Chapters
Rome – Roma Aeterna and caput mundi – The Eternal City and the “head of the world”. Who among us hasn’t heard of the capital of Italy? The city from which the ancient empire once grew, lives in the mass imagination and pop culture with images such as the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, Julius Caesar, or ancient ruins. Generally, all of these images can be thrown into a bag on which it is written: “magnificent, wonderful, monumental, timeless”. But would such issues as… toilets, poop, defecation fit into this bag? Not really, is it? It is not too popular a subject in terms of considerations on the magnificence of ancient Rome, which is a pity. One of the foundations of the empire, an indispensable element of its social fabric and a determinant of high development was the first such modern and advanced sewage and sanitation system in the world. In order to show you every aspect of life in the Roman Empire, I invite you on a trip through its not-so-smelly, but extremely important and interesting…side.
The “revolution” of making defecation public in the social sphere began in Hellenistic culture around the 2nd century BC. Previously, people defecated in cesspools, washing chambers, or simply anywhere they could. The Romans drew from the culture of the Hellenes with full hands, and they developed this aspect in their own way. The first foricae, public latrines, appeared in Italy in the 1st century BC. A key element in their development was one of the most important achievements of Roman technology – aqueducts. They brought running water from the mountains and lakes all the time, which fed city fountains and the entire sewage system. Another important invention of the Romans was… concrete. It allowed for the construction of larger, more functional buildings, e.g. latrines. Wood, as a finishing material, was increasingly replaced by stone or marble. All these elements, plus the Romans’ concern for personal hygiene, contributed to the “boom” of the sanitary system throughout the Empire. And so, as Cassius Dio writes, at the end of the 1st century BC, by a resolution of the Senate, the hall in Pompey’s curia (de facto the same one where Julius Caesar was murdered) was transformed into a public latrine – probably the first in Rome. From there, it was all downhill.
These establishments began to appear wherever the Pax Romana reached. They were most often built near places that gathered a lot of people, i.e. forums, theaters, temples, or thermal baths. They were usually built on a rectangular plan of brick or stone, with narrow doors (often revolving) leading inside. The floor was brick, marble, often decorated with mosaics, or it was a simple threshing floor. In both cases, running water flowed through a canal under the walls at the feet of the visitors, which then flowed under the seats, flushing the waste into the sewage system. Sometimes, in smaller latrines, the canals replaced bowls into which the water fell. The seats themselves were made of wood or stone with a characteristic key-shaped hole in the middle (average size 15-25 cm). These stuffy and damp rooms were in semi-darkness, because often the only source of light were a few small windows under the ceiling.
At first, these buildings were devoid of decoration, but over time the Romans began to introduce their own panache here, building larger and larger and monumental latrines, which became an integral part of the urban landscape. In ancient Ostia, the port of Rome, archaeologists counted 60-90 latrines and toilets. The largest could accommodate up to 80-90 people at a time, like the one discovered in Apamea in Syria.
Latrine users even had their own patroness in the divine pantheon – Fortuna. Frescoes with her likeness, and sometimes even small altars, have been discovered in many temples, which shows that the Romans prayed to her during defecation for a successful outcome of the process. In the latrine of the city guard in Ostia, a marble altar dedicated to Fortuna was discovered with an inscription commemorating the pious act of one of the city guards1:
Gaius Valerius Myron, beneficarius prefect of the 4th cohort of vigils, eagerly fulfilled his promise to Fortuna.
I cannot, in this article, omit another important issue, namely the personal hygiene of the Romans. Toilet paper in rolls came into use only in the 20th century, and ordinary paper itself in the modern era. Therefore, anything that came to hand (including the hand itself) was used for wiping, e.g. shells, leaves, moss, smooth stones, broken dishes, pieces of fabric, or papyrus. We can read from Aristophanes that:
We servants (…), we no longer have pebbles for wiping – soft garlic!
However, the greatest “publicity” has recently been gained by xylospongium, a sponge on a wooden stick (from the Greek words xylon – wood and spongos – sponge). Of course, it was not a sponge produced in a large factory, but a natural one fished out of the sea.
It was a very popular instrument in the Empire. It was used by inserting it into a hole between the legs, wiping what you wanted, and then rinsing it in a channel with running water, under your feet. The sponge was left for the next visitor (some of whom could come with their own sponge). But was it really so? To this day, no source has survived that directly mentions such a use of xylospongium, which is why it still remains in the realm of conjecture. What we do know for sure is that a sponge on a stick was a normal everyday hygiene tool, like a comb and a brush for us, and was also used for washing the body and even shoes. Now go to the toilet and see what a toilet brush reminds you of?
From crouching behind a bush to entering the salons
Spring 79 AD. Herculaneum. A few weeks before the eruption of Vesuvius. The magnificent villa “House of Gemma” is visited by Apollinaris, physician to Emperor Titus himself. After the pleasures of the table, he retires to a secluded toilet, where he empties his bowels. To commemorate this moment, one of the household members/slaves (or perhaps even the person in question) leaves an inscription on the wall:
Apollinaris, physician to Emperor Titus, had a good shit here.
Shocking? Distasteful? Not at all. The natural processes of the human body were completely normal for the ancient Romans. A part of everyday life, like breathing and eating. They did not perceive them as something shameful and disgusting, as we do in our modern understanding. It was an activity like any other, which could also be proud of if done well (as the inscription in Herculaneum praises). This type of thinking contributed significantly to the development of the entire Roman sanitary system, culminating in the latrine. Before we go any further, it is necessary to show what such a typical latrine looked like.
Imagine that you are a resident of Rome in the 1st century CE and you have to go to the toilet. There is no toilet in your apartment in the tenement house insulae, so you go to the nearby public latrine. You take a free seat between a large sweaty slave and a fishmonger friend. Mmmm, the seat is still warm from your predecessor. Your legs touch your neighbour’s, but it doesn’t bother you at all. You do your thing, chatting with your friend, wipe yourself with a sponge on a stick given to you by the slave, and leave. What do you think? Embarrassing? For us modern people, it certainly is. But that’s exactly what a classic latrine in the Roman Empire looked like.
Can I invite myself in for dinner?
Only the wealthiest Romans could afford private and sparkling clean latrines in their villas. An aristocrat would not stoop to using a public latrine – even if he did not have a private one in his home, he would relieve himself in a chamber pot, which was serviced 24 hours a day by a special slave. For us, defecating is a discreet retreat. For the Romans, it was quite the opposite – you had to immerse yourself in a crowd of people. The most popular latrines had to be visited by thousands of people every day. The Roman thought simply: “Well, since defecating is an indispensable part of what I am, my nature, I cannot escape it and I have to find time for it, why not use this time nicely and pleasantly?”. During the visit, there was no shame or embarrassment, which was conducive to establishing social relationships.
The latrine was a great place for gossip, a simple “what’s up”, trade negotiations, arranging visits, or even an ideal meeting place for conspirators. Many desperate people visited latrines more often than they had to, not because they needed to, but to curry favor with someone, or invite them for dinner. Marcjalis mentions one such, a certain Wacerra, in his “Epigrams”:
Wacerra has a special way of having fun,
He spends hours, nay, days in the toilets,
Do you wonder what it consists of?
He doesn’t want to take a shit, but to get dinner!
Sometimes, however, it happened that there was no one to talk to, then the visitor, out of boredom, turned to another entertainment – scribbling on the walls. Latrines were often dotted with various inscriptions or graffiti. Those that have survived to our times show their cheerful and bawdy nature. Engraved, written in charcoal or chalk, they mostly concerned shameful aspects of defecation and sex. In the latrine of the Centennial House in Herculaneum, an inscription was discovered: “You will certainly witness to me what I felt when I had the urge to shit; I will go and take a shit”, and in the toilet of the Terentius Neo House, someone left an inscription: “Secundus here shits, here shits, here shits”. However, mockery or teasing towards specific people dominated. In Pompeian latrines, among others, inscriptions were discovered: “Dick, [at your service] for 5 sesterces”, or “Lick Aspasio!”. In the latrine in Minturnae, someone added “Eutychio, eat a turd” to the already existing “Eutychio shat here”. These obscene, downright offensive inscriptions are yet another proof of the complete lack of restraint of the ancient Romans when it comes to intimate hygiene. For the weary people, the latrine was a fully-fledged place of socialization, alongside theaters, thermal baths, and forums. A visit to the foricae was often a moment of respite from the surrounding reality. Something like a cigarette break today. The lively chatter of friends and acquaintances, mocking politicians, gossiping, doing business, maintaining old and making new acquaintances – all these “pluses” of the visit meant that the visitor often extended it under any pretext. Of course, despite the extraordinary advancement of the sanitary system, latrines in ancient Rome were often dirty and stinking places, but this did not bother the visitors at all. Often, going to the toilet was a moment of relaxation from the daily toil and rush, especially if you happened to be in good company. This is precisely what made the latrine one of the main points of social life in the Roman Empire. With the fall of its western part in the 5th century CE, the decline of the public latrine system also began, never to return in the same form. And toilets for private use with running water did not reappear until the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century.
