The thermal baths, or balneum, of the Fratres Arvales consisted in one of the buildings twitch formed the Arval complex today located at Magliana Vecchia, at the foot of the sacred grove of the goddess Dia.
The magister and the other Arval brethren went to the baths of the lucus deae Diae (the grove of the goddess Dia) on the second day of the festivals dedicated to her, after having also gone to the baths in Rome the day before. The temple of the goddess was a short distance away, along the Via Campana, and nearby were also the tetrastylum, the Caesareum, and the Temple of Fors Fortuna. The ruins were found during the excavation campaigns held by the École française de Rome in 1975 and 1981 (photo). Today they are no longer visible as they have been backfilled beneath Casa Agolini, at Via della Magliana 567 near Vicolo dell’Imbarco.
This small balneum, 35 meters long and600 square meters wide, was built around 222-24 AD at the time of Emperor Severus Alexander, as confirmed by the study of the brick stamps known as bessales. The equipment in the service corridor of the baths was completely reconstructed thanks to its good state of preservation, allowing the archeologists who excavated it to focus on a comparative study of the Roman thermal system. The bath complex consisted of 15 rooms with different temperatures divided into frigidarium (body tempered room), tepidarium (warm room), and calidarium (hot room), a laconicum (sauna), a destrictarium (changing room), a convivial hall, latrines, and 6 pools decorated with colored and black-and-white mosaics featuring marine and vegetal designs (photo).
The baths were used until 340 AD and provide precise evidence of the history of the Roman periphery after the 5th century AD. In one of the rooms, a brick furnace was built in the 5th century, the rest of the structures were destroyed and later repurposed as a rustic farmhouse in the Middle Ages. In the 1800s, Casa Agolini, a rural farmhouse typical of the Roman countryside (agro romano) and named after one of the families who lived there, was built on the remains of the baths.
Reference Bibliography:
H. Broise, J. Scheid, Recherches archéologiques à La Magliana. Le balneum des Frères Arvales, Roma 1987
H. Broise, J. Scheid, Recherches archéologiques à La Magliana, 3. Un bois sacré du suburbium romain. Topographie générale du site ad deam diam ( Roma antica , 8), – Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia Belle Arti Paesaggio di Roma 2020