Gli impianti termali: centro benessere di età romana

Abstract

The practice of thermal bathing is a distinctive feature of Roman culture, to such an extent that the buildings connected to the baths were an essential element in all the cities of the empire, especially the newly founded ones. Wherever they went, the Roman colonists brought with them a set of elements typical of their culture, and the practice of bathing certainly could not be missing. As a result, many of the Roman cities in the provinces were born in those places where there were known copious thermal springs of mineral or natural origin. Think for example of the cities of Aix en Provence and Aix les Bains in France, Baden Baden in Germany, Baths in England. In all cases, these are cities whose toponym already recalls the presence of bathing structures that could have been connected to natural thermal springs or specially created hydraulic infrastructures (large water reserves or aqueducts) whose waters were artificially heated.