Women's Hot Room Walls

Women

View looking at details of the wall and ceiling of the hot room (caldarium) of the women's section of the Stabian Baths.  Note the well-preserved painted fresco walls, the engaged pilasters, the bas relief on the "crown molding" where the wall joins the ceiling, and the carved plastered ceiling itself.

At the Stabian Baths at Pompeii, the women had their own section with a separate entrance, changing room, hot room, and warm room.  The rooms were smaller, but they are much better preserved than those in the men's section of the baths.


The Stabian Baths were the oldest and largest baths in Pompeii and were constructed in the second century B.C.  They included a (un)dressing room (apodyterium), a medium temperature room (tepidarium), a hot room (caldarium), and a cold room (frigidarium).  One usually proceeded through the bath in that order.  Besides these usual rooms, they included a men's and a women's sections (thus baths), a large open exercise area (palestra), and a swimming pool.

The earthquake of A.D. 62 severely damaged these baths and some areas were not in use at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius.