Terme Taurine or Bull's Baths (original) (raw)

Terme Taurine (Baths) of Civitavecchia (left: Civitavecchia; right: Civita Castellana)

You may wish to see a page on Civitavecchia and some nearby towns or its Archaeological Museum first.

View of the power plant near the harbour of Civitavecchia (ancient "Centum Cellae") from Terme Taurine (Bull's Baths)

I was greatly delighted when our Emperor (Trajan) sent for me to Centum Cellae - for that is the name of the place - to act as a member of his Council. (..) I was equally pleased with the place itself. The villa, which is exquisitely beautiful, is surrounded by meadows of the richest green; it abuts on the sea-shore, in the bight of which a harbour is being hastily formed. Pliny the Younger - Epist. 6.31 - Translated by J. B. Firth (1900) It is possible, in ancient times, when the ruler of the world made it his chosen retreat, and adorned it with his own virtues and the simple graces of his court, that Centum Cellae may have been, as Pliny found it, "a right pleasant place". George Dennis - The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria - 1848. The baths are situated 5 km off the harbour along the road to Allumiere. For a time their site was thought to have been that of Trajan's villa itself which today is supposed to have stood on a hill closer to the sea.

## View of the baths: (left) Republican period; (right) Imperial period

I am surprised that Homer has made no mention of hot springs, when, on the other hand, he has so frequently introduced the mention of warm baths: a circumstance from which we may safely conclude that recourse was not had in his time to mineral waters for their medicinal properties, a thing so universally the case at the present day. Waters impregnated with sulphur are good for the sinews. Pliny the Elder - The Natural History - Book XXXI - Bostock and Riley Ed. We pay a pleasant visit to the hot springs named after a bull: the distance of three miles seems no troublesome delay. There the wells are not spoiled by a brackish flavour, nor is the water coloured and hot with fuming sulphur: the pure smell and delicate taste make the bather hesitate for what purpose the waters should better be used. If the legend deserves credit, it was a bull that first revealed these hot baths by tracking out the source, when, tossing aloft the sods, as is a bull's way to prelude a fight, he grazed his downbent horns upon a hard tree-stump. (..) Not Greeks alone must have the glory of marvels which o'ertop belief! The fount of Helicon has for its begetter an animal: let us believe that through like origin these waters were drawn forth, as the steed's hoof dug out the Muses' well. [Rutilius Claudius Namatianus](France.html#Gate of Augustus) - De Reditu Suo (A Voyage Home to Gaul in 415 AD) - Loeb Edition 1934. Facilities to exploit the natural hot sulphur springs of the site were built in the early Ist century BC; new facilities were built by Emperors Trajan and Hadrian next to it.

## "Calidarium" (hot room) of the Republican period baths

Many persons quite pride themselves on enduring the heat of mineral waters for many hours together; a most pernicious practice, however, as they should be used but very little longer than the ordinary bath, after which the bather should be shampooed with cold water, and not leave the bath without being rubbed with oil. Pliny The calidarium is very interesting because nine individual bathtubs were placed between the columns or pillars which surrounded the central low pool. Roman baths were not just establishments for leisure time; they were also connected to the religious sphere: the cult of the nymphs of the sacred springs (or other deities, e.g. Minerva Sulis at Bath) added to the healing power of the water.

## (left) Altar erected by Alcibiades, a Greek freedman of Emperor Hadrian, to the nymphs of the spring water to thank them for his recovery (it is now placed in the "calidarium" of the Republican baths); (right) floor mosaic with optical effect in a service room of the Republican baths, similar to one at Villa dei Volusii

Historical records indicate that all the Antonine emperors, including Commodus, spent some time at the villa. The administration/maintenance of the property was entrusted with imperial freedmen. After the emperors discontinued their presence, the baths were utilized by the wealthiest citizens of the district or by those in transit at the port of Centum Cellae (Civitavecchia), e.g. Namatianus. He is one of the last Pagan writers. The practice of bathing was greatly discouraged by many of the first Christian theologians and this led to the closure of most establishments during the VIth century. The infirm may take baths whenever it is advisable, but the healthy, and especially the young, should be given permission less often. (Rule of St. Benedict - 36.8 early VIth century)

## Baths built by Emperor Trajan from the steps which led to a "solarium" above the main halls

According to their respective kinds, these waters are beneficial for diseases of the sinews, feet, or hips, for sprains or for fractures; they act, also, as purgatives upon the bowels, heal wounds, and are singularly useful for affections of the head and ears. (..) There is another mistake, also, of a similar description, made by those who pride themselves upon drinking enormous quantities of these waters; and I myself have seen persons, before now, so swollen with drinking it that the very rings on their fingers were entirely concealed by the skin, owing to their inability to discharge the vast quantities of water which they had swallowed. It is for this reason, too, that these waters should never be drunk without taking a taste of salt every now and then. (..) The very mud, too, of mineral springs may be employed to good purpose; but, to be effectual, after being applied to the body, it must be left to dry in the sun. Pliny

## Imperial "calidarium"

In other cases, it is by their vapours that waters are so beneficial to man, being so intensely hot as to heat our baths even, and to make cold water boil in our sitting-baths. Pliny The first excavations of the baths were undertaken in the 1770s by Gaetano Torraca, a physician of Civitavecchia who wrote an essay (The Ancient Taurine Baths Existing in the Territory of Civitavecchia) summarizing all the known facts about them. In 1820 other excavations were carried out by Pietro Manzi, another local erudite, but it was only in the XXth century that proper archaeological investigations by Raniero Mengarelli and Salvatore Bastianelli identified and dated the various parts of the baths.

## Imperial Baths: stamped brick (Hadrian's age)

The period from Trajan to the first Antonines, marks a decided improvement in the solidity of the work. The angles and arches are built of bricks, and the wall itself is strengthened by horizontal bands of the same material. (..) The extensive warehouses of Ostia, the substructures of the [Thermae Traianae](Vasi33a.htm#Terme di Traiano), Hadrian's villa near Tibur, the inner harbor and docks at Porto, and a hundred contemporary edifices, are built in this manner. (..) Hadrian probably built the two-storied portico (of the Palatine Stadium), as shown by the style of masonry and by the brick-stamps of the years 123-134, found in great numbers in the excavations of 1871 and 1893. Rodolfo Lanciani - The ruins and excavations of ancient Rome - 1897. Fired bricks greatly helped archaeologists in dating Roman monuments because of the trademarks which were stamped on them by their manufacturers: they had different shapes and they often indicated the name of the manufacturer.

## Ancillary facilities which were built by Emperor Hadrian

The key elements of the Imperial baths, i.e. apodyterium (dressing room), frigidarium (cold room), tepidarium (warm room) and calidarium were built by Trajan, but the establishment was completed by a series of ancillary facilities by Hadrian. The ancient Romans spent many hours at the baths. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a philosopher of the Ist century AD, wrote a vivid account of what went on at a small bath establishment in a letter to a friend; you can read some excerpts from it in a page with many images of the Baths of Caracalla.

## Library

The rectangular niches housed the cupboards which contained the volumina, the scrolls which were the most common form of long document until the end of the IIIrd century, when they were replaced by the codices (wax tablets or sheets of parchment or papyrus bound together), the historical ancestors of the modern books. Scrolls and their containers (capsa) can be seen in many floor mosaics, e.g. in [Tunisia](Musousse.html#Tragic poet) and Luxembourg, and in reliefs, e.g. in Germany. Roman public libraries of the time of Hadrian often had a monumental size, e.g. those of Athens, Ephesus and Sagalassos.

## Imperial baths marble floors: (left) main building; (right) Reading Room near the Library

The baths were decorated with stuccoes, paintings, reliefs and statues, fragments of which can be seen at the Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia, including that of a small statue the image of which is shown in the background of this page. The opus sectile, an inlay made up of relatively large pieces of coloured marbles, of the Reading Room is similar to those which decorate Villa Adriana at Tivoli and it shows the coloured marbles which were popular in the IInd century AD.

## (left) Cryptoporticus (see that on the Palatine); (right) area with small rooms for guests ("hospitalia" - see those of Villa Adriana)

The facilities added by Hadrian included a covered passage where he and his guests could walk in the shade and small rooms where they could take a nap. You may wish to visit some of the bath establishments of Ancient Ostia or that of Villa dei Quintili.