3 - 4 pm (CET)

Venue:

Einstein Center Chronoi 

Otto-von-Simson-Straße 7, 14195 Berlin

Jonas Zweifel

The talk examines the different ways time was structured and valued in the Baths of Invidiosus, a public bathing complex in the ancient Roman harbour city of Ostia. Concretely, it looks at the changing ways the visitors spent their time in the baths and what activities filled that time with, versus the efforts and duration of labour it took the people running the baths to keep them going. A lot of this has to do with the heating and water supply of the Invidiosus baths, both of which increased notably over its periods of use. Whereas towards the visitors, the baths became ever more accommodating and invited them to spend more time inside, less and less of which was actual bathing, the circumstances for the slaves and workers in the building were very different. Their workload increased and included many tasks that took hours and hours no matter how much effort was put into them, such as turning the big wheels that lifted water out of a ground vein to bring it to the basins. This gives interesting hints towards how time was perceived and valued depending on who was spending it on what in Roman society.

Participants can join the online Chronoi Talk by clicking on the following link:

https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin/j.php?MTID=m7d0a4da16f3eea15083e11d5647e391f

The conference room can be accessed using the following methods:

• Joining directly in your browser; simply click the link above, and look for a button with this option near the bottom of the webpage.

• Downloading the program to your computer (instructions can be found by following the meeting link)

• Using the smartphone app called “Cisco Webex Meetings."

You are welcome to enter the online conference room up to 15 minutes in advance of the start time.