By invitation only : accessibility of villa baths in the Roman North-West

This paper examines how bathhouses of Roman villas in the north-western part of the Empire can further our understanding of the amount of penetration the Roman cultural sphere had in less urbanised regions. The articulation of these baths to the villa, whether integrated, attached to it or completely freestanding, indicates degrees of accessibility beyond the inhabitants of the house. Rather than being merely private bathrooms for an elite that wished to enjoy the commodities of the city in the countryside, villa baths were social hubs for intra-elite networking and possibly enabled a form of euergetism towards small rural communities in a landscape otherwise devoid of cities and small civic centres