Cleaning with oil and strigil

[Nathan Ross]

And all these years I assumed it was hot bath to open the pores, strigil and oil to clean the pores so oil comes off with sweat. Then a cold plunge perhaps?

Maybe the steam room first to get a good sweat going, then an oil and scrape, jump in the hot bath to remove the residue of the oil, then the cold plunge...?

Either way, there would be a certain amount of oily residue getting into the bath, and if there's a lot of people using it there could have been quite a scum building up...

I think Mary Beard made quite a lot of the potentially barf-enducing qualities of Roman baths (no plugholes, so somebody's got to bale out the water once it gets too filthy... gah!)

Then again, modern swimming pools may contain chlorine, but also a lot of... other substances. Future generations may well turn their noses up at our own bathing practices...