Did most (urban, non-deployed) Romans have time to go to the baths, at least? I kind of figured it was universal, albeit with some kind of internal segregation like the Colosseum, but I’m realising I don’t actually know that.
The baths, sure, but bathing won’t kill lice. They can go without air for up to 10 hours. Tenacious things.
Romans would generally go to the baths daily or every other day (depending on the city/time period). Some baths were free to the public (or had hours/days that were free to the public), while others were admission by fee or connections only. I don’t think there was any segregation - no class segregation at least; gender segregation, sometimes. It varied. Often men and women would bathe together; some cities the baths would have separate rooms for men and women; and other times the baths would set aside different hours for men and women to bathe.
EDIT: Just to clarify what I meant about leisure time and ancient Rome - I don’t mean to imply working-class urban Romans had NO leisure time on a daily basis, only that comparing them to WW1 soldiers, with the mixture of military scheduling and long stretches of boredom vs. a long work day, there’s probably a broad similarity in how much ‘sit down and hunt lice’ leisure time they had.
Did most (urban, non-deployed) Romans have time to go to the baths, at least? I kind of figured it was universal, albeit with some kind of internal segregation like the Colosseum, but I’m realising I don’t actually know that.
The baths, sure, but bathing won’t kill lice. They can go without air for up to 10 hours. Tenacious things.
Romans would generally go to the baths daily or every other day (depending on the city/time period). Some baths were free to the public (or had hours/days that were free to the public), while others were admission by fee or connections only. I don’t think there was any segregation - no class segregation at least; gender segregation, sometimes. It varied. Often men and women would bathe together; some cities the baths would have separate rooms for men and women; and other times the baths would set aside different hours for men and women to bathe.
EDIT: Just to clarify what I meant about leisure time and ancient Rome - I don’t mean to imply working-class urban Romans had NO leisure time on a daily basis, only that comparing them to WW1 soldiers, with the mixture of military scheduling and long stretches of boredom vs. a long work day, there’s probably a broad similarity in how much ‘sit down and hunt lice’ leisure time they had.