The Suburban Baths (Italian ''Terme Suburbane'') are a building in

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

, Italy, a town in the Italian region of

Campania Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...

that was buried by the eruption of

Mount Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of s ...

in 79 AD, which consequently preserved it. The Suburban Baths were publicly owned, as were also the Stabian, Forum, and Central baths in the city. They were built in the early empire, possibly under the Emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

(14–37 AD), much later than the others and thus were built outside the city walls near the Porta Marina, one of the city gates. By this time, land was more easily available outside the city as the walls had lost their defensive role after the town became a Roman colony. The baths also benefitted from the increased supply of running water after the connection of the city to the Aqua Augusta aqueduct in 30–20 BC. The bathhouse was renovated after the earthquake of 62 AD, when a ''piscina calida'', a heated swimming pool, was added to the north of the complex. The baths were discovered in 1958, much later than the rest of the city, though a systematic excavation had to wait until 1985–1987. Although publicly owned, these baths seem to have been reserved for a private clientele unlike the other public baths. The building is notable for its surviving erotic wall paintings, the only set of such art found in a public Roman bath house.

Structure

The building was a two-storey structure: the upper floor, as in the Palaestra/Sarno baths, was divided into three apartments for rent, with views towards the port and the

Bay of Naples A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

through the large glass windows. These rooms may also have provided space for the selling of sexual services. This upper floor was either accessed by a staircase from the floor below or via a door on the Via Marina. The baths were built to a higher standard of luxury and thermal effectiveness than the earlier baths in the town and have many hallmarks of the "newer" bath architecture of the first century AD: "single-axis row" type (with rooms in a linear increasingly warm arrangement promoting a particular route through the baths and bordering a ''

palaestra A palaestra ( or ; also (chiefly British) palestra; grc-gre, παλαίστρα) was any site of an ancient Greek wrestling school. Events requiring little space, such as boxing and wrestling, took place there. Palaestrae functioned both indep ...

''), large windows facing southwest, and an outdoor pool with a fountain. Terme Suburbane (Pompei) WLM 007

Construction was first limited to the

apodyterium In ancient Rome, the apodyterium (from grc, ἀποδυτήριον "undressing room") was the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings ...

(dressing room),

frigidarium A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or ''thermae'', namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool. The succession of bathing activities in the ''thermae'' is not known with certainty, but it is thought ...

(cold room),

tepidarium The tepidarium was the warm (''tepidus'') bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat which directly affects the human body from t ...

(warm room),

laconicum The ''laconicum'' (i.e. Spartan, ''sc.'' ''balneum'', bath). Cf. Greek ''pyriaterion to lakonikon'' "the Laconian vapour-bath"; , . was the dry sweating room of the Roman ''thermae'', contiguous to the ''caldarium'' or hot room. The name was given ...

(hot dry room) and

caldarium 230px, Caldarium from the Roman Baths at Bath, England. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor. A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room ...

(hot room); the ''

natatio In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughou ...

'' was added later as three rooms, including a

nymphaeum A ''nymphaeum'' or ''nymphaion'' ( grc, νυμφαῖον), in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habit ...

with a water cascade, providing an alternative route to the existing one of the

followed by the

. The entrance to the bathhouse is through a long corridor that leads into the

. The bathers would also have had access to a latrine, seating between six and eight people. The ''piscina calida'' (hot pool) used an innovative heating system called a ''samovar'', a domed metal plate which was part of the pool floor above the furnace to heat the pool water directly. Only one apodyterium has led to speculation by archaeologists that both men and women shared this facility, or that it was male-only or time-shared. The apodyterium contains the erotic wall paintings.

Erotic art in the Suburban Baths

The erotic wall paintings in the Suburban Baths are the only set of such art found in a public

Roman bath house Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

. Explicit

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...

scenes (such as group sex and oral sex) are depicted in these paintings that cannot be easily found in collections of erotic

Roman art The art of Ancient Rome, and the territories of its Republic and later Empire, includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be mi ...

. As the sexual acts portrayed are all considered "debased" according to the customs of

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

, it is possible that the intention behind their reproduction was to provide a source of humour to visitors of the building. The paintings are in the ''

'' and each scene is above a numbered box. These boxes are thought to have functioned as lockers in which bathers put their clothes. It is speculated that the paintings possibly served as way for the bathers to remember the location of their box (in lieu of numbering). The presence of these paintings in a public bathhouse shared by men and women gives some insight into

Roman culture The culture of ancient Rome existed throughout the almost 1200-year history of the civilization of Ancient Rome. The term refers to the culture of the Roman Republic, later the Roman Empire, which at its peak covered an area from present-day Lo ...

and suggests that people would not have found this offensive, and possibly humorous. The images are as follows: * two images showing generic male-female coital scenes * woman performing fellatio on a man * man performing cunnilingus on a woman * one lesbian duo with a phallus-shaped sexual aid or dildo * one threesome * one foursome * naked man with deformed, huge testicles Termas Suburbanas - Apodyterium.JPG, Frescos in the suburban baths File:Terme di porta marina, affreschi a tema erotico nello spogliatoio, 04.jpg, Cunnilingus, fellatio and anal sex between two females and two males. Wall painting, Suburban baths. Pompeii File:Terme di porta marina, affreschi a tema erotico nello spogliatoio, 05.jpg, Fresco from the Suburban baths of 2 males and 1 female

threesome In human sexuality, a threesome is commonly understood as "a sexual interaction between three people whereby at least one engages in physical sexual behaviour with both the other individuals". Though ''threesome'' most commonly refers to sexua ...

. Pompeii - Terme Suburbane - Apodyterium - Scene IV.jpg, Fresco from the Suburban baths depicting

cunnilingus Cunnilingus is an oral sex act performed by a person on the vulva or vagina of another person. The clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of the human female genitalia, and its stimulation may result in a woman becoming sexually aroused ...

. File:Terme di porta marina, affreschi a tema erotico nello spogliatoio, 06.jpg, Scene V of the famous mural showing variants of sexual intercourse. Couple in bed. The hair of the figure on the left indicates that this is a lesbian sex scene. The woman on the right wearing a fascia pectoralis lies back on a bed or a cline. The patches of dark green color are remains of the repainting of the wall. Terme di porta marina, affreschi a tema erotico nello spogliatoio, 10.jpg, Fresco from the Suburban baths in cowgirl position Image:Pompeii - Terme_Suburbane -_ Apodyterium.jpg, Part of the famous mural showing variants of sexual intercourse. Roman fresco from the Terme Suburbane in Pompeii.

Notes

References

* Berry, J. (2007) ''The Complete Pompeii'', London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. * Fagan, G. G. (1999) ''Bathing in Public in the Roman World'', United States of America: The University of Michigan Press. * Garret G. Fagan, "The Genesis of the Roman Public Bath: Recent Approaches and Future Directions", ''American Journal of Archaeology'', Vol. 105, No. 3. (July 2001), pp. 403–426. * Jacobelli (1995). ''Le pitture erotiche delle Terme Suburbane di Pompei''. Rome: 'L'Erma' di Bretschneider. . (See review by John R. Clarke's in: ''The American Journal of Archaeology'', Vol. 100, No. 2 (April 1996), pp. 431–432.) * Koloski-Ostrow, A. O. (2007) ‘The city baths of Pompeii and Herculaneum’, in ''The World of Pompeii'', ed. by J. J. Dobbins and P. W. Foss (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 224–256. * Roger Ling, Review: "Le pitture erotiche delle Terma Suburbane de Pompeii" by L. Jacobelli, ''The Classical Review'', New Ser., Vol. 46, No. 2 (1996), pp. 390–391. * Ling, R. (2011) ''Pompeii: History, Life and Afterlife'', Stroud: The History Press. * Manderscheid, H. (2000) ‘The Water Management of Greek and Roman Baths’, in ''Handbook of Ancient Water Technology'', ed. by O. Wikander (Leiden: Brill), pp. 467–538. * Inge Nielsen (1990). ''The Architecture and Cultural History of Roman Public Baths'', Aarhus University Press. * Roy Bowen Ward, "Women in Roman Baths", ''The Harvard Theological Review'', Vol. 85, No. 2. (April 1992), pp. 125–147. {{authority control Pompeii (ancient city) Ancient Roman baths in Italy

Structure

Erotic art in the Suburban Baths

See also

Notes

References