Thrasamund

Welcome to the good life in Africa.[water trickling] Instead of knocking down Carthage, the Vandals set about making it more homely.

They put small houses in the huge Roman clearings, and famously, an ambitious new bathhouse was built here by the art-loving Vandal king Thrasamund.

[birds chirping] [footsteps shuffling] Bathhouses were hugely important in Roman society.

They were a kind of social club where people went to chat and gossip, a bit like modern health clubs, except much cheaper.

The largest of all Roman bath complexes was here in Carthage, the Antonine Baths, built in the second century by the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius.

These are the ruins, so imagine how big the baths must have been.

[gentle music] Long before the Vandals conquered Carthage, the Antonine Baths had fallen into disrepair, so the Vandal King Thrasamund built some new ones.

We know a lot about Thrasamund's baths because, amazingly, a collection of Vandal poems on the subject have survived.