Central Baths, Pompei

The Central Baths are located on the corner of two main streets in Pompei – via Stabiana and via di Nola. They were built as part of the city’s regeneration plans following the earthquake of AD 62, and may have replaced a destroyed building on this site. The relative modernity of the building is shown in the use of skylights and a larger outdoor gymnasium – hallmarks of later Roman bathhouses.

The baths were designed with many of the features found in most Roman bathhouses. They included a large central palaestra, with an adjacent apodyterium for changing and relaxing. The bathing rooms themselves consisted of a lukewarm pool (tepidarium) and two hot baths in the caldarium. One unusual feature was the laconicum, a room with an intense, dry heat – similar to the modern saunas thought to have originated in Scandinavia.

Built with access from all four sides, the baths occupied an entire block of the city. The presence of a new bath house, designed to be ultra modern and exquisitely decorated, suggests that the surrounding area was to become more central in the regeneration of Pompei. Sadly, it appears the baths were never used – many of the pools were still incomplete at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius.