The Forum Baths of Pompeii, built after 80 BC, occupy a sizeable block near the town’s civic heart. They were publicly financed by local officials, a duovir and two aediles, whose names are recorded in an inscription. This was typical of Roman municipal baths, which served as both social hubs and statements of civic pride. The complex is divided into the standard sequence of rooms for men and a smaller, separate suite for women. You enter from the street into a rectangular palaestra, an open courtyard for exercise, before passing through the frigidarium (cold room), tepidarium (warm room), and caldarium (hot room). The men’s caldarium retains its original bronze brazier for heating water, and the walls still show traces of painted stucco. The women’s section is more modest, with a simpler layout and fewer decorative elements. The baths were damaged in the earthquake of AD 62 and were still being repaired when Vesuvius buried the city seventeen years later.
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