The History of Baths

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Latin Glossary of Bathing Through the Ages - Q to Z

Sculponea

Wooden sandals to protect bathers' feet from the hot floors.

Soap

Soap is a surfactant, with a head that attracts water and a tail, which repels it. When it combines with water the tails attempt to flee and this causes the water to spread, the reduction in the surface tension loosens the droplets and makes them wet more. In doing so, the tail attracts dirt, atthe same time the head attracts water and is carried off, by the water taking the dirt with it. Hence, soap needs rinsing to work.

Sphaeristerium

Ball-playing court, either open court or roofed room.

Strigiles

Curved instruments, usually made of metal, wood, bone, or terracotta, used to scrape the product of exercise and anointing off the bather. This procedure took place either in the palaestra or the tepidarium.

Sudatorium

Humid sweat room.

Surfactant

Material that reduces the surface tension of water when used in very low concentrations, which effectively means the droplets of water are not so tight and they attract and allow water to be absorbed.

Tepidarium

Medium-heated room in regular sequence of bathing rooms.

Thermae

Term applied to bath buildings. Usually used to denote richly decorated establishments, especially large Imperial baths.

Testudo alvei ("The tortoise of the pool")

A remarkable device for ensuring that the heated water in hot pools was evenly distributed. It was a hollow metal receptacle, that sat directly over the fire in the furnace. It opened into the pool, and by the process of convection water circulated into it from the pool and, once heated, back out into the pool.

Thermae

Imperial heated bath buildings in Rome.

Unctorium

A room where bathers' were anointed.

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