Hi listeners, we wanted to bring you an episode from Noises brand new podcast.

It's called The Curious History of Your Home.

Look around your home.

It's full of items you probably take for granted.

Bed, bath, fridge, wallpaper, dishwasher, toothpaste.

In fact, hiding in plain sight, these things have extraordinary histories.

Join domestic historian Ruth Goodman,

as she guides you through the remarkable,

often epic tales behind everyday objects.

If you enjoy this Taster episode, search the curious history of your home in your podcast app of choice

and hit follow for weekly episodes, or click the link in the episode description.

It's the year 235 AD and we're in Rome.

I want you to imagine that you're a Roman citizen. It's the middle of a hot Italian summer and you've just spent a long day baking under the Mediterranean sun. You want nothing more than to rinse off, cool down and relax. So you

decide to head through the bustling city streets to the newly completed Karakala Baths.

Now these baths of course something of a stir.

For one, they're the largest built in the city so far, sprawling over 27 acres and soaring to a staggering height of 130 feet.

The Bath complex includes a library, an Olympic-sized pool,

and an underground temple to the Persian god Mithras. But there's another reason for the public interest

in the baths. They're also the project of the rather unpopular and recently deceased Emperor Caracala.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, nicknamed Caracala after a special kind of hooded tunic that he liked to wear was notorious for more

than just his fashion sense. He rose to power after having his brother and co-ruler, Getter, murdered.

If that wasn't bad enough, he followed up this domestic crime with a more public one

...