Roman Bath Culture

The purpose of this paper is to systematically probe into the history of bath in the ancient Rome. As one of the Roman favorite lifestyles, bath has a profound effect on the society, economics, and culture of the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. The study of it can help us to have a further understanding of the social characteristics of the ancient Rome and the decay of the Rome Empire. Firstly, this paper tends to investigate the characteristics of the piscinas and people's way of bathing in the early Rome Republic, pointing out that the simplicity of the Roman piscinas and way of bathing in this period attribute to the specific historic conditions at that time. Secondly, this paper puts an emphasis on the changes of the Roman piscinas and way of bathing from the late Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, indicating that the main characteristics of this period is that the construction of large-scale and luxurious bathhouses were quite popular with various strata in Roman society and the process of bathing was quite cockamamie and luxurious. Later, this paper, based on the analysis of the reason of this change, points out that the inburst of abundant wealth and the development of slavery is the internal ultimate cause of this change. And the spreading of Oriental culture and the relief of exotic threat is the external cause. Finally, this paper makes an attempt to probe into the influence of this change. On the one hand, it is the symbol of the improvement of Roman civilization, which not only improves Roman physique but also accelerates the development of social science and technology in Rome at that time. On the other hand, this change also wastes tremendous social wealth, accelerating the decay of morality in Roman society at that time.