POMPEII, THE SUBURBAN BATHS

The Suburan Baths of Pompeii, dated back to the I century A.D., were used by Roman traders at their arrival to the port. The majestic thermal complex develops on two levels: at the ground floor there are several rooms accessible from the dressing room, such as the frigidarium, the cold pool decorated with a waterfall in the background, creating a great scenographic effect. Then you enter the tepidarium, an area at moderate temperature from which you access the calidarium and laconicum, the sauna. The last room is a warm pool heated with the samovar system.

The most interesting room is without any doubt the changing room with a pornographic catalogue painted on its walls, showing the services offered by the prostitutes to the clients, a sort of Roman Kamasutra with the different positions between two or more partners. The presence of these paintings has suggested that there was a brothel at the second floor of the building.

Love of the ancient Romans was quite different from ours for many aspects. Pompeii was full of erotic paintings, frescoes and mosaics inside houses and public buildings, to say nothing about the phallic symbols found along the roads or at the entrance of workshops with an apotropaic function. Sex was a normal aspect of the daily life, without taboos, while the phallus was the symbol of good luck, abundance and fertility.

Therefore, the Suburban Baths are one of the many buildings in Pompeii where you can still see original frescoes almost intact. Within the city walls there are five public baths, together with numerous private baths inside patrician houses, some of which open to the public, such as the Forum Baths and the Stabian Baths.