Vaison, public bathhouse of La Villasse

The public bathhouse of the La Villasse archaeological site was constructed in the second or third decade of the first century CE and included multiple rooms, likely a changing room (apodyterium), cold-water room (frigidarium), tepid-water room (tepidarium), and hot-water room (caldarium). The latter two rooms were heated by an underground hollow space filled with hot air (hypocaustum), the temperature of which was controlled by means of a wood-burning furnace bordering on the baths on the east. Just south of the bathhouse lay a large open area surrounded by porticoes which has been identified as an exercising field or palaestra; in fact, the bathhouse was entered via the northern portico of this complex. Across what was likely a street to the west of the bathhouse, in the northern part of the vast "Maison au dauphin", lay the private bathing quarters of this mansion; the two bathing complexes were likely supplied with water via the same channels.