Caldarium
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.
This was a very hot and steamy room heated by a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system. This was the hottest room in the regular sequence of bathing rooms; after the caldarium, bathers would progress back through the tepidarium to the frigidarium.
In the caldarium, there would be a bath (alveus, piscina calida or solium) of hot water sunk into the floor and there was sometimes even a laconicum—a hot, dry area for inducing sweating.
The bath's patrons would use olive oil to cleanse themselves by applying it to their bodies and using a strigil to remove the excess.
In modern gyms and spas, a caldarium is a room with a hot floor. The hot floor and water would have most likely been heated by fires which slaves underneath kept burning or from the hot air from outside. The temperature of the caldarium is not known exactly: however, since the Romans used sandals with wooden sole, it could not be higher than 50-55°C.
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