The Baths of Caracalla

(The Baths of Caracalla)

Talk about scale: judging by the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, you'd swear giants used to live in Rome. Or Titans. The baths are about the size of a modern waterpark (think 'Wet 'n Wild' on the Gold Coast). It's no coincidence that Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound here - and it proved an enjoyable imaginative exercise to try to guess which block of marble the Romantic poet sat on to do so.

The Roman Forum is impressive, but I realise now it was but one of many major centers of public life in Ancient Rome. The ruins of Ostia Antica, the sea-port town are much larger (and you're free to run around through the ancient city, playing ancient traders); the Palatine hill is easily as conducive to the imagination; what's left of the Villa Adriana (Hadrian's Villa) in Tivoli suggests that the emperor's abode was the size of maybe four Westfield shopping centres; and from our recent visit to the Baths of Caracalla, one thing's for certain: they don't make baths like they used to.

(An artist's impression of the baths... see those specks in the water?)

Why so large? Well, of course you need your cold baths, your hot baths, and your luke warm baths; and what bathing complex would be complete without a gymnasium to practise wrestling and boxing, a public library and a place for gigolos and prosititutes to ply their trade? There are a few small areas where the mosaic floors and walls have been renovated (one imagines), though the bronze mirrors that aided in the heating process, and the colossal statue of Hercules are no longer about (the latter, I believe, is in the museum at Napoli). The whole thing - along with the rest of the city - went belly up when the Goths invaded and cut the aquaducts.

With summer in full swing - though it's yet to pack a serious punch - it would be calming to know that there was a public bath (or water park) this central. In Australia, the public swimming pool - like the public BBQ - is comparatively ubiquitous. Here in Rome, for all its stupendously beautiful fountains, and its countless drinking fountains (fontanelle), there's noe one public swimming pool to speak of - which is arguably why the locals head to the hills in July and August.