If you close your eyes, you might smell damp stone and firewood. Ancient builders made ingenious use of bricks; beneath your feet was a hypocaust-a pizza oven for floors, if you will, keeping those delicate Roman toes toasty even in cold winters. There was a pool big enough for a handful of friends, about 3.5 by 3.8 meters, and the remains of a wall once reached four whole meters into the air. Now that’s privacy you can’t get at your local gym!
But not all was fun and relaxation. In the fourth century, disaster struck-an enormous fire swept through these rooms, the laughter and luxury replaced by the crackle and roar of flames. The baths were abandoned, left behind for centuries, almost like the world’s coldest, wettest haunted house.
Fast forward to July 21, 1882: Imagine you’re a construction worker, digging out space for a new postal building. Suddenly, your shovel hits something odd, and-voilà!-up come treasures that haven’t seen the light of day for more than a thousand years. Coins, black pottery, little metal trinkets, all whispering ancient secrets.
Archaeologists have since uncovered even more, but most of these ruins are still preserved in the very foundations and cellars of today’s municipal buildings. So next time you mail a letter nearby, remember you might just be standing over 400 Roman coins! If only they worked in the vending machines now, right?
