Restoration of Roman tunnels gives a slave's eye view of Caracalla baths
In the middle of a patch of grass amid the ruins of the Caracalla baths in
Rome, there is a staircase that takes visitors deep into the ground to a world resembling the lair of a James Bond villain.
"This
is our glimpse at maniacal Roman perfection, at incredible hydraulic
technology," said archaeologist Marina Piranomonte, as she descended and
waved at a network of high and wide tunnels, each measuring six metres
(20ft) high and wide, snaking off into the darkness.
The baths, on
a sprawling site slightly off the beaten track in a city crowded by
monumental attractions, hold their own against the nearby Circus
Maximus, its shattered walls standing 37 metres high, recalling its
second century heyday when it pulled in 5,000 bathers a day.
But
for Piranomonte, it is the three kilometre, triple-tiered grid of
tunnels that lies under the site – the first tract of which will open
for visits this month – which really shows off how seriously the Romans
took their sauna time.
An army of hundreds of slaves kept firmly
out of sight of bathers scurried along the tunnels feeding 50 ovens with
tonnes of wood a day to heat water surging through a network of
underground channels that arrived via aqueduct from a source 100km away.
Below that, massive sewers, which are now being explored by
speleologists, flowed towards the Tiber.
"It's the dimension and
the organisation that amazes – there is no spa as big as this anywhere
in the world today," said Piranomonte.
Upstairs, Romans would kick
off a visit with a session in one of two gyms, then enjoy a sauna and a
spell in a hot tub in the 36 metre (120ft) wide, domed
caldarium – slightly smaller than Rome's Pantheon. The
tepidarium then beckoned, before a cool down in the
frigidarium, a space so elegant its design and dimensions were copied at Union station in Chicago.
"The
side room at the station where the shoot-out on the stairs is set in
The Untouchables actually contained a large cold bath here," said
Piranomonte.
To complete the experience, a pool 50 metres long and
a garden complete with lending library flanked the baths. "The emperor
Caracalla was cruel, but he built beautiful things," said Piranomonte,
who is charged with the site's upkeep.
A thousand years after it
was built, the ghostly ruins of the massive buildings were overgrown and
abandoned. "Because it was on the outskirts of Rome, no one built on
top of it and the tunnels were simply forgotten, probably sealed by
undergrowth," she added.
Following their rediscovery at the end of
the 19th century, Mussolini strengthened the tunnels when he decided to
stage operas amid the ruins overhead, but Piranomonte was less than
impressed with his handiwork.
"Look at the rain water trickling
through; that's Mussolini's bricks leaking while ours are fine," she
said, pointing to the perfect Roman brick arches disappearing into the
gloom.
The reopening of a short stretch of the tunnels on 21
December caps a clean-up of the baths. The opera, which used the remains
of the
caldarium for a stage and kept a stage-set workshop in one of the saunas, has been shunted back into the gardens.
A
€450,000 (£360,000) restoration programme also resulted in the
reopening this month of an underground temple at the baths, linked to
the tunnel network and dedicated to Mithras, the deity whose popularity
soared just before Christianity took hold in the Roman empire. Entering
the temple, which boasts black-and-white floor mosaic and is the biggest
of its kind in the Roman empire, Piranomonte points to a frieze of
Mithras holding a globe but missing his head. "Probably taken off by the
Christians," she said.
A chamber flanked by space for spreading
out on during banquets centres on a large pit where a drugged bull was
placed on a metal grill and butchered. Below the grill is a small niche
where an initiate to the cult would crawl to be drenched with litres of
bull's blood. "It was a cruel cult, for men only, so you understand why
Christianity got the upper hand," said Piranomonte.
Emerging from
the temple, the archaeologist turns left and pauses before what she
describes as her favourite part of the baths – an authentic Roman
roundabout. A large arch leads to the entrance of the tunnel network,
where carts carrying tonnes of logs would queue to enter to feed the
ovens. Now fully excavated and restored, the tunnel starts with a
roundabout that circles a guard's kiosk to stop traffic jam.
"A Roman spa with a roundabout," said Piranamonte, "That I find really fascinating."
