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.
Buried under tons of ash, rock and lava fragments that would ultimately help to preserve the site, Pompeii has become a symbol of nature’s power and the fragility of humankind. Since 1748, when the first excavations began, the site has offered generations of archaeologists and historians insight into the denizens of this ancient city, from what they ate to the tools they used, and how they lived depending on their social class.
In this case, archaeologists believe that the owner of the villa was part of the city’s elite. As such, he would have used his home spa to impress his guests, especially those who came from less affluent classes.
People would have been invited to enjoy the baths for various reasons, Dr. Zuchtriegel said. Perhaps the owner of the villa wanted to secure votes for himself or his cronies, or to seal business deals, or “just to show off” his social status, he said. Or the owner may have been behaving the way a “C.E.O. of an important company” might, creating what we would call today a team building exercise, Dr. Zuchtriegel said in a telephone interview.
The dip-and-dine evenings would have been especially appreciated in winter, he added.
“We often think of the Roman world as a sunny place,” Dr. Zuchtriegel said, where “people ran around in sandals and short tunics. But of course they had winter, too.” So, going to the baths often meant “warming up on a cold winter day,” he added.
Once the area has been restored, it will be opened to the public. But Dr. Zuchtriegel said excavation work on the villa would not go much further.
Seeing the partial excavation is a bit like reading a book halfway, he said, adding, “We want to know the whole story.” But there were already so many excavated areas of Pompeii that had to be “protected and preserved,” Dr. Zuchtriegel said, that it could be irresponsible to undertake new projects “without a broader, broader reflection.”
“Every time we make these decisions, we really try to ponder and evaluate very carefully whether or not to carry out further excavations,” he said.
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