The Southern Baths of Miletus. Roman Imperial Thermae and an Early Byzantine Double Bath

Abstract

The Southern Baths probably served as relatively simple thermae for a modest residential area. The baths were built at the turn of the second century A.D. (phase I). The main access seems to have been from the west through a vestibule, where coin finds probably attest to the payment of an entrance fee. The bather would then have followed a tour of at least four rooms, starting and ending in a changing room and including warm, hot and cold bathing rooms. Smaller additional rooms may have been used for various medicinal purposes. A first, late antique renovation took place in the later fourth century and appears to have been concerned primarily with strengthening the support system of the vaulting (phase II). A second, early Byzantine renovation around 500 A.D. included a new, higher floor level that responded to annual flooding due to the progressive siltation of the Maeander River (phase III). The Byzantine renovation also led to a new layout, whereby two warm bathing rooms were now closed off from each other and had separate entrances; this resulted in a double bath, probably for the simultaneous but separate bathing of men and women.