last-of-the-romans:The Baths of CaracallaElaborate public baths constructed by the Emperor Caracalla
last-of-the-romans:The Baths of CaracallaElaborate public baths constructed by the Emperor Caracalla around 216 CE, were a center of Roman social life and one of the great engineering triumphs of the 3rd Century. Sprawling over some 33 acres on Rome’s outskirts, the baths were a vast complex of business and entertainment establishments. At the center of everything were the baths themselves - a “frigidarium” (cold bath), several “tepidaria” (warm baths) and a “calidarium” (steam bath most bathers passed through them in that order. Aqueducts fed thousands of gallons of mountain water into the system. Water for the tepidaria and calidarium was heated by the wood-burning furnaces connected to a network of steam pipes beneath the floors. The baths would remain in use until the 6th century when Goths destroyed aqueducts that supplied the baths with water. -- source link