CILICIA AT THE CROSSROADS:
TRANSFORMATIONS OF BATHS AND
BATHING CULTURE IN THE ROMAN EAST
Abstract
The subject of bathing in antiquity holds a certain appeal to both the
specialist and the lay person because of the warmth, richness, and immediacy of the human activities it represents. The leisurely and sensuous
world of Roman baths – bathing, eating, drinking, massage, exercise, or
simply the pleasure of companionship in an intimate and luxurious setting
– interests and intrigues us. We are intrigued because antiquity has taken
what is, to us, a basic and prosaic function – bathing – and elevated it to
the level of a cultural and recreational act, a civic institution for which
there is no real counterpart in modern Western civilization.