CILICIA AT THE CROSSROADS: TRANSFORMATIONS OF BATHS AND BATHING CULTURE IN THE ROMAN EAST

Abstract

The subject of bathing in antiquity holds a certain appeal to both the specialist and the lay person because of the warmth, richness, and immediacy of the human activities it represents. The leisurely and sensuous world of Roman baths – bathing, eating, drinking, massage, exercise, or simply the pleasure of companionship in an intimate and luxurious setting – interests and intrigues us. We are intrigued because antiquity has taken what is, to us, a basic and prosaic function – bathing – and elevated it to the level of a cultural and recreational act, a civic institution for which there is no real counterpart in modern Western civilization.