The aqueducts … public baths and spas … Ovid’s grooming … physical methodists … Galen’s Hygiene … late antique baths

The Roman baths and aqueducts cleansed and scoured more people in western Asia than any previous civilisation – over twelve million bodies, if even only a quarter of the Imperial population lived in cities and were regular bathers; and historians have rightly viewed them as one of the linchpins of Roman life. The only viable conclusion from Roman baths is that cleanliness was an integral part of the Roman ‘civilising process’, and that an ultra-clean, well-groomed body was their badge and symbol of citizenship. But bathing was only one part of a whole regime of grooming and hygienic self-care for which expert written advice was now given by, amongst others, Ovid, Celsus and Galen. When the booming Roman economy finally fell apart in the sixth century, a great many things from this extensive body-culture were physically destroyed and could not be replaced, whilst other knowledges or lore strangely survived, or were re-fashioned.

Most ancient empires took some note of social welfare as part of their governing duties, none more so than the Greeks. The Romans had Greek hygienic statecraft directly in front of them, and were strongly inspired by the Greek concept of ‘the managed life’. The Roman state and its richer citizens also invested in social welfare projects from an early date, thereafter erratically spending (as far as we can tell) a varying proportion of gross income on an almost identical range of ‘healthy services’: pure water supplies, public baths, parks, stadiums, state-sponsored games and sports and town doctors. The Roman imperial population in and around the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa was however far larger – 46 million in 200 AD – meaning that their communal treasure chest was wider and deeper than the Greeks. Urban Roman life would have been inconceivable, and a lot more foetid and visibly filthy, without the various public baths, latrines, fountains and taps served by the Roman aqueducts.