The Baths
Documenting the Roman Baths of Aptera
The Roman baths of Aptera have not yet been fully studied. Their size suggests an increase in the city’s population, prosperity and a high standard of living. Partially excavated, at a more advanced stage, “Bath I” (north of the three-aisled cistern) is an example of the city’s heyday, when numerous public works were built. The interdependence of the cisterns and the two bath complexes indicates that they were designed at the same time.
Due to the multiple layers of reuse of the site after Roman times, and also to the fact that it has not been fully excavated, the picture provided by the eastern bath (Bath I) is a confusing one. Nevertheless, some firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the organisation and use of the site. Based on these, Bath I can be divided, with some certainty, into two parts: the east side, consisting of three rooms with hypocausts (A, B and E), and the west side, consisting of two rooms with bathtubs (H, I), an arched room (IΔ), a corridor (K) and three rooms to the north which have not been fully excavated (IA, IB and IΓ). The two zones are divided by three corridors (ΣΤ and ΙΕ, ΚΓ), where there were probably auxiliary rooms and praefurnia (the furnaces used to heat the hypocausts). South of the corridors is a small arched room (KA) which has not been excavated. We can assume, however, that it is part of the hot zone, like the other three rooms, as the cavities in the rubble masonry for the wall-heating pipes (tubuli or tegulae mamatae) are visible, as is the chimney duct.
North of the corridor is an almost square room with a pebble floor (Δ), faced with marble in places. Its purpose is unknown but, according to the excavators, it was not a heated room. It communicates with Room A via a double door to minimise heat loss. It had a tiled pitched roof, as we see from the tiles in the destruction layer and the trace of the roof against the wall of Room A. It may have served as an antechamber.
Room A has been fully excavated. The interior measures 4.50 x 5.00 m, without the niches. The hypocaust heating system has been revealed, with the raised floor supported on small brick pillars.
Part of an inscribed lintel, probably from the main entrance of the bath connected to the three- aisled cistern, records the name of an Athenian, probably the benefactor who funded the building’s construction:
Οὐάρειος Λούκιος Λαμπάδις Ἀθ [ην]α[ῖο]ς το βαλ[α]νεῖον [ἐπο]ίε[ι].
Varius Lucius Lampadis the Athenian built the baths.
The inscription is dated to the first half of the 1st or the early 2nd century AD.
The western bath (“Bath II”), which was probably also a public building, contained eight vaulted rooms. The excavation has not progressed enough to provide further information. It has, however, revealed the hypocaust of a room, an arched room with two bathtubs, the praefurnium, chimney ducts and other features. This bath was supplied with water from the L-shaped cistern, demonstrating the importance of these buildings to the planning of the Roman city.
The extensive destruction caused to the baths by a strong earthquake is clearly visible, particularly in the rooms of Bath I. From the information at our disposal, we know that after the first destruction of the building, around 365 AD, some of the rooms were roughly modified and reused. Although they have not been preserved to the same extent, the two baths can be viewed as a single unit in terms of the information they provide and the reconstruction possibilities. The walls of Bath II are preserved in better condition, whereas Bath I (on the east) is more poorly preserved but has a clearer ground plan, allowing more hypotheses to be made regarding its interior layout.
Bathhouse complexes were by no means rare in Crete. Baths of similar date to those of Aptera are found at Gortyn, Eleutherna, Myrtos, Makrygialos and Koufonisi.