Popilio Thermal Baths

It is named after an inscription that recalls "Marcus Popilius Onyx made it out of his money". In fact, this personage enlarged an earlier building, providing it with a new wardrobe-frigidarium, where the inscription was housed.

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Marcus Popilius Onyx was a freedman, a slave who was granted freedom by his owner. We know of his condition because, in an inscription preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia - Sant Pius V, where it is mentioned that he also paid for a temple in the city, it is stated that he belonged to a priestly college (the seviros augustales), a position reserved for freedmen.....

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... but also his cog-nomen Onyx, of Greek origin, gives away his status. It does not mean that he was Greek, but that it was customary for owners to give their slaves a Hellenic name, as it conferred more value on them.

The Baths of Popilius are located halfway between the Republican baths (2nd-1st century BC), in which the heated areas are limited to the bathtub, and the baths of the Imperial period, in which the heating system is limited to the bathtub, and the baths of the Imperial period, in which the heating system is limited to the bathtub and the baths of the Imperial period. hypocausta is developed and affects the caldarium and the tepidarium. We could say, then, that, given the date of construction (in the time of Augustus or Tiberius) it is an "ancient" building, since at that time the baths had already incorporated a modern and improved construction typology, which would surpass the uncomfortable thermal buildings described by Seneca: "...".today of bathrooms that are not arranged in such a way that large windows do not receive the sun all day long.... is said to be a nest for cockroaches".

Image: MARQ