I read a bit of Pliny last night and got curious — where, historically, did bath attendants scent the steam with bay/laurel essential oil, and was it for sore muscles or ritual cleansing? That green, camphor-kissed vapor opens my chest after a 20-minute steam, so I’d love a citation or an old bath menu to pin down the origin.
Essential oil is an anachronism for Rome — attendants scented heat by tossing bay leaves on coals and used laurel‑infused olive oil for rubdowns; to mimic it, crush a few leaves in a bowl of hot water during your 20-minute steam. > after a 20-minute steam, so I’d love a citation or an old bath menu to — there’s no ‘menu’ I can find, but Pliny/Dioscorides note laurel for aches, not vapor; start with Laurus nobilis - Wikipedia.
Galen flags laurel oil for sprains and chills, and Pliny notes laurel’s warming, apotropaic use — no evidence of distilled drops in the steam, more like boughs or crushed berries warmed in the laconica. For a close replica, mash a few bay berries into warm olive oil to make a quick ‘oleum laurinum,’ rub pre‑steam, then set a small dish of that oil near the heat so it blooms (Roman VapoRub). If berries are scarce, juniper or myrtle fumigation shows up in bath texts too — want a page ref for those?
@OP For that camphor-kissed hit, try bay berries with myrtle — “fumigation” over the furnace, not droplets. Juniper?