ABSTRACT

The transformation of baths and bathing culture of Classical Antiquity into Byzantine life constituted an almost seamless whole. Rome, politically unstable and economically weakened, still provided the natural models in bathing culture for eastern communities. Among the important urban centers of Late Antiquity, such as Alexandria and Antioch, none was able to imitate and emulate Rome in name and in fact, with greater vigor than Constantinople, the New Rome of Constantine.2