During the Roman Empire, the bath institutionalized leisure. Typically found near the forum, the center of the town, the bath was a publicly-funded place for all citizens regardless of socioeconomic ...

Ancient Roman flip-flop mosaic from the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily, Italy (c. 4th century CE) (photo courtesy Isabella Baldini) What could be better in antiquity — and today — than relaxing at ...

Archaeologists uncovered an ancient bath complex below the streets of a German city dating back to the Roman Empire. The discovery came during the construction of a new fountain in Neumarkt, located ...

Hubert Robert, "Ruins of a Roman Bath with Washerwomen" (after 1766), oil on canvas, 54 x 41 1/2 inches (courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art) Bathing in massive public baths was once a hallmark of ...

Although dedicating much of the treatise to construction and materials, book VIII is about water: how to capture and store water and the architectural constructions that serve this purpose. Water was ...