Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity Author:Fikret Yegl, Fikret Yegl Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity considers the bath building as one of the most significant architectural types of antiquity and bathing as a richly revealing social custom. "In the world of Greece and Rome the practice of bathing . . . could embrace both the comfort of the bather and the self-satisfaction and self-advertisement ... more »of those who made that comfort possible through their wealth or patronage. A visit to the public baths, we are reminded in Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity, became a daily ritual in which the actual bath played a minor role, while provision of public baths for the citizenry became a duty that no governor, emperor or man of means could afford to neglect. . . . [Yegul's] book offers a very rich compendium of the architectural evidence, Greek and Roman, and is very fully illustrated. . . . The Roman provinces (especially modern Turkey and North Africa) occupy more space than Rome itself, and there are special sections devoted to spas, medicine, and the problems of water supply and heating." -- John Boardman, New York Times Book ReviewAn Architectural History Foundation Book« less