Thermae thieves and pickpockets were known to frequent the baths. The changing room was known as the "apodyterium" (from Greek "apodyterion" from "apoduein" "to take off"). In many ways, baths were the ancient Roman equivalent of community centres. Because the bathing process took so long, conversation was necessary. Many Romans would use the baths as a place to invite their friends to dinner parties, and many politicians would go to the baths to convince fellow Romans to join their causes. The thermae had many attributes in addition to the baths. There were libraries, rooms for poetry readings, and places to buy
Ancient Roman units of measurement mean solar day. Although the division of hours into minutes and seconds did not occur until the middle ages, ancient astrologers had a "minuta" equal to of a day (24 modern minutes), a "secunda" equal to of a day (24 modern seconds), and a "tertia" equal to of a day (0.4 modern seconds). Ancient Roman units of measurement were added to the Unicode Standard in April 2008 with the release of version 5.1. The Unicode block for ancient Roman units of measurement, called Ancient Symbols, is U+10190–U+101CF, i.e. in the upper plane: Ancient Roman units of measurement The ancient Roman