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After two days of bathing in a Spa in La Garriga, less than an hour from Barcelona, ??I can affirm that it is not only a therapy for the body but also for the mind.
That relaxation, letting myself be carried away by a kind of slow dance while moving in the water, made me understand that this liquid, so important in our lives, is the first element that the body needs to function properly, although I admit that I am a person It’s hard for me to take it regularly during the day.
I prefer to drink some other drink instead and, at best, I force myself to do so in order to stay hydrated when my skin suffers from high temperatures, exposure to the sun, the dryness of the air conditioning, the salt of the sea water… Apart from that Lacking that good daily habit, I try to achieve good skin health by taking hot and cold showers to activate circulation and tone the body
So, going back to the time of the Romans, I have identified with them by dedicating this time to one of the most common daily activities in their culture. That exercise that they carried out in a communal way was not exclusive to a small social group, but was practiced in a wide variety of social classes.
As the Roman Empire expanded, the idea of ??the public bath spread to all parts of the Mediterranean and to the European and North African regions. With the construction of the aqueducts, the Romans had enough water not only for domestic, agricultural and industrial uses, but also for their leisure activities.
The rooms where I was bathing had different sizes, arrangement and decoration. One of them consisted of three pools: the largest, which the Romans called the tepidarium (temperate bath), the smallest the frigidarium (cold bath) and finally the caldarium (hot bath) where I was able to enjoy, together with people with those for which I chose this thermal travel option, one of those contraptions that we sensed could help relieve tension and activate circulation.
There was a time when the passage of cold water at a high temperature produced an itching sensation in the lower part of the body, feeling, after a while, that it was something beneficial, especially for those of us who have circulation problems.
What I was really convinced of is that I want to repeat this very pleasant and relaxing experience, which is also useful to break the routine, recharge energy and promote a stress-free interior.
And continuing with the Romans, Adriano, one of those considered “good emperors” and a person close to his people, used to go to the public baths as one more citizen and an anecdote is told about it that I will reproduce:
He surpassed all kings for his gifts. He bathed frequently and with everyone. A funny anecdote that emerged in the bathrooms became famous for this. On one occasion he saw a certain veteran soldier, whom he had met in the army, rubbing his back and the rest of his body on the wall. He asked him why he scratched himself on the marble. When he heard that he was doing this precisely because he had no slave, he gave him a few slaves at all his expense. But when the next day many old people were rubbing against the wall to provoke the generosity of the emperor, he sent for them and told them to rub each other.
The text is better understood if it is known that the ancient baths or baths were also a gym and a place for massages that were applied with oil. The layer of oil plus dead skin cells were removed with a scraper or scraper called in Latin “strigilis”, shaped like a small curved knife.
The soldier in the anecdote, without a slave to pass him the strigil (term in Spanish) scratched himself on the wall. So frequent was the use of it that he was immortalized in the statue of Lysippos known as “the Scraper”.
These practices were very important in the Roman world, to the point that there is a phrase where it is said that Rome became a model for the other cities of the Empire, due to its basilicas, temples and baths.
