Why did Romans like baths so much?

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Public baths were very popular in Ancient Rome, and were a busy, noisy and lively meeting place for the Romans. Ancient Rome had hundreds of these baths where Roman citizens could bathe, have their hair cut, exercise in the gymnasium, read at the bath's library, and even grab a snack. The Ancient Romans would have had to pay an admission charge to enter the baths, but the entry fee to the baths was low so even the poor of Ancient Rome could visit them.

A Roman visiting the baths to bathe would have had to pass through several baths in succession: first, hot and dry; second, warm and steamy, and third, a cold plunge in the 'frigidarium'.

Slaves were not allowed to visit the baths themselves, but they were often taken in by their masters to help them with the bath, for example by rubbing their backs. Roman men and women would try to visit the baths at least once every day, but they had to visit the baths at different times during the day. Children were not allowed to use the baths.

By the way, the Ancient Romans did not use soap! Instead they rubbed oil into their skin and then scraped it off with a metal scraper, called a strigil; this removed the dirt, dead skin and sweat from their bodies and left them clean.



Partly adapted from http://www.hadrians.com/, 2001 · Level: B1

COMPREHENSION
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• True or False?
  
  1. Roman citizens enjoyed having a bath.
  2. Public baths were a quiet place.
  3. Romans could do many activities at the bath.
  4. The frigidarium was the first bath in the bathing process.
  5. Children didn't have to pay to enter the baths.
  
  
• Questions
  
  1. Did the Romans had to pay a lot to have acces to the baths?
  2. How many baths did a person had to go through when bathing?
  3. Who helped the Romans with their bathing?
  4. What did Romans use to clean their bodies?
  5. Which things did the strigil help to eliminate?
  
  
• Find in the text
  
  1. Very old (adj)
  2. Take something strongly (v)
  3. A person who had no freedom (n)
  4. A substance we use to clean the body (n)
  5. Remove something off somewhere (v)