In the gymnasiums of the thermal bath facilities it was common to spend time playing a ball game before bathing. This object, common even in today’s games, was often filled with sand (harpastra) or feathers (paganica), and was used for a game similar to volleyball in which the participants excha...

Initially, the entry price to the thermal bath facilities was a quadrans, or a quarter of an as, a bronze coin that was widespread during the Republic and the Roman Empire. In 33 BC Agrippa, in order to make his magistracy immortal, decided to bear the cost of entry to the public baths of Rome, ma...

According to some sources, the acronym SPA derives from the Latin words salus per acquam, with the meaning of “health through water”. Though the phrase perfectly reflects the health benefits of spa treatments, of which the ancient Romans were well aware, it is difficult to establish whether th...

The hypocaust was a type of central heating used in ancient Rome that used the circulation of hot air, produced in the praefurnium (a large furnace fired up by slaves), inside empty spaces specifically constructed in the floor or walls of the rooms to be heated. The floors were called suspensurae b...

The limekiln, from the Latin calcaria, was a rustic kiln used for cooking limestone, a material widely available in the Agrigento area. It could be in the shape of a truncated cone or pyramid....

Pliny the Elder tells us that the calidarium, together with tepidarium and frigidarium, was one of the main rooms of the spa that housed pools with very hot, moderately heated and completely cold water respectively. The bathers would enter the calidarium after they began to perspire in the sudator...

Opus vermiculatum was the technique from which colourful mosaic was developed. Using tiles cut according to the figure to be represented, it was composed of tiles of different shapes, some larger, others very small, which followed the contour of the images and the result was therefore of extreme p...

Opus sectile was a type of flooring that used marble and stones of square, triangular and rhomboidal shapes that were generally larger than those of other mosaic techniques. The pieces that made up the design were larger than the tiles and therefore required less precision in cutting; even the har...

Opus signinum, or cocciopesto, was a flooring and wall covering technique used in ancient Roman houses to protect the walls from damp. Its mixture was made up of scrap amphorae or tiles combined with fat lime. During the Republican era, small pieces of marble were set into the fresh mixture on the...

For the ancient Romans, the Lares were the protective gods of the family and household, privately venerated inside the domus together with the Penates, gods of the pantry, and Vesta, goddess of the hearth. According to a legend described by Ovid, the Lares were twins born to the nymph Lara, who wat...