Baths at Ostia

Excavations at Ostia Antica have brought to light 26 bath complexes in the town. These range from large public baths, such as the Forum Baths, to smaller, often private ones, such as the small baths (Regio I, XIX, 5).

Baths in Ostia, like elsewhere in the Roman world, would have served both a hygienic and a social function. Bath construction increased after an aqueduct was built to Ostia in the early Julio-Claudian Period.

Many of the baths follow simple linear arrangements, with one room following the next, due to the density of buildings in Ostia. Only a few, like the Forum Baths or the Baths of the Swimmers, had the space to include a palaestra. Archaeologists name the bathhouses from features preserved, for example the inscription of Buticoso in building I, XIV, 8 leads to the name Bath of Buticosus or the mosaic of Neptune in building II, IV, 2 leads to the Baths of Neptune. The baths in Ostia follow the standard numbering convention, which divides the town into five regions, numbered I to V, and then identifies the individual blocks and buildings as follows: (region) I, (block) I, (building) 1.