Library at the Baths of Trajan

Just north of the Colosseum in the southern section of Parco del Colle Oppio on the Oppian Hill, the café, skate park, basketball courts, and yoga communities, conceal what was the largest public bath complex of its time. Today, Viale del Monte Oppio runs through the middle of the bath houses Roman Emperor Trajan commissioned in 104 AD to his Syrian architect, Apollodorus of Damascus. The modern road and the smaller Via Degli Orti di Malabarba bifurcate the sole ruins of the one standing library with the location of the theater and second library of the original site plan. Trees occupy most of the square meters the bathes and social spaces occupied of Trajan’s gift to the citizens of Rome.

In some ways like one of his predecessors, Trajan took advantage of a fire in 104 AD to further give back to the people what Emperor Nero had taken opportunistically after the 64 AD blaze that scorched Rome. Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House) overtook a significant portion of the eastern block of the city which had previously been private residencies. When the Domus Aurea caught fire in 104 AD, Trajan chose to build the Baths over merely a one wing of Nero’s house. And yet still it was the most massive baths any Emperor had given the city. This act, along with his diplomacy and military prowess, placed this immigrant ruler of Rome in the highest regard by the Senate, military, and citizens.

In 109 AD, when the Baths of Trajan were open to the public they were unprecedented for their size, multi-functional programming, and gender inclusivity. Men and women of all social and economic stratification could get access to the structure at an affordable price. Certain days were even open at no cost. Trajan was the first to include libraries at the bath complex. Nero, Titus, and Agrippa’s baths did not include an intellectual component. The public space, therefore, became an essential part of the Roman societal structure. It was a place to relax, talk politics, and further your study.

From historical drawings, maps and the existing ruins, the structure would be characterized as a semi-circular cylinder base with a dome coffered roof. Evidence of the coffered dome can be seen in the northeast corner of the park with one of the structures connected directly to the baths. Columns would flank the front entrance rising an entablature that would be mounted by marble figures. The open entry left scrolls and resources easily accessible within their niches. The height of the cylinder contained two floors with eleven niches each. The second floor may have also included statues or pieces of art. The brick wood on the interior suggests that arch-like protrusions covered and protected the literature or artwork. Currently three rows of steps exist in front of the first-floor niches, however the brick is not ancient and city workers were in the process of renovating the floor with new tiles. Accessibility to the second may have occurred through some sort of latter or hint of a staircase on the northern exterior wall was spotted at over forty meters away.

The northwest library would occupy less than 1/100th of the total square meters of the original campus structure. But its inclusion, along with its southeast twin, set a precedent for further baths in Imperial Rome. The incorporation of libraries would be included in the Baths of Caracalla (212-216 AD) and Diocletian (298-306 AD). The site plan of Trajan’s Baths is remarkably similar to those of the Baths of Diocletian, nearly two hundred years later (see Figures XX). The baths on Oppian Hill did not survive to the same extend as Trajan’s successors. By the early fifth century much of the complex had been demolished. The surviving elements that mark the spot of this meaningful public space are identified primarily through the semi-circular structures that protruded off the rectangular site plan.

The Baths of Trajan - Trajan’s Library Cont.

Utilizing the technological resources of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Greece + Italy Summer Abroad program, the library within the Baths of Trajan was captured using a FARO 3D scanner and processed through the photogrammetry software Autodesk ReCap on June 12th, 2022. The scan was converted into a point cloud that provided accurate measurements of the space. Within the Autodesk ReCap software, the distances between each point were able to be recorded and, with the help of photographs and additional research, were then utilized to produce the plan and elevation drawings of the ruin as it stands today.

As of 2022, the ruins were in the process of being restored which required the 3D scanning to take place in front of a fence. This hindered the ability to capture the bottom portion of the ruins. The widths of the 5 bottom niches on either side of the library were determined to be the same widths of the niches on the upper level through photographic references. The heights were captured using cross referenced points within the point cloud.