Lifestyles of the Rich and Ancient: Some in Pompeii Even Had a Home Spa

Europe|Lifestyles of the Rich and Ancient: Some in Pompeii Even Had a Home Spa

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/world/europe/italy-archaeology-pompeii-spa.html

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Hot, warm and cold baths in a recently uncovered villa offer a new glimpse of life in the city before it was smothered by tons of volcanic fragments.

Archaeologists believe that the owner of this villa in Pompeii was part of the city’s elite.Credit…Cesare Abbate/EPA, via Shutterstock

The archaeologists who recently excavated a private bath complex in a luxurious villa in the ancient city of Pompeii are still not sure whom it may have belonged to. But they do know that the owner wanted to wow his guests.

Easily hosting 30, the full-service complex — with a calidarium, tepidarium and frigidarium, or hot, warm and cold baths — was connected to an elegantly decorated dining hall where the guests would have been wined and dined by their host after their dip.

At Pompeii, private baths of this scale appear to have been a rarity. “Not everyone had this level of luxury,” Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said on Friday.

News of the discovery was published in the online journal of the archaeological site. It is among the largest private baths to have been found at Pompeii, which was buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

The bathing complex was discovered during the excavation of one insula, the equivalent of a city block, that began in the spring of 2023 as part of a multiyear project to better preserve the ancient site. That project involves shoring up the perimeter between the excavated and unexcavated areas of the city, parts of which remain underground.

The discovery of the dining area of the villa, decorated with panels of mythological figures inspired by the Trojan War, was made public last year.


Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.


Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Comments (0)
Add Comment