse shared by men and women suggests that people would not have found them offensive.

Below is a link to a great website that has pictures of all the rooms and features of the Suburban Baths. There were too many pictures to post here, wish I could have though. Check it out!

http://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/R7/7%2016%20a%20plan.htm

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“Suburban Baths (Pompeii).” Wikipedia: Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 14 March 2012.

 “Suburban Bath – Pompeii.” Pompeii Tours: Pompeii.org.uk. Tredy S.A.S. 13 May 1998. Web. 14 March 2012.