The Great Thermai, that is to say the public baths of Dion, located in the south of the city where they were protected from the north winds and communicated directly with the main avenue, welcomed the stranger who entered the city, as today, through the south gate. With a spacious atrium in the centre, and public toilets, shops and workshops around the periphery, the public baths were a complex in which one could pleasurably pass one's leisure hours.

the main building was reached by crossing the open-air courtyard that connected it by means of a narrow flight of steps with the main road, passing the odeion on the right; it had swimming pools, dres-sing rooms, rooms with hot and cold water, relaxation rooms, sweating rooms and massage rooms. A complex water-supply and drainage network ran below the ground and a special system of hypocausts ensured of supply of warm air to the appropiate rooms.

The north wing of the complex, where marble statues from the cucle of Asklepios have been found (they are ondisplay in the local Museum), may have been intended for therapeutic purposes. The mosaic floors [marine {dionysiac) band], the marble inlays in the floors and the statues of the statues of deities and nymphs which once stood in decorative niches gave the rooms of the Great thermae a luxurious and monumental character.