Looking into this environment, so rich in history and experience, is so evocative that it seems impossible not to hear the echoes of those who frequented it at the beginning of the 4th century AD. The voices of the high-ranking personalities housed in the niches of the changing rooms, which still occupy the perimeter of the octagonal space, seem to come back to life, mingling with those of the people who were bathing in the two pools on opposite sides. Inside, some were splashing around, others were talking business or resting, lulled by the soothing trickle of the water flowing steadily down from the fountains against the walls. Inexplicably, the mythical scenes depicted in the room’s central mosaic also invite us to immerse ourselves in the marine atmosphere. It is so skilfully described that it evokes the waves of the sea, inhabited by fish and fantastic creatures, to the point where we can hear the lapping of the waves on the rocks occupied by Nereids. The rustle of the nets lifted by the herotes becomes consistent and reaches us through an almost two-thousand-year-old silence…
