Situated on the top of the Colle Oppio, these Baths were built in the third Augustinian region, on a plan by the famous architect Apollodoro of Damascus, as mentioned in the literature of the time and inaugurated by Traiano in 109 BC.
According to certain later date sources, these Baths, together with those of Titus, are the opera of Domiziano and named the Thermae Domitianae as mentioned in Medieval Era documents.
There is no proof, however, that Domiziano started building or even planned these Baths, because the design of the entire complex indicates a sole plan. Many marks on the brickworks, found at various times in the Baths, confirm the Traiano era. According to sources, women also visited the Baths, which were still in use in the 4th and 5th Centuries, when they were decorated by Felice Campaniano, the town prefect.
The Baths were probably abandoned slowly and inevitably after the aqueducts were cut off by Vitige in 537. During Medieval times, the Colle Oppio was gradually abandoned, cut off from the inhabited areas with their kitchen gardens and vineyards. These monuments were then built over. They changed their names over the years and in the 16th Century, the ruins of the Colle Oppio were named the Titus Baths.
The plan of the Bath complex can easily be reconstructed. It is based on the ruins, when the Traiano Park was reconstructed during the thirties. This because they resembled other great Baths in good condition. There is a fragment of the marble Forma Urbis showing a section. The axis of the previous structures went from north to south, instead of north-east to south-east, as though searching for the best position of sun and winds. This to ensure that the calidariums were better and longer exposed to the heat of the sun.
The complex covers almost a square kilometre (m.330 X 315) on the southern side of the hill, on a terrace entirely built over other constructions. These were already partly there. For example, the Domus Aurea pavilion was then only used for facilities in the underground passages and to connect the various sections of the Baths (see, for example the great cryptoporticus still partly visible, running under the whole north western side of the complex).
On the floor of the Baths, a large enclosure with an exedra, encloses a green area in the centre of which there were the actual Baths, with spaces arranged on the sides of a central axis.
The main entrance faced north east with a large Propylaeum on street level (recently identified as the Vicus Sabuci) which then joined up with the Clivus Suburanus, now partly covered by the present street Sette Sale. This entrance leads to the natatium, along the same axis of the large central basilica, the tepidarium and the calidarium. On the sides of this axis, there were the change rooms and the gymnasiums. Two libraries are located in the external enclosure in the symmetrical exedras of the eastern and western corners.
Some colossal remains, with no apparent connection, are still to be seen the Parco del Colle Oppio thermal complex in the Parco del Colle Oppio, any real, various unconnected colossal remains of the thermal complex. There are still the NE, SO and a part of the SE exedras in good condition and the splendid central hemicycle at the SO side. The part below is in excellent condition even today. Remains of the NO exedra are in the Via Selci 79b cellars. Certain central pieces inside the Park remain the exedra of the eastern gymnasium, the apse of a hall on the south side and part of the basilica wall of the used later as the Brancaccio hunting lodge (lodge ex OMNI).
The water supply of this complex received water from a pipe of the aqueduct probably channelled off for this purpose under the name Traiano, recalling the lead pipes found in the complex (AE, 1940, no.40), but unlikely to lead back to one of the known aqueducts.
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 | | | I Municipio
Rione I - Monti
Regio III - Isis et Serapis
Colle Oppio
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