[Thermalism in ancient world]

The importance of water was well known in Prehistory and in ancient World. There are, in Homeric poems, several descriptions of cold and warm baths, a witness of their utilization in ancient Greek civilization. But the sources of water were always linked with the divinities of the Earth, and the temples dedicated to Asklepios had also thermal baths. The Romans, heirs of Etruscan culture, made the baths a social and public matter, and in Rome the Thermate reached a high degree of perfection.