The practice of bathing, steaming, and perspiring in a hot sauna dates back to ancient Roman bath houses or Turkish hammams, where the practice was considered both healthful and social, with participants often spending the entire day. As bathers progressed through various stages of their bathing ritual, they'd visit different rooms intended for different hydrotherapy treatments or offering increasing or decreasing heat.
The caldarium was usually the hottest room in the complex, with steam and a hot plunge bath, a dry sauna to induce perspiration, and typically an under-floor heating system. Bathers would cleanse the skin with olive oil, bath, steam and bake, and then proceed to a room with decreased heat, known as a tepidarium, and then progress to a room with no heat, and cool water, known as the frigidarium.
In modern times, we've seen the term caldarium used to simply describe a relaxation area with heated floors, but more commonly, it's a heated relaxation area with therapeutic lounges and aromatherapy intended to prepare you for your spa treatments.
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