TOWN OF BATH :
There is some evidence to suggest that there was a town on the location of Bath , or Aquae Sulis, as it came to be known, before the Romans arrived. It was the center of an important healing cult, originally with the Celtic goddess Sul, and later, the Romans, not having issue with other cultures deities adopted it, adding Minerva to the name (Salway 514-515). Aquae Sulis translates as the “waters of Sul”. It was named this because Bath had very plentiful hot springs , which were the heart of the town.
In 43 CE, the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius to begin the conquest of Britain . During this time Bath became an important part of the Roman roadway system in Britain . Around 60-70 CE, the temple to Sulis was reconstructed and renamed Sulis Minerva, incorporating the goddesses of the Roman and Celtic religions, through which it possibly could be a place for the local British population and the Romans that were stationed nearby (Aquae Sulis site).
Bath was an important site because of the hot springs there; when the Romans came to Bath in the 1 st century CE they built Roman-style baths and restored the Temple of Sul . The baths and the temple are the two main buildings at Bath . The baths, Roman Baths which were fed by the hot springs, were very large, made for more than just the population of the small town, which at one point was as small as about twenty-three acres (Collingwood 61-64). The hot spring rises in the courtyard of the Temple of Sulis Minerva (The Roman Baths site).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Collingwood, R.G. Roman Britain . Oxford : Oxford University Press: Clarendon Press, 1945.
Salway, Peter. Roman Britain . Oxford : Oxford University Press: Clarendon Press, 1981.
Aquae Sulis. Bates College.
< http://abacus.bates.edu/~mimber/Rciv/Bath/Main.htm >
Roman Baths: Bath . The Official Roman Baths Museum Website.