Aleipterion

vol. I p.1362-1363

Ἀλειπτήριον

The oil-room (unctuarium Plin. ep. II 17). When people (from the 4th century) began to develop the simple bathing complexes further, a specific room was separated in which people would rub themselves with oil after bathing, <20> which was, of course, just as important for ancient hygiene as the baths themselves. Such an ἀλειπτήριον is first mentioned by the comedian Alexis (Poll. VII 166) as part of a βαλανεῖον. It is also named as a heated room in a warm bath in Theophr. de sudor. 28 p.819; warm rooms were, of course, recommended by doctors in antiquity for oiling, cf. Cels. de med. I 3. Plin. ep. II 17. Petersen Gymnasium der Griechen (Hamburg 1858) 42 (ointments ἐν τῷ πυριατηρίῳ Plut. Kim. 1). <30> In the inscription in Andania (Le Bas-Foucart 326a. Dittenberger Syll. 388) Z. 108, the ἀλειπτήριον also appears as a main room of warm baths, cf. Strab. III 154: ἀλειπτήριον καὶ πυρίαι. The ἀλειπτήριον, which forms a counterpart to the κονιστήριον (dust-room) here, is first evidenced in gymnasia in the age in which the bathing rooms were taking up an increasingly larger amount of space in the gymnasia (see there) and were pushing back the exercise spaces. <40> Around the middle of the 3rd century, an agonothet of the Βασίλεια at Lebadeia dedicated τὸ ἐληοχρισ[τείριον] to Zeus Βασιλεύς and to the city (Keil Syll. inscr. Boeot. XI. Collitz Dialectinschr. I 422; cf. ἐλαιοχρίστιον in the contemporaneous inscription of Paphos Journ. hell. stud. IX 231 nr. 15). This ἐληοχριστείριον completely corresponds to the ἀλειπτήριον, of course (just like the ἐγκόνιμα in an analogous inscription of Hypata in Ross Arch. Aufs. II 471 to the κονιστήριον). <50> In the floor-plan of a Greek palaestra in later times found in Vitr. V 11, 2, we find a room named elaeothesium directly connected to the bathing complex, to the left of the ephebeum. People have also identified this room as the ἀλειπτήριον, and have also tried to attest an oil-room in the palaestra at Olympia (Ausgrap. v. Olympia V T. 38), in the gymnasium at Delos (Bull. hell. XV 328), and in the gymnasia from the empire at Hierapolis, Ephesos, Alexandreia Troas, and at other places (cf. Durm Baukunst d. Griechen² 336) on the basis of what Vitruvius writes. <60> All of these conjectures are forced to remain unceratin, because elaeothesium could potentially just have been a storage room for the oil, as we believe we can see in the smaller and larger baths of Pompeii in the small rooms at the end of the apodyterium (Overbeck-Mau Pompeii⁴ 204. 224). <page break 1362/1363>

The ἀλειπτήριον can often be attested in the gymnasia of the empire, which were mostly made up of bathing complexes, in inscriptions, as ἐν [τῷ] τῶν νέων γυμνασίῳ at Pergamom in the 1st century CE (Le Bas-Waddington 1723 a. C. Curtius Hermes VII 42) and at Aphrodisias CIG 2782: ἐν τῷ γυμνασίῳ … τὸ ἀλιπτήριον καὶ τὸν ἐντὸς βασιλικὸν αὐτοῦ (cf. balneum cum basilica CIL VII 445. 287). <10> The magnificent bathing complexes of the 2nd century seem similar to what is mentioned in the smyrnian inscription from the time of Hadrian CIG 3148 Z. 16: χρυσώσειν τὸν ὄροφον τοῦ ἀλιπτηρίου, Z. 40: κείονας εἰς τὸ ἀλειπτήριον Συνναδίους [ο]β, Νουμεδικοὺς κ, πορφυρείτας ς. cf. Suid. γυμνάσια ἀλειπτήρια ἢ βαλανεῖα ἢ λουτρά. The mention of an ἀλειπτήριον in the inscription at Ephesos CIG 2987b. is uncertain. <20> Literature: Becker-Göll Charikles III 107. Hermann-Blümner Lehrb. d. griech. Privataltertümer 340.

[Reisch.]

This article is referenced by: Baths