WHICH WAY TO THE BATHS? THE INTEGRATION AND URBAN CONTEXTS OF ROMAN BATHS.

Abstract

This dissertation interrogates the agency of provincial communities in the Roman Empire to shape their urban environments though the integration of non-local building types, specifically Roman-style baths. By applying an urban-studies approach to the examination of these technologically complex and socially significant building types, this study intervenes in the traditional study of Roman baths, which have primarily studied these facilities in isolation or focused exclusively on their design and layout. Instead, this dissertation explores the placement of Roman-style baths in provincial settlements, the urban contexts of their integration, and the influence that pre-existing baths and bathing culture had on the construction of Roman-style baths. Recognizing that provincial communities made deliberate choices regarding the location of Roman-style baths in their pre-existing urban framework, this dissertation explores the factors that helped dictate the placement of these bathing facilities. Rather than focus on a single region of the Roman world, this dissertation studies the placement of baths in one hundred settlements across eleven provinces that stretch from the Britannia in the west and Asia in the East. This transregional study presents a balance between exploring empire-wide trends and local practices concerning the urban context of Roman baths, as well as the relationship between the two and reveals the widespread preference for placing Roman baths in high-traffic locations, where access and visibility would be greatest. This dissertation ends with a focused examination of baths in Roman Greece and Britain to investigate how pre-existing bathing culture influenced the integration of Roman-style baths in these regions and how the preferred high-traffic locations were adapted by the local communities to accommodate these facilities. These case studies highlight the preference for these provincial communities to construct their baths afresh in new locations that best suited local needs and expectations.