CHAPTER 23
Greek Baths

Introduction

The study of Greek public baths (balaneia) recently has become the focus of increased scholarly attention, resulting in a dramatic revision of our understanding of their highly developed forms and of the sophistication of Greek bathing culture throughout the Mediterranean especially in the Hellenistic period. The archaeological evidence has grown considerably to provide a more comprehensive and more factual appraisal of design, construction, technology, and use of Greek baths, and a better understanding of the social and cultural role they played as an expression of bathing culture in Greek urban environments. A great deal of work remains to be done, but the appearance of a chapter focused exclusively on Greek baths for the first time in a scholarly volume on Greek architecture marks a major step forward.

Greek baths flourished and reached their highest point of development in the Hellenistic period, thereby providing a combined body of evidence that addresses one of the specific goals of this volume: to give deserved attention to the generally neglected Hellenistic phase of Greek architecture. Current archaeological evidence reveals distinctive Mediterranean‐wide regional developments in the thermal architecture of the Hellenistic period. The western Greek baths of Sicily and South Italy, for example, include seminal features that are not found in contemporaneous baths elsewhere in the Greek world but which, not coincidentally, appear in early Roman baths. Thus, Greek baths are inherently important for what they reveal of Greek architectural and social practices, and in the broader context they are a significant source of influence on the architectural form that more than any other would come to characterize Roman culture. Because Greek baths were not restricted by traditional rules that generally applied to the design and construction of temples and other forms of civic architecture, they provided the locus for unprecedented experimentation and innovation and thereby make a crucial contribution to our understanding of ancient architecture more generally. This chapter focuses on the Greek public bath, the balaneion, to the exclusion of other forms of bathing, and it considers the broad geographical (throughout the Mediterranean) and chronological (from the fifth century BCE to the second century CE) distribution of public baths that provides a large and coherent body of evidence allowing for a more detailed and comprehensive assessment of the architecture and customs of bathing in the Greek world.

History of the Study of Greek Baths

Balaneutiké, published in 1962 by René Ginouvès, was the first comprehensive study of Greek baths; in it the author brought together all of the available archaeological, art historical, and especially textual evidence to arrive at a synthesis that laid the foundations of the discipline. Balaneutiké has not been surpassed, but recent excavations, reexamination of previously known material, and new approaches to traditional sources combined have built on Ginouvès’ study. The greatest advances have been made in the archaeological evidence, which today includes more than 75 known examples of Greek public baths, in contrast to the 23 Ginouvès had available on which to base his assessment. Greek baths can now be more realistically evaluated on their own terms, and while it is true that “architecture, technology, and decoration are the determining components of Roman baths,” this assessment could just as well apply to the most fully developed Greek baths (Manderscheid 2000: 534).

Other overviews have appeared since Balaneutikè, all of which have limitations, either because they do not include all of the evidence that was available at the time, or because they are unpublished and therefore not accessible to researchers (see Lucore and Trümper 2013: 1–10). From the mid‐1980s some of the most illuminating discussions of Greek baths came from scholars investigating Roman baths and possible influences on their origins from the earlier Greek bathing complexes of Sicily and South Italy (Nielsen 1985 and 1990: 6–36; DeLaine 1989; Yegül 1992: 6–29; Broise 1994; Fagan 2001; Thébèrt 2003: 45–74; Winter 2006: 131–134). The subject has grown in importance, and only for the first time recently was it a major focus of discussion, with the relevant Greek evidence central to that discussion, in a conference on Roman baths of the Republican period (Coarelli, Battaglini, and Tsiolis forthcoming; Lucore forthcoming).

Since these more recent studies there has been a spate of scholarly interest in Greek baths, and the increased attention to the archaeology and to the complexity of the issues concerned with their study is reflected in the broader boundaries of the discipline. One of the most striking results of this research is the clear picture established of the widespread distribution of Greek baths throughout the Mediterranean by the Hellenistic period. Egypt, for example, currently accounts for roughly half of all known Greek or Greek‐style baths, and their popularity continued even into the Roman period after the introduction of Roman baths (Fournet and Redon 2009; Redon 2012). As this evidence is better understood, it provides intriguing insights into important questions of cultural interaction and assimilation in Ptolemaic Egypt.

Images of bathing on Greek vases traditionally have constituted a major source for the study of Greek baths, especially bathing customs. As long as these images were believed to represent “everyday life,” they could be taken at face value as indicators of real places and practices, a condition of especial significance regarding images of women bathing. Recently, however, this approach to understanding images on vases as reflecting “reality” has been fundamentally questioned (Ferrari 2002; Stähli 2009); and in the case of scenes of women bathing, some scholars have determined that they have nothing to do with real baths and bathing at all (Stähli 2013). Although such images might not be informative of actual facilities and practices, further research could determine what these new approaches to understanding the visual evidence might reveal of other aspects of bathing culture.

Women bathing in public are, however, located in textual sources, which provide information on other aspects of Greek baths, from finances and administration, to function and use, and ultimately to their social significance (Fournet and Redon 2009: 115–117; Redon 2011). On the important question of ownership and patronage, a survey of the evidence reveals that until the Hellenistic period, public baths were primarily privately owned for personal profit. Later in the Hellenistic period, it is possible to discuss public ownership of balaneia, although the evidence is by no means conclusive (Trümper 2013). The ancient sources, and modern compilations and commentaries, are fewer for Greek baths and bathing customs than for their Roman equivalents. Yet, just as more careful attention to the full range of the archaeological evidence for Greek baths has resulted in a more accurate understanding of the design, construction, and features of Greek bathing establishments, more careful attention to the textual sources, and to the full range of questions they can address, can produce equally informative results.

Early Greek Baths

The earliest archaeological evidence for Greek baths is found in Greece and dates to the first half of the fifth century BCE. The Dipylon Baths in Athens are the earliest of the four bathing facilities that are archaeologically attested in the city (cat. no. 11; for the other three, see cat. nos. 12–14; these and all following catalogue numbers refer to the Catalog in Lucore and Trümper 2013). Athens is exceptional for the number of baths it accommodated (two others are known from textual sources), and it is also exceptional for the extent of the literary and epigraphic sources that help to fill out the picture of bathing in the city (Trümper 2013: 37–40). All of this suggests that Athens was the innovator in the appearance of the balaneion, as it was for so much else in the fifth century BCE. All but one of the Athenian baths were located outside the city walls and away from the center of life, providing the archaeological evidence that coincides with the questionable early reputation of baths themselves. Aristophanes targets specifically the warm water bathing available in public baths as detrimental to the character of male citizens, in contrast to the simple cold‐water ablutions that were the standard regimen of the gymnasium. He furthermore condemns the idle pleasures of public baths that seduced young men away from the physical rigors of the palaistra (Ar. Nub. 1046, 1053–1054).

Although this evidence is limited to Athens, it is reasonable to believe that initially there would have been some general resistance to the more comfortable bathing amenities and facilities provided by the balaneion, given Greek society’s emphasis on the discipline of instilling masculine virtues. Gradual acceptance accounts for the modest number of public baths known throughout the Greek world, datable to the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, compared to the proliferation of examples in the Hellenistic period, a time when Greek societies increasingly refined their urban environments to reflect developing standards of comfort and individual well‐being. In the Hellenistic period, in contrast to the earlier evidence from Athens, Greek baths were normally intra‐urban constructions, often situated in very prominent and highly accessible settings, not simply a sign of their acceptance but more significantly an indication of their central importance to urban life.

Modern scholarship agrees that Greek public baths are defined by the presence of one or more rooms in the building that are usually, but not always, circular in plan (tholos). These spaces were equipped with individual hip‐bathtubs, either of masonry construction, or “portable” and made of terracotta, sometimes stone, in which patrons sat while hot or cold water was poured over them to provide a seated shower‐like bath. The Dipylon Baths, and the other known establishments in Athens, are incompletely excavated or only partially preserved, but, while the full extent of their plan and features is unknown, the defining tholos with hip‐bathtubs is clearly identifiable. For the Dipylon Baths, water was apparently supplied by a nearby well and was heated over a furnace adjacent to the tholos, from where it was transported manually to the bathing room. Portable braziers probably provided heat in the room during cold weather. A system of drains controlled the evacuation of used water from the interior to the exterior of the building. Additional rooms include the service area of the furnace and an adjacent space possibly intended for patrons to change in or to await their turn for a bath. From their first appearance, then, Greek baths include all the features necessary to provide a simple form of cleansing bathing in a type of space (round) most suitable to controlling the warm and moist environment.

Two additional bathing establishments in Athens, the Baths outside the Piraeus Gate (cat. no. 12) and the Baths of Diochares (cat. no. 13) were constructed possibly in the fourth century BCE, but, because of their incomplete state of excavation, they do not provide sufficient evidence to determine how baths in Athens developed after their first appearance. The larger size of the tholos bathing spaces of these two buildings does reflect, however, a growth in popularity and use, and decorated floors attest to a concern for aesthetic embellishment.

Until later baths of the Hellenistic period were designed to include innovative, alternative forms of relaxing bathing, plans of public baths were conceived around the principal feature of the room with hip‐bathtubs. Some complexes included two tholoi for tub bathing, a feature generally explained as indication of the separation of different user groups, most notably women and men. The majority of such examples are found in Ptolemaic Egypt, and therefore might reflect more consistent local bathing customs of segregation. Alternatively, the presence of two tholoi in the same complex could be explained as a means of doubling the available bathing space. The rooms surrounding the bathing spaces functioned as entrance/reception areas, waiting/changing spaces, and service areas related to the function and maintenance of the facilities. Comparison of the Athenian plans and those of other Classical period bathing complexes, for example at Olympia (cat. no. 23), Piraeus/Serangeion (cat. no. 28), Hephaistia (cat. no. 21), Kolophon (cat. no. 30), and Marseille (cat. no. 4), shows that, although the cleansing form of bathing itself was uniform, designs and layouts varied, and individual Greek communities adapted the designs to suit their particular needs.

The baths at Olympia (cat. nos. 23–25) are frequently cited in discussions of ancient baths because of the long history of bathing at the sanctuary. In a sequence of renovations undertaken after the initial construction around 400 BCE of the Older Sitz‐Bath (cat. no. 23), the facilities were developed to accommodate greater numbers of bathers and to provide more extensive heating systems for both water and additional heated bathing forms (Younger Sitz‐Bath (cat. no. 24); Late Hellenistic Baths (cat. no. 25)), thereby reflecting the general trend of renovating and updating facilities in public baths. Very few sanctuaries provided independent bathing establishments, and it is not surprising that the first to do so was the preeminent Panhellenic sanctuary of the Greek world. Baths located in or in proximity to sanctuaries generally have been understood as facilities used for cultic or ritual purposes, but there is no evidence to confirm this identification (Ginouvès 1962: 230–428; Trümper 2013: 52–62). The shared features of these baths and those of balaneia in urban environments indicate instead that they were provided as amenities for visitors to sanctuaries who increasingly would have been accustomed to such luxuries at home. At Olympia, where the crowds of Panhellenic visitors were numerous, use of the baths was probably limited to magistrates and elite visitors, and possibly athletes too, who could have enjoyed an alternative to their athletic facilities in Elis.

After first appearing in Athens, and although initially not numerous, public baths gradually spread outside Athens: to Piraeus, Corinth (cat. no. 15), and Ambracia (cat. no. 10); and to other areas of the Greek world, from Marseille in the northwest to the Ionian city of Kolophon. Greek public baths spread as well to North Africa, especially, later, to Egypt. Early plans vary, and except for the custom itself of taking a bath in public in a dedicated space equipped with hip‐bathtubs for individual cleansing bathing, no defining Athenian influence is discernible. Thermal architecture was not bound by the same rules as civic and religious buildings, thus providing designers and builders with the freedom to adapt and develop baths according to local needs, taste, and resources. Because bathing as a profane activity and the architecture that accommodated the practice were unrestrained by tradition, Greek baths furthermore provided the rationale for remarkable innovations in design, construction, and technology that characterize Greek public baths at the high point of their development (Lucore 2016, forthcoming). The invention and development of more complex heating systems constituted the technology most essential to promoting the rise of luxury bathing, and the combined evidence is interesting for what it reveals of the different approaches that Greeks in various areas of the Mediterranean took to this new aspect of their bathing experience. Greek baths in their entirety were anything but homogeneous.

Western Greek Baths

By the late fourth century BCE, the balaneion had made its way to Greek Sicily and South Italy (Lucore 2013a). When Gela was refounded by Timoleon in 338 BCE, the city was repopulated and developed to include a new habitation zone where a bathing complex (cat. no. 2), the earliest known in Sicily, was constructed before the end of the century as an amenity for the citizens of the new city. In 2012, a second bathing complex was discovered in the same habitation area of Gela, and it is provisionally dated to the late fourth–early third century BCE. Awaiting complete excavation and publication, preliminary reports (La Sicilia, June 23, 2013) suggest it is similar to the previously discovered baths at Gela and includes features that also link this new complex to mainland traditions. Hence it appears that the balaneion was imported to Sicily, along with the population of new citizens from the Greek mainland. The original plan of the Gela bath included one rectangular room for individual hip‐bathtub cleansing bathing, instead of the standard tholos. A second bathing room, installed in a later renovation, followed the tholos design, which was then used exclusively in all subsequent Sicilian baths. The original configuration was apparently influenced by the earlier bathing establishment at Olympia, the sanctuary very familiar to Sicilian Greeks with their longstanding tradition of participation in the Panhellenic games. The Older Sitz‐Bath at Olympia was equipped with only one rectangular room for bathing, and in both complexes the hip‐bathtubs were of similar masonry construction and not the portable terracotta tubs that were the standard in tholoi in all other Sicilian baths.

Greek baths in Sicily constitute a crucial body of evidence, with secure dates and well‐preserved remains that allow for a vivid reconstruction of the innovative and experimental nature of the balaneion as it was distinctly developed in the Greek West. Even in its incompletely excavated state, the bath complex at Gela is revealing and important for providing the earliest furnace/hypocaust system known from Greek baths anywhere in the Mediterranean, thanks to the terminus post quem of 282 BCE, the date of the destruction of the city. Greek hypocaust/furnace systems are essentially large pits cut into the ground, the walls of which are then lined with small pieces of tile. In this chapter, “furnace” is the term used to refer to the large heating installations, and “hypocaust” is used for the small heating channels constructed below the communal immersion pools in Greek baths. This new and advanced heating system was installed when the original complex was renovated to include the second bathing room, clearly to provide greater amounts of hot water for the expanded facilities. The unusual plan of the furnace at Gela, along with other evidence of underfloor heating channels, suggests that additional heated spaces or heated forms of bathing might have been part of the original plan. Without further research on the building, a reliable reconstruction of the heating system and related features is not possible; yet what the evidence does make clear is that as soon as Sicilian Greeks were introduced to public bathing facilities, they modified the plan to include a more extensive heating system that revolutionized the baths themselves to accommodate desired new forms of bathing.

The other known Sicilian Greek bathing complexes are found at Syracuse (cat. no.8), Megara Hyblaia (cat. no. 5), and Morgantina (Figure 23.1; cat. nos. 6, 7); all are dated to around the middle of the third century BCE, and close similarities of their plans and features indicate a common source, most likely Syracuse (Lucore 2009; 2013a; 2013b; forthcoming).

Floor plan of Morgantina, North Baths. — **Figure 23.1** North Baths, Morgantina, plan.
*Source*: E. Thorkildsen of the American Excavations at Morgantina.

The best preserved of the Sicilian baths are the North Baths at Morgantina, and they provide a vivid picture of the central importance placed on bathing and the architecture of bathing in the kingdom of Syracuse under Hieron II. As the best preserved, technologically most innovative, and most extensively decorated public bath known throughout the Greek world, the North Baths provide the most complete picture of the full development of Greek baths. The 11‐room complex features (as numbered in Figure 23.1) reception (6) and waiting and changing areas (apodyteria: 1, 2, 7), in addition to the relaxing (8) and bathing spaces themselves (5, 9), and the associated service areas: a well (3), the central furnace (4), a large reservoir (10), and the service corridor (11). The plan includes the characteristic tholos (5), originally equipped with 15–17 portable terracotta hip‐bathtubs for simple cleansing bathing.

Unprecedented, however, is the division of the building into two discrete and clearly defined zones: one for hygienic bathing and the other to accommodate a revolutionary new form of leisure bathing in a communal hot‐water immersion pool (north end room 9). Each bathing area had a separate entrance from the streets (from Stenopos West 14 into room 1; from Plateia B into room 7, possibly also room 6). The two zones are situated on either side of a large furnace that heated the water for use in the tholos and that would have provided ambient heat to surrounding spaces. The firing chamber (praefurnium) of the furnace is located at the east end. A series of platforms supported the water vessels of the boiler system, while the central channel between the platforms helped to draw hot air more efficiently towards the flue at the west end. The construction of the top of the furnace would have prevented access from room 5 to room 8, and vice versa, effectively dividing the building into two separate zones and thereby allowing the possibility of restricting bathing, and segregating bathers according to gender, social class, or other criteria.

The traditional Greek form of bathing in individual hip‐bathtubs was certainly a communal experience, considering the intimate side‐by‐side spacing of the tubs and the normally modest size of the bathing rooms. But the intimacy of soaking in the same pool of warm water with a small group of patrons, and within a large and well‐appointed space, provided a very different experience, with the emphasis on relaxing and socializing in a leisurely manner, and not simply on washing oneself. The first appearance in Sicilian Greek baths of a relaxing form of bathing dependent on ample supplies of hot water could have been influenced by already established customs of frequenting thermal springs, a natural resource that was (and still is) abundant in Sicily, including in the eastern part of the island dominated by Mt. Etna. The appearance of this novel feature, however, is more accurately explained as a conscious decision at this time to commit considerable economic, design, and technological resources to further develop and distinctly enhance bathing culture as a sophisticated element of a well‐appointed city.

Water for the immersion pool was first heated over the furnace before being transported to fill the pool. A small hypocaust channel runs under the floor of the pool, from the firing chamber at the west end to the flue at the east, which helped to keep the water warm, but it was the installation of an early form of testudo that ensured a steady comfortable temperature of the water throughout the working day (Figure 23.2). The testudo, mentioned by Vitruvius (De arch. 5.10.1), is made of bronze and consists of a half cylinder set on a pan, closed at one end and open at the end that is fitted against an arched opening in the wall of the immersion pool to allow the testudo to fill with water from the pool. Lead was used as a seal between the bronze and the masonry. The testudo is placed over the open fire of the hearth on the opposite side of the pool wall, and by a process of convection the heated water is circulated back into the pool, thereby maintaining a steady temperature of the water. This is the earliest known example of this ingenious device, which, until the discovery at Morgantina, was known only in Roman baths. Water throughout the North Baths was controlled by an extensive system of supply and drainage within the complex, which connected to a central drainage system at the exterior of the building that appears to have been designed to recycle used water for use in nearby fields and groves. The opus signinum floors of all the bathing rooms in the building provided a water resistant surface appropriate for the wet environment.

Photo of the view from east to room 9 and tholos (5) at Morgantina, North Baths depicting room 9 immersion pool on the right with opening on the west wall of the pool and ancient debris. — **Figure 23.2** North Baths, Morgantina, view from east to room 9 and *tholos* (5); room 9 immersion pool at right, with opening in west wall of pool that resulted when metal *testudo* was removed in antiquity; opening filled with ancient debris.
*Source*: Sandra K. Lucore.

Most Greek baths preserve little evidence of their original decorative programs, except for floors in many cases, but in this instance, too, the North Baths are exceptional. The opus signinum floors of all public spaces are decorated and hierarchically differentiated with tesserae inlay, including opus tessellatum. Walls are painted, extensive moldings are applied, and painted figural friezes give added emphasis to the two main bathing rooms themselves (Rooms 5, 9) (Figure 23.3).

Sketch of the elevation of the north end of room 9 at Morgantina, North Baths depicting a Doric column supporting the entablature with mixed Doric and Ionic frieze over the immersion pool. — **Figure 23.3** North Baths, Morgantina, elevation of north end of room 9, with Doric column supporting entablature with mixed Doric and Ionic frieze over the immersion pool.
*Source*: E. Thorkildsen.

Most remarkable, however, is the dome over the tholos (Figure 23.1: 5) and the two barrel vaulted rooms (Figure 23.1: 8, 9), constructed of interconnecting hollow terracotta tubes (Figure 23.3). These are among the earliest existing evidence of above‐ground vaulting, a technology that current evidence indicates was invented for use in baths. The unprecedented appearance of this bold and original form of construction was very possibly influenced by the work of Archimedes, and it was certainly a product of the lively culture of science and technology that characterized Syracuse under Hieron II in the third century BCE (Lucore 2009, 2013a, 2013b, and forthcoming; Napolitani and Saito 2013). Evidence exists to indicate the likely presence of domes and vaults in the other known baths of Hieron’s kingdom (e.g., Syracuse and Megara Hyblaia), and the advent of this ingenious form of roofing alone calls for a new chapter in the history of Greek architecture.

Bathing complexes similar to those in Sicily appear in South Italy also in the third century BCE, at Caulonia (cat. no. 1), Locri (cat. no. 3), and Velia (cat. no. 9), and together these establishments, with their emphasis on heating systems and communal leisure bathing in heated pools, constitute a significant source of influence on the earliest Roman baths (e.g., Fregellae, see Tsiolis 2013).

Greek Baths in Egypt

In the wake of Alexander and the settling of the Ptolemies in Egypt, Greek public baths as well were readily established in Alexandria and in towns in the Delta and Fayum. Recent excavations and research have revealed that about half of all known Greek or Greek‐style baths are found in Egypt, a remarkable circumstance accounted for by the exceptional longevity of this type of bath as late as into the Roman imperial period, when Greek style baths existed alongside Roman establishments. Dating is a critical problem for the study of Greek baths in general, and even more so for baths in Egypt, although recent excavations and research are providing more reliable chronologies. It is clear, nonetheless, that once introduced to Egypt, the traditional Greek bath with its emphasis on cleansing bathing was modified and adapted to suit local conditions.

The baths at Schedia (cat. no. 63), located southeast of Alexandria, were built in the second half of the third century BCE (Bergmann and Heinzelmann 2009). In the first phase, the building consisted of a waiting/changing room with two benches and two tholoi of equal size, each equipped with 15 constructed hip‐bathtubs, that were located on opposite sides of a central corridor. The use of corridors as the central organizing element of the bathing facilities is a defining characteristic of Egyptian Greek baths (Trümper 2009; Lucore and Trümper 2013: 269–334). The absence of evidence of a furnace or boiler indicates that water for bathing was heated on portable braziers. Although a few examples of double tholoi baths exist elsewhere in the Mediterranean, this plan is particularly popular in Egypt. Papyri from the third century BCE onward confirm the existence of separate tholoi for women and men (Lukaszewicz 1986: 66ff.; Meyer 1992: 51–60); and the location of the entrances to the tholoi at Schedia, which prevented direct access from one to the other, is evidence of this division. In subsequent remodeling two individual immersion bathtubs were installed in a room added on to the original building, evidence that Egypt too followed the trend in the Hellenistic period toward greater emphasis on leisure bathing.

Yet instead of relaxing together in heated communal immersion pools, as was the custom in the Greek West, bathers in Egypt preferred to relax separately, even if in close proximity to other bathers. The immersion tubs were not equipped with a heating system, and thus hot water for relaxation bathing was supplied manually from nearby braziers. This characteristic rejection of communal bathing in Egypt has been attributed to an Egyptian culture of “excessive” purification, as recorded by Herodotus, and a related desire to avoid unwholesome direct contact with others (Fournet and Redon 2009: 127). It is also evidence of the remarkable degree to which the integration of Greek baths into the local culture responded to local customs from the outset.

Until recently, baths in Egypt were further distinguished by the absence of developed heating systems. Recently excavated evidence from the bathing complex at Taposiris Magna (Figure 23.4; cat. no. 65) has brought about a reassessment, however, which defines a recognizable Egyptian system that was developed and became popular in the second century BCE (Fournet and Redon 2013).

Floor plan of Taposiris Magna, Baths on top with legends depicted at the bottom. — **Figure 23.4** Baths, Taposiris Magna, plan.
*Source*: T. Fournet.

The first phase of the baths at Taposiris Magna is dated to sometime before the middle of the second century BCE. The building is largely cut into the bedrock, with additional rooms constructed in the adjacent area to the south. The plan, as shown in Figure 23.4, is of the standard type and similar to that of the Schedia baths, with two tholoi (1, 2) of equal size, each with 16 constructed hip‐bathtubs, and each with a separate entrance off a central corridor (3). This same hall gives access to a room (7) with two individual immersion tubs for relaxing bathing, apparently original features and not later additions, as at Schedia.

Sometime at the end of the second to the beginning of the first century BCE, a renovation of the complex took place characterized by the installation of an extensive heating system (3bis in Figure 23.4). This provided radiant heat for surrounding spaces, hot water for bathing, and, unique to Greek baths in Egypt, a heated wall in the room with the immersion tubs that ensured a higher level of comfort for the leisure bathing the room was designed for. The wall heating system is described by the excavators as “proto‐tubuli,” and it is thus related to similar wall heating devices that were developed in Roman contexts in the western Mediterranean in the second and first centuries BCE. Western Greek baths, with their large furnaces and their hypocaust systems for heating collective hot water pools, are recognized for the influence these features (among others) had on early Roman baths. Now, with the discovery of a distinctly Egyptian form of heating, including heated wall surfaces, Greek baths in Egypt contribute as well to this much debated topic of the influences involved in the transition from Greek to early Roman baths.

Later Hellenistic Baths in Greece

Bathing establishments in the eastern Mediterranean of the second century BCE have been identified as a discrete group because of two new forms of leisure bathing that were adapted to the traditional plan: individual immersion bathtubs and a round sweat bath, both heated by hypocaust channels below (Trümper 2009: 145–149). The well‐preserved bathing complex in the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Gortys (Figure 23.5; cat. no. 20) provides the most coherent example of this eastern Mediterranean type (Ginouvès 1959). The open plan allowed patrons to circulate freely within the building and to access the bathing facilities in no prescribed order. Cleansing bathing is here clearly deemphasized, with only nine hip‐bathtubs in the tholos (G). Underfloor hypocaust channels and heating rings run throughout the center of the building providing the source of hot water for the individual immersion bathtubs (D) and the necessary heat for the round sweat bath (E). Part of the central room C was heated by the same system, thereby adding significantly to the comfort of this large space clearly meant for relaxation and other, simpler forms of bathing at the basins installed in the room. The heating channel ends below the apse of room B, a large space for patrons to wait, change, or simply relax before accessing the baths themselves. Considering the effort made at Gortys to provide hot water for cleansing and soaking, hot air for sweating, and generally ambient heat for increased comfort, the absence of communal heated pools is striking, clear indication that this form of communal bathing did not suit local practices.

Floor plan of Baths, Sanctuary of Asklepios, Gortys on top with legends at the bottom. — **Figure 23.5** Baths, Sanctuary of Asklepios, Gortys. plan.
*Source*: T. Fournet, adapted from Ginouvès 1959.

Although less well‐known than the building at Gortys, other roughly contemporaneous baths in Greece can be identified as sharing similar features. The second‐century BCE Late Hellenistic Baths at Olympia (cat. no. 25) included a tholos with 13 hip‐bathtubs and a leisure bathing area with two individual immersion bathtubs and a round sweat bath, both heated by a hypocaust channel below, as at Gortys. Because of the incomplete state of the visible remains, it is impossible to know what other spaces and amenities made up the original complex, including the possibility of more heated rooms. In a subsequent renovation of the building in the following century, the original heating system and the baths it heated apparently went out of use. At the same time, a new underfloor heating system was installed, but too little remains to indicate what form this took and what type of bathing spaces it might have heated. At Gortys, the baths continued in use until the first century CE, with modifications that did not affect the major bathing facilities. The suppression of the two defining relaxing bathing forms at Olympia in the previous century might indicate that there was less rather than more uniformity in the design and features of late Hellenistic baths in Greece, although with only partial remains by which to judge the question remains open.

Other less well‐known bath buildings of roughly the same period provide further evidence of this regional type (Trümper 2009: 145–149). Many of these examples are incompletely, or now not at all, preserved, or are subject to other conditions that make reliable reconstructions difficult, if not impossible. The accepted reconstruction of the double tholoi bathing complex at Eretria (cat. no. 19), for example, includes individual immersion bathtubs and a round sweat bath, but the date of construction is disputed, whether fourth century BCE or second century BCE (Lucore and Trümper 2013: 289).

A simplified variation on this eastern Mediterranean type of bath is seen in the complex at Oiniadai (cat. no. 22), where a remodeling that took place probably in the second century BCE resulted in the conversion of the smaller tholos into an unheated (except by portable braziers) sweat bath, and in the installation of a small pool for individual or collective soaking in cold water. Further variations on this type of plan are found in a recently discovered bath at Pella (cat. no. 26), where a second‐century BCE refurbishing updated the traditional form of bathing in hip‐bathtubs with the addition of a sweat bath, a possible large cold‐water immersion pool, and a hypocaust system that heated a possible collective immersion pool and two adjacent spaces. At this point, the variations begin to blur the definition of the balaneion as it has been identified in this part of the Greek world. Yet, undoubtedly, future research and discoveries will help to clarify these later developments in Greek baths. What is now very clear, however, is that Greek baths flourished throughout the Mediterranean, especially in the Hellenistic period, and, not surprisingly, in response to the particular cultural conditions and practices that characterized the different regions of the Greek world. Further excavation, research, and studies that address the full complexity of the phenomenon of Greek baths will result in a more comprehensive reassessment of Greek architecture itself, especially in the Hellenistic period, and of the social developments behind the rise in bathing culture in the varied societies served by these remarkable establishments.

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