J. C. McKeown is a Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His new book, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World’s Greatest Empire, is a collection carefully gleaned from the wide body of evidence left to us by the Romans themselves. Each fact or opinion highlights a curious feature of life in ancient Rome. Below we have excerpted some tidbits from the chapter on Roman toilets.
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The Romans were justly proud of their extensive system of aqueducts. Frontinus boasts, Could you compare with all these many massive and serviceable acqueducts the useless pyramids or the famous but idle works of the Greeks? (On the Water-Supply of Rome 1.16). Much of the water from the aqueducts was used to keep the public toilets clean, maintaining a constant flow through these facilities directly to the sewers and on to the Tiber.
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According to the notitia regionum, an early-4th-century A.D. catalog of the city’s buildings and landmarks, Rome then had 144 public latrinae.
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The standard of engineering in Roman latrinae was not achieved again in Europe until the 19th century.
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Just as aqueducts provided an abundant water supply, so a certain degree of sanitation was ensured by the system of sewers, especially the Cloaca Maxima (Main Drain). Begun in the city’s earliest times, it was much admired in antiquity, and is still, to a very limited degree, operational today.
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Until recently, not much research was done on ancient toilets. Archaeologists were often reluctant to identify them for what they are. Likewise, in antiquity, Vitruvius and Frontinus were very reticent about waste disposal in the influential treatises on architecture and aqueducts, respectively.
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Almost all the private houses excavated in Herculaneum and Pompeii had toilet facilities, often in the kitchen or under the stairs; there is little evidence for doors to these cubbyholes.
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At the animal-fighting recently, one of the Germans who was getting ready for the show withdrew to relieve himself – that was the only privacy he had, away from his guard. There he choked himself to death by ramming down his throat the stick with a sponge attached that is provided for personal hygiene (Seneca…). Remnants of sponges have been discovered in a Roman sewer at York in northern England.
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Apollinaris medicus Titi Imp. hic cacavit bene (“Apollinarius, physician to the emperor Titus, had a find shit here”) (Corpus of Latin Inscriptions… a graffito in the Casa della Gemma in Herculaneum).
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I do not think that silver chamber pots are included with heirlooms, since they are not part of the silver collection (Justinian’s Digest…). This legal ruling presumably exists because chamber pots were often made of silver. Even gold ones are mentioned occasionally; most notoriously, Mark Anthony was criticized for using one (Pliny Natural History…).
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The Emperor August Caesar, son of a god, Pontifex Maximus, designated
Due to boring circumstances beyond my control, I will not be online much in February. Fortunately I’ve been able to line up a number of stellar guests to fill in for me. Most are writers, but I also thought it would be fun to get some publishing types to explain what it is they do, teach you some more about the industry, and answer your questions, as well as one or two bloggers.
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Sarah Cross is the author of Dull Boy, a YA superhero novel. She blogs intermittently, posts random videos on tumblr, and is hiding in a unicorn-and-zombie-proof bunker until this whole mess is over.
Sarah says:
You may be wondering where Justine is.
And I am sorry to tell you that something horrible has befallen her.
She’s been kidnapped by unicorns.
Yes: these vile creatures.
You may be familiar with the zombies vs. unicorns debate, and the forthcoming anthology that was inspired by that eternal struggle. If you take a look at the anthology’s cover, you’ll see that the zombies and unicorns are engaged in an epic battle for dominance. It’s a gorgeous panorama of rainbow-colored destruction: severed unicorn heads, zombies impaled on pearlescent-yet-deadly horns, and corpses floating in a sky blue stream.
But one element has been left out of this struggle–and that, my friends, is the human element.
Members of Team Unicorn pose with their deadly mascot.
Humans will not emerge from this battle unscathed. They have been forced to take sides. (Vote here … if you dare.) Either you’re Team Zombie, or you’re Team Unicorn; and Justine, unfortunately, as the founding member of Team Zombie, has been targeted by her enemies: those sparkly, bone-crushing, rainbow-mane-shaking, marshmallow-defecating, zombie-impaling unicorns. From what I understand (I’ve been sent several encoded messages, written with a crayon that was rubberbanded to their leader’s hoof), the unicorns intend to hold Justine prisoner until she betrays the zombies and swears allegiance to her sparkly captors. Since we KNOW that will never happen … I was hoping to drum up some support for her release here.
Please, if you believe in fairies … er, believe the unicorns should release Justine, leave a comment here pleading her case. Personally, I believe that zombies, humans, and unicorns can get along. But some people are so frightened for their lives (or so passionate about unicorn domination), that they’re doing their best to disguise themselves as unicorns.
I think this is Diana Peterfreund’s new author photo …
It’s a sad state of affairs. And yet, given the ‘corns’ legendary cruelty, totally understandable.
Unicorns are more ruthless than the Spanish Inquisition. Their rainbow vomit can induce madness in even the most stable mind.
Unicorn torture tactic #1.
And you do NOT want to be subjected to their special blend of “Lucky Charms
We're home. We have a computer, although not much of the data that formerly resided on it. We were resuming our regular, albeit new, routine for preschool, work, and music classes. And now, to throw a bit of excitement into our not very organized lives, J has been cast in another play, MacBeth this time, which is terrific since people have heard of it. He will be playing the Doctor (who knew?) and Murderer No. 3. I'm thinking perhaps Q does not need to see this one either...
Because our life will evidently not be busy enough, I'm trying out a new challenge.
I'm not unusual when I say that I hate cleaning. Who doesn't? Well, in the The New York Times I read about a recently married couple (Tess Taylor and Taylor Schreiner, there's no mention of the odd name combination, I hope he takes hers), who are described in a lovely piece about their romance and wedding. I quote, "They boiled water to wash dishes, discovering that they share an affinity for chores." That makes more sense in context, but my point is that they evidently like chores. That's just wrong. No one likes chores unless they don't have to do them. If there is a mutant gene that has created someone who likes housework, it is unfair of the universe to pair them up with the one lone other person who also likes housework. Spread that kind of goodness around some.
Back to my challenge.
I was cleaning the toilet yesterday and I got this idea. What if I cleaned the bathroom every single day?
Anyone who has ever been to my house has become aware of how much I loathe cleaning. Cleaning makes me mean. Even after I clean the house still feels unclean to me. If anyone ever said of my home the lovely adage, "It was untidy, but clean" I would weep with pleasure.
So why does this masochistic idea appeal to me?
When Q was a toddler, he took an aversion to bath time. He would scream and tantrum if we tried to wash him. Our solution was to integrate bath time into our daily bed time ritual, rather than every two or three days, figuring that familiarity would take the edge off his hatred. Now he reserves screaming to nights when we wash his hair.
If I clean the bathroom every single day, maybe I won't hate cleaning so much. It'll go faster, in theory, because the dirt will have had less time to accumulate. I recall at summer camp, we had daily chores, including cleaning the bathroom, and the grime simply never got as bad because we kept it under control on a daily basis.
I'm on day two of the cleaning every day challenge. I have cleaned the sink, the toilet, the floor. I'll spray the tub down after Q is done with his bath and then rinse it when I go to bed. (I hate scrubbing the tub and feel it makes far less impact than the chemicals do, so this also is my attempt to see if repeat application of tub cleaner might take off that semi-permanent layer of grime.)
If this works to reduce my cleaning stress and actually improve cleanliness, I'll consider what implications this has for the rest of my life. I mean, could I clean the kitchen floor every day? Could I vacuum every day?
And now for gratuitous cute photos of the kids:
Q and Excavator. I'm not sure if it's possible to see in this particular photo, but he's sitting on the edge of his construction site, which looks like a miniature rock quarry.
Noodle had been wandering around the kitchen repeating, "hot, hot, hot," which is Noodle speak for "I'm hungry, would you feed me already?" She tried to hint further by getting into her eating chair. But the eating chair had the tray attached, and you can see what the result was. Obviously she wasn't too distressed. This is fairly typical of the lass.
And here you can see that progress is being made on the bathroom. J is giving Q a tour of the developments. Actually, Q is saying things like, "I see you put up a new shelf." Very Seriously. Noodle is exhausted and just wants to sit in Daddy's lap.
I’m lying awake with a nasty case of bunker brain. Sleep eludes and weird thoughts intrude. I’m trying to combat them by
a) planning some fun ways to promote How To Ditch Your Fairy—so far the winning plan is to glue copies of the book to the backs of toilet doors—and,
b) trying to figure out how to describe the smell of flying foxes without using the words “musk” or “feral”.
Also I’m wishing I could draw.
How about you?
A note to those who threaten me with the loss of their readership if I express opinions contrary to their own:
Goodbye!
If I worried about what each and every potential reader thought of me I wouldn’t write novels. I wouldn’t keep a blog. I wouldn’t express opinions out loud. Hell, I wouldn’t venture outside my house for fear of saying something that might accidentally offend someone.
I have news for you: Many of the writers/actors/politicians/sportspeople you admire hold at least one or two opinions you don’t. Do you seriously want to silence them all?
I have been known to disagree with some of my favourite writers and bloggers. Me, I use voodoo dolls when they say wrong things. But I’d never be so rude as to tell them where the pins go.
Stop reading me if you want. But don’t post comments that “threaten” you’ll stop reading me.
All such threats will be deleted. After all, you’re claiming you want to disappear from this community. I’m just lending you a hand.