Sign for a public bathroom

Photogallery

Sign for a public bathroom
Sign for a public bathroom
Section X. Work, family and society: other inscriptions

“In this property of Aurelia Faustiniana the bathroom allows you to wash as you do in the city and offers you every comfort”. The text is engraved on a slab which constituted the sign of a thermal spa complex situated outside Rome, but able to offer to viatores or travellers, tired and in need of refreshment, the efficient and comfortable service which was easy to find inside the city (“more urbico”). It is formulated on the basis of a model that is recurrent in Roman civilization, in which various forms of advertising were known, as is shown not only by artefacts dispersed in museum collections, but also by the written sources and excavations (for example, at Pompeii). These ranged from the simple oral communication, typical of markets, to material consisting of brands on products and commercial signs, capable of capturing the attention of even the most distracted clients using text and images.