Capacity of Auxillary Fort bathhouse

[JeffF]

In Peter Connolly's book The Roman Fort on p.28-29 there is a wonderful reconstruction of the bathhouse for the fort at Vindolanda. The fort accommodated 484 men available for duty (with some 295 on temporary duty elsewhere) according to one morning report. Given that the bathhouse served as a relaxation and recreation facility it does not seem reasonable that soldiers quickly cycled through like a modern shower facility on a base camp in Afghanistan. It seems to me that 500 or so men could not use the facility on a daily basis (aside from the huge resources of wood required to keep it heated 24 hrs/day or even 10-12 hrs). Is there any evidence that units were given access on particular days or perhaps access restricted by rank? The size of the building in the book would seem appropriate for an 'officers club.'

[Vindex]

Someone may be able to better answer the specifics of your post, but Northumberland rarely has the climate for anyone to loiter in any degree of undress unless it was very well heated!!! The odd week or two during the summer, perhaps but blooming cold the rest of the time

[Robert]

Experiments at Archeon, with an authentic reconstruction of a bathhouse, be it a larger one, suggest it took three days to get the whole structure to a good heat. So firing up the bathhouse and expecting to have it in working order in a matter of hours would be improbable. So I would suggest once it was up to temperature, there would be a sort of "maintance fire" kept going to keep the structure heated, with an occasional stoking up. I would think the soldiers were assigned shifts for bathing, perhaps even being issued with bathtokens?

Romans were very fond of the baths, it was a way to keep healthy. The military would have a vested interest in keeping their men healthy! So I would think a commodity so ingrained in their culture would not have been set aside for just the officers. Perhaps the auxillaries did not have such a culture to start with, but it would soon have become part of Roman military life.

[JeffF]

Yes I agree even soldiers not accustomed to baths would soon develop a liking. It seems to me a bathhouse the size portrayed in the book could not accommodate 500+ men a day. Is there any evidence, perhaps from the Vindolanda tablets, that has information on the usage by the troops?

[mcbishop]

Yes I agree even soldiers not accustomed to baths would soon develop a liking. It seems to me a bathhouse the size portrayed in the book could not accommodate 500+ men a day. Is there any evidence, perhaps from the Vindolanda tablets, that has information on the usage by the troops?

I'm fairly sure the Wallsend baths, once up to temperature, took a sack of coal a day to keep going. The biomass equivalent could easily be supplied by coppicing in nearby woodland.

As for numbers, I think a bath a day would be out of the question and once a week far more likely (they are, after all, MEN - 'men, men in skirts, SHORT skirts' etc). There is an ambiguous duty roster (good old P. Gen. Lat 1) that makes references to men posted to the baths, but whether that is enjoying them or stoking them is by no means clear, but the latter may be more likely, since it is essentially a list of fatigues. Too many baths were clearly not thought to be A Good Thing, as Marcus Aurelius points out to his praetorian prefect in a letter with reference to the Syrian army.

Mike Bishop

[D B Campbell]

There is an ambiguous duty roster (good old P. Gen. Lat 1) that makes references to men posted to the baths, but whether that is enjoying them or stoking them is by no means clear, but the latter may be more likely, since it is essentially a list of fatigues.

I think you're right about the fatigues, Mike. Note that, of the 36 soldiers listed, only 8 (maybe 9) have the entry ballio, and (more importantly) 3 have it as a recurring entry (Quintus Petronius has two consecutive days; Titus Flavius has three consecutive days, Quintus Fabius Faber has one plus five consecutive days), so (unless Faber is the McAuslan of the Roman army) it's likely to be a baths-related fatigue.

Edit: I should have mentioned that, in the past, I have flirted with the suggestion that ballio is an abbreviation for balli<star>io, rather than a cryptic reference to the balneum ... and I still rather like that suggestion!

[mcbishop]

Titus Flavius has three consecutive days, Quintus Fabius Faber has one plus five consecutive days), so (unless Faber is the McAuslan of the Roman army) it's likely to be a baths-related fatigue.

Edit: I should have mentioned that, in the past, I have flirted with the suggestion that ballio is an abbreviation for balli<star>io, rather than a cryptic reference to the balneum ... and I still rather like that suggestion!

How horrendous for poor old Titus Flavius! the only thing worse than three days' baths fatigues would be three days listening to sinew-heads warbling on about artillery ;-)

Mike Bishop

[john m roberts]

On the other hand, he could stay close to the fire on cold days.