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Modern Description: The archaeological site of the Roman Baths is located inside the National Gardens and along Amalias Avenue, in the centre of Athens. The baths were built at the end of the third century AD, but the area was first inhabited in prehistory and was used as a burial ground from the Geometric period. Ancient written sources and recent excavations demonstrate that, although located outside the city walls (before these were extended under Hadrian), this idyllic site with its plentiful running waters and dense vegetation was an important place of worship for many deities. After the completion of the temple of Olympian Zeus and the construction of Hadrian's Gate, during the city's expansion under Hadrian, the area became part of the inner city, and a number of new sanctuaries, private and public buildings, and baths were constructed. The Roman Baths were built after the Heruli incursion of the late third - early fourth century, and were repaired and expanded in the fifth and sixth centuries.

The bathhouse was discovered during excavations for the construction of an airshaft for the Athens Metro. Because the bathhouse covered most of the excavated area and was very well preserved, the airshaft was moved further south so that the finds could be preserved in their original location. The bathhouse was conserved, roofed, and made accessible to the public in 2003-2004.
The Roman Baths at Zappeion cover a surface area 21 metres wide between two strong, well-built walls, which incorporate earlier architectural structures. The bathhouse, which extends towards the National Gardens in the east and below Amalias Avenue on the west, included two chambers with hypocausts, two praefurnia (furnace chambers), and nine reservoirs.
The largest chamber had fifteen cylindrical and rectangular hypocaust columns, and dividing walls. This was the caldarium, or hot bath chamber. The tepidarium, or warm bath chamber, to the north, was a long room built on seventeen marble funerary columns instead of hypocaust columns. The praefurnia were linked to the caldarium by vaulted underground passages. The hot air was channelled into three small reservoirs. Vertical openings in the walls of these reservoirs provided ventilation and allowed for the air to heat the walls. A large, rectangular, and carefully constructed reservoir with a thick layer of hydraulic mortar on the inside and marble plaques on the outside belongs to this building phase. The reservoir supplied water for two marble basins discovered in situ.

In the fifth-sixth century AD (second building phase), the fourth-century hypocaust chambers were repaired and reused, and four more reservoirs with tiled floors were added. One of the reservoirs was built underground. It had a vaulted roof with an open inlet for water and was paved with tiles. Rough sketches of humans, fish, birds, and crosses, possible traces of the reservoir's use as a refuge or martyrion, decorate its north wall. In the Byzantine period, terracotta pithoi (storage jars) for grains were built into the floor of the various chambers. Some of these pithoi have been moved to the site's south section.
[Judith Binder: Roman Mosaic and Hypocaust: Amalias Ave., opposite St Paulʼs Anglican Church: Travlos, J. 1971,181 Bath J, fig. 221 J; probably, but not certainly, belongs with the Roman peristyle complex, no. U543 above ]
Wikidata ID: Q38279567
Trismegistos Geo: 364

Info: Odysseus

(Odysseus, Greek Ministry of Culture)

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