Life in a Roman City

SENECA, The Sounds of a Roman Bath (ca. 50 C.E.)

Personal cleanliness was imperative to both Greeks and Romans. The Greeks in particular frequently complained that barbarians were dirty. Public baths were central gathering places for Romans of many classes. The well-off frequently had baths in their own houses, but even so, they might visit the public baths to meet friends or partake in other activities. The public baths had a questionable reputation, in part because prostitutes often sought clients there. Seneca (ca. 4 B.C.E.–65 C.E.), a philosopher, orator, and eventually the chief adviser to the emperor, recorded this sketch of a bath’s commotion.

I live over a bath. Imagine the variety of voices, enough noise to make you sick. When the stronger fellows are working out with heavy weights, when they are working hard or pretending to work hard, I hear their grunts; and whenever they exhale, I hear their hissing and panting. Or when some lazy type is getting a cheap rubdown, I hear the slap of the hand pounding his shoulders. . . . If a serious ballplayer comes along and starts keeping score out loud, that’s the end for me. . . . And there’s the guy who always likes to hear his own voice when washing, or those people who jump into the swimming pool with a tremendous splash. . . . The hair plucker keeps up a constant chatter to attract customers, except when he is plucking armpits and making his customer scream instead of screaming himself. It would be disgusting to list all the cries from the sausage seller, and the fellow hawking cakes, and all the food vendors yelling out what they have to sell, each with own special intonation.

From Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, eds., Roman Civilization: Selected Readings, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), p. 228.