Roman Toilets

Speaker 1 Stop!

Speaker 2 Before you drag yourself to that coffee pot tomorrow morning, try this instead. Tonight, fill a shaker with water.
Add one scoop of Early Bird and put it on your nightstand.

Speaker 2 When your alarm screams at 5 a.m., drink it first. What happens next will shock you.
Your brain doesn't gradually wake up, it switches on. The fog vanishes.
You're not surviving your morning.

Speaker 2 You're conquering it. This blood-orange mimosa ritual turned more than a thousand night owls into morning warriors this week alone.
Get yours at clubearlybird.com and use code NEVERSNOOSE for 20% off.

Speaker 3 Hi, folks.

Speaker 4 It's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 7 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price.

Speaker 10 You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 6 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 1 Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five.
Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season, but support can still fit into your life.

Speaker 1 With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S.
offering both virtual and in-person sessions.

Speaker 1 You can search by insurance, provider specialty, treatment methods, and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy.

Speaker 1 There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session.
Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost.

Speaker 1 Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan.

Speaker 1 Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash a cast.
Growtherapy.com slash a cast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

Speaker 13 Hello and welcome to this latest episode of the ancients where we're going back into the wonderful world of Roman infrastructure. We've done aqueducts, we've done roads, now we're doing toilets.

Speaker 13 As per your request, you are asking us to do more on Roman infrastructure and we are delivering. Now, the wonderful world of Roman toilets is quite a dirty subject, but also it's fascinating.

Speaker 13 The sponge on the stick story and so much more. Just what was it like to visit one of these Roman communal toilets? You're about to find out with our wonderful guest, Dr.

Speaker 13 Hannah Platts from Roll Holloway University of London. I really do hope you enjoy.

Speaker 13 Let's go.

Speaker 14 Toilets.

Speaker 13 Less glamorous than the great roads, the beautiful bathhouses or grand aqueducts, but vital Roman infrastructure nonetheless. Naturally.
Latrines and toilets were all across the Roman Empire.

Speaker 13 used by everyday citizens, senators, slaves and soldiers alike. But what do we actually know about them? What was it like to go to a Roman communal toilet?

Speaker 13 The sights, the smells, the privacy, or lack of? And how could they differ depending on where you lived in the empire? Was the sponge on a stick really a thing?

Speaker 13 So many questions with so many awesome answers coming your way. This is the story of Roman toilets with our guest, Dr.
Hannah Platts.

Speaker 13 Hannah, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Speaker 14 Fantastic to be here. Thank you so much for asking me.

Speaker 13 When people mention Roman infrastructure, normally people go to like the roads or the aqueducts or the baths. But toilets, they were another key part of Roman infrastructure, right?

Speaker 14 Yeah, absolutely. They really were fundamental.
Very, very important.

Speaker 13 And in regards to toilets in a Roman town, did their design very much depend on where in the empire you were or where you were posted?

Speaker 14 Okay, so this is a really interesting question because toilets did vary across the empire and actually there were quite a lot of elements that impacted how they would feature, how they would appear, how they were developed.

Speaker 14 In particular, the things that impacted their development were actually things like the geological aspects of where they were being located.

Speaker 14 and also the sort of cultural norms or social and cultural aspects that might impact whether you build a toilet or how you use a toilet and things like that.

Speaker 14 So there were actually a couple of things that could impact toilet development and usage

Speaker 14 across the empire.

Speaker 13 And does climate also come into that or is it just strictly normally kind of local cultures and geology?

Speaker 14 Mostly, to be honest, it is rather more about particularly geological concerns. and then customs and social norms.

Speaker 14 And the reason the geological conditions are actually fundamental, it's because about how you're going to get rid of the waste. That's the actual fundamentals.

Speaker 14 So, I guess if I can give you just a couple of examples about how it might differ in terms of the geology of a site. So, if we take, for example, Pompeii, which a lot of people either have visited or

Speaker 14 know about,

Speaker 14 Pompeii is a town, it was built on a slope. So, that in itself means that rainwater, wastewater,

Speaker 14 could be pretty easily got rid of. So, you know, water from the rain, overflow from street fountains, that would actually flow down the sloping streets.

Speaker 14 That would then be got rid of out through the city gates.

Speaker 14 The soil, the subsoil on which Pompeii was built, was also actually relatively permeable. So, it could absorb to a certain extent some level of water, some amount of urine.

Speaker 14 Perhaps even some poo might also be absorbed by that sort of relatively permeable soil.

Speaker 14 And these toilets in Pompeii, they were connected to cesspits because the cesspits were built and the way they were built and the soil they were built into would allow the liquid element of going to the loo to seep away and the solid material would remain in the cesspit itself, and then that would be emptied as and when the cesspit would then fill up.

Speaker 14 So, the thing is that Pompeii

Speaker 14 did have a sewer, but not a complete network. It had branches that would deal with certain things, like

Speaker 14 getting rid of large amounts of wastewater from the baths, for example. But actually, in Pompeii, sewers played really quite a sort of small role.

Speaker 14 Conversely, if we look at a really nearby town of Herculaneum, again, similar area on the Bay of Naples,

Speaker 14 but Herculaneum's quite different.

Speaker 14 Yes, it's built on a slope, so again, that's useful for getting rid of wastewater,

Speaker 14 but the ground itself is very different. The ground is compact.
The ground is

Speaker 14 not permeable. It's not porous.

Speaker 14 So

Speaker 14 if you were going to use a cesspit, it would fill up really quickly. Nothing would really seep away.
And in fact, actually,

Speaker 14 there's a really good graffiti or note written on a wall of one house, the so-called house of the black room.

Speaker 14 And it mentions that the cesspit has been emptied for 11 asses, the cost of 11 asses. Right.

Speaker 13 Okay, so not 11 behinds then.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 14 Exactly, exactly right. Not 11 behind.
No, absolutely.

Speaker 14 But the thing is, so what they needed to do in Herculaneum was actually they did have to start building in a sewerage system, and the toilets then began to be connected to the sewage system.

Speaker 14 And that allowed the inhabitants to connect their toilets to the sewage system, and their waste would flow directly through the town's sewers.

Speaker 14 I guess if I can just give you one other example that again is different is Ostia. So Ostia is the ancient port of Rome.
It's again got very different geological structures because it was flat.

Speaker 14 It was built on flat sand dunes. It actually had a depression in the middle of the town.
So wastewater, fountain waters, rainwater couldn't flow away.

Speaker 14 And the

Speaker 14 water level, the water table, is actually much higher in Ostia than, say, in Pompeii and Herculaneum. It's only about two meters or so below street level.
So cesspits aren't a good idea.

Speaker 14 You can't get rid of the rainwater easily. Cesspits aren't a good idea.
So what it meant was right from the get-go, actually, a sewage system needed to be laid out. And that's what we get.

Speaker 14 We see this being laid out pretty much from the start of Ostia's development. And it's being maintained and repaired over time.

Speaker 14 So that's why it's actually really interesting that Romans understood the need to deal with their waste according to the geographical situations in which they found themselves.

Speaker 13 I mean, it's so interesting because maybe

Speaker 13 I saw myself as a guilty culprit.

Speaker 13 I might have immediately thought, oh, okay, so the classic toilet designs across Italy would presumably have been all quite similar because they're actually in the great expanse of the Roman Empire, they're all quite close together, and they'd be but they'd be very different to, let's say, toilets up on Hadrian's Wall, on a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall.

Speaker 13 But what you're saying there, Hannah, is almost the complete opposite. It's the fact it depends on the actual geology of the place that is located that is central.

Speaker 13 It's not the fact that if there are several cities located close by, then their toilet systems are going to be exactly the same.

Speaker 14 No, no, absolutely. And in fact, you know, the examples we've got on Hadrian's Wall, we do have examples on Hadrian's Wall and in other sort of strong military sites.

Speaker 14 We do actually have communal toilets that pretty much resemble communal toilets in Ostia or communal toilets as set up in Pompeii or communal toilets as set up elsewhere.

Speaker 14 So visually, they actually don't look that

Speaker 14 different.

Speaker 14 It is just the getting rid of the waste that you really need to think about, that they really needed to think about.

Speaker 13 Anna, it's so interesting. And I always remember whenever I go to Halsteads, the most popular part of the Roman fort is seeing the latrines in the bottom right-hand corner.

Speaker 13 It's really, really interesting. You've mentioned there, like kind of key archaeological sites we associate with the Romans today, like Pompeii, like Herculaneum.

Speaker 13 So, is archaeology absolutely central for us today to learn more about Roman toilets and how they function?

Speaker 14 Yes,

Speaker 14 I think archaeology is absolutely crucial in terms of the evidence that we have for toilets. You know, when we're thinking about understanding the Roman toilet system,

Speaker 14 there's a huge amount of material culture that we can draw on to build up an understanding, to build up a picture of toilet habits.

Speaker 14 So, I mean, for example, if you think about it, one thing we obviously can look at, are the toilets themselves.

Speaker 14 And, you know, Tristan, you've mentioned the communal toilets that I'm sure we will talk about shortly. Absolutely.
You can also look at the individual toilets.

Speaker 14 You know, there were individual toilets, and we can, I'm sure, we'll be talking about those as well. So you can look at the toilets, and we have examples of those.

Speaker 14 In fact, actually, what's really interesting is obviously the toilets that remain to us today that have lasted, they tend to be the ones made of either stone or indeed, in some cases, marble.

Speaker 14 Imagine that. Very lavish, yep.
Exactly right. Exactly right, sitting on a marble toilet.

Speaker 14 We do know also that they would have and would use wooden toilets, or indeed parts of the toilet might be wooden, like a wooden loose seat, for example.

Speaker 14 But of course, wood being an organic material decays, and so we don't necessarily have much of the remains, if any, of the remains at all today.

Speaker 14 But so we can look to the toilets themselves for evidence.

Speaker 14 But we don't just have to rely on toilets. There's actually a lot of other things that we can look at.

Speaker 14 So, for example, we can see waste chutes,

Speaker 14 we can see sort of disposal areas, we can see toilet seats or niches in the walls where toilet seats would have slotted in

Speaker 14 that help us understand that that particular room may have had a toilet within it.

Speaker 14 In the communal toilets in particular, we can see evidence of the gullies that had water that would be flowing at the feet of the people using the toilets.

Speaker 14 In Pompeii, we actually have the evidence of waste pipes from upstairs that are actually built into the walls. We've got the remnants of waste pipes that actually highlight to us.

Speaker 14 You know, there were some residences that had upstairs toilets. How fantastic.
So, you know, you can look at that as well. That really does help build up a picture of

Speaker 14 toilet habits and where they might have been located.

Speaker 14 I guess

Speaker 14 on the other side of that, it's not just the archaeology that builds us that picture. You know,

Speaker 14 fundamentally, as an ancient historian and an archaeologist, we have to, if we're trying to understand the ancient world, we need to be prepared to use whatever evidence we can.

Speaker 14 You know, I always say to my students, you know, beggars can't be choosers in this situation.

Speaker 14 You have to take whatever evidence you can get hold of.

Speaker 14 And so, actually, what's superb is we get evidence about toilets and toilet usage and what they did with their waste. We get evidence from the texts as well, from the written materials.

Speaker 14 So, whether that is the satirical poetry of authors like Marshall or the moralising texts of authors like Seneca the Younger, we even get agrarian treatises that say, you know, use,

Speaker 14 tell you how to construct the right dung heap and use the feces to fertilise your fields. Oh, wow.
Okay.

Speaker 13 Good recycling right there. Roman Roman style.

Speaker 14 Oh, yeah. We can even look to legislative evidence and letters, and we actually hear about how some people were punished by being made to clean toilets.
Okay.

Speaker 14 So you can learn quite a lot about Rome's toilet habits from quite a wide variety of evidence.

Speaker 13 Oh, it's so interesting, isn't it, to have on one hand that philosophers or humans like Seneca the Younger there, maybe, you know, thinking pensively about toilets or how it reflects on society.

Speaker 13 And then you get agrarian treaties on the other hand saying how you can recycle poo to help, you know, your crops or whatever. That's great.

Speaker 13 So you have the literature evidence, you have the archaeology. And you also mentioned earlier, which I found fascinating, examples of graffiti.
So do we have epigraphy too?

Speaker 14 So we do actually. We do have bits of graffiti.
We have some very strange, very funny examples. There's one in Toilet where it actually says the physician of the Emperor Titus cracked here

Speaker 13 written on the wall of a toilet brilliant yeah we have inscriptional evidence we have all sorts of stories about people's toilet habits and that's how the physician of emperor titus has come down to us today that's amazing indeed you kind of highlighted it earlier but let's do it again to kind of cover the main basis that we have with roman toilets and the main types of toilets that come down to us today archaeologically hannah what are the main types of toilets that they had in roman times So, the main types are communal toilets

Speaker 14 and individual toilets. The thing is that actually, when we're thinking about sort of how the Roman Empire spread, it spread widely.
And actually,

Speaker 14 we see the spread of toilets spreading through the empire as well. And, you know, as the empire grew, so did the spread of toilets across the empire.

Speaker 13 So, the Romans bring the roads, they bring the aqueducts, and and they bring the toilets as well.

Speaker 13 So, is it very much a case that wherever you visited a Roman town, one of the key bits of infrastructure you'd see as they leave their kind of Roman mark on the new settlement, would be quickly to create a communal latrine near the heart of the city?

Speaker 14 Whether that would be one of the first things they would do, I guess, is open to question. But

Speaker 14 when we look at a number of settlements,

Speaker 14 communal public facilities of toilets are certainly generally present. I think is probably the way I'd want to say this.

Speaker 14 I wouldn't want to say they're in absolutely every single settlement ever, but we do see them dotted around in so many places. You know, as I say, from Ostia, Pompeii, across to Syria, up to Britain.

Speaker 14 You know, you get the picture. There are plenty of them in plenty of different places.
That having been said,

Speaker 14 it doesn't mean that they are actually uniformly taken up

Speaker 14 with such

Speaker 14 enthusiasm

Speaker 14 all across the empire. We see examples all across the empire, but different parts of the empire are much more

Speaker 14 keen to develop toilets or demonstrate.

Speaker 14 Far more examples, we have found far more examples of toilets in certain parts of the empire than in other parts of the empire.

Speaker 14 Suggesting, perhaps, and I think this was something I touched on earlier about the idea of cultural norms, customs behind toilet habits. So

Speaker 14 Italy, North Africa,

Speaker 14 we really do see a high number of toilets.

Speaker 14 You know, onwards and onwards through the development of the empire up to the second century AD and on, we see that these facilities were popular in terms of being set up.

Speaker 14 So that sort of suggests that they were pretty much a well-accepted element of daily life.

Speaker 14 That's not the same as in the Near East or indeed in Britain, actually. The evidence for toilets in the Near East and in Britain is somewhat less.

Speaker 14 So In Britain, yes, we have found toilets.

Speaker 14 And where we generally find them are at the north of the empire on the frontiers, at military sites, so Hadrian's Wall, we've talked about, or other sites where you've got really strong military connections, Roxeter, for example, that sort of thing, where the military might be located.

Speaker 14 Other than that, they're far more disparate in terms of evidence in Britain. Likewise, if we take the example of the Near East,

Speaker 14 again,

Speaker 14 the uptake of toilets here was much, much later and less.

Speaker 14 I mean, we really start to see the majority of toilets in the Near East being built sort of around about the fourth century AD, so quite considerably later than in Italy and North Africa.

Speaker 14 And there are, in urban sites, there are far fewer being found.

Speaker 14 So, for example, if you look at Judea, far fewer examples. The suggestion here,

Speaker 14 there are a few suggestions behind this, but one possible suggestion is the idea of religious taboos.

Speaker 14 That actually

Speaker 14 there may have been concerns about questions of nudity, questions of impurity,

Speaker 14 perhaps, that actually might make using toilets difficult for some religious communities, particularly, for example, religious Jews may have found it particularly difficult.

Speaker 14 There is also the point, it's not necessarily just about concerns about nudity, but actually, there might also be concerns about the proximity, the closeness of being sitting pretty much in physical close contact with other people as you go to the loo, that actually that might also be a particular concern as well.

Speaker 14 And we know that there were clear Jewish religious strictures about depositing excrement in water. Jewish law dictated that human excrement needed to be buried in a field.

Speaker 14 So that's where toilets then caused a problem if they were going to be flushing excrement into the sewers and then therefore into water, into the urban drainage system.

Speaker 13 And so naturally, let's say if we look at the Iron Age Britons, for instance, as another example, of course, it can't be exactly the same reason as you've just highlighted in Judea.

Speaker 13 but perhaps we can presume that maybe there was another reason why they were uncomfortable of adopting this particular practice.

Speaker 13 And though, and so, you know, many of those settlements in Roman Britain, in which you would still have had a sizable number of Iron Age Britons, it doesn't pick up.

Speaker 13 They don't take it on like other places.

Speaker 14 Yeah, and actually, it's really interesting. You say, oh, maybe we can't see the same reasoning.
But actually,

Speaker 14 there may be similar connections because actually the idea of disposal of excrement in water may have been problematic in Britain too. Oh, okay, yes.

Speaker 14 Because there was a very long-standing connection of water and ritual. Yes.

Speaker 14 If we look at bodies of water, the River Thames, for example, was really so often used as a place of ritual deposition by pre-Roman or late Iron Age, as we might call them, communities.

Speaker 14 So the idea that actually

Speaker 14 feces in water actually being problematic in Britain as well might also be similar here.

Speaker 13 God, that's so fascinating.

Speaker 2 Stop! Before you drag yourself to that coffee pot tomorrow morning, try this instead. Tonight, fill a shaker with water.
Add one scoop of early bird and put it on your nightstand.

Speaker 2 When your alarm screams at 5 a.m., drink it first. What happens next will shock you.
Your brain doesn't gradually wake up, it switches on.

Speaker 2 The fog vanishes, you're not surviving your morning, you're conquering it. This blood-orange mimosa ritual turned more than a thousand night owls into morning warriors this week alone.

Speaker 2 Get yours at clubberlybird.com and use code NEVERSNOOSE for 20% off.

Speaker 15 Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows home, so you don't have to.

Speaker 15 Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.
You just have to hire one.

Speaker 15 You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

Speaker 16 Twas a cold winter's night and without any heat, I wore bombas socks so they'd warm up my feet. Yay, my feet cried.
These socks are the best. So cushy and warm, I can finally rest.

Speaker 16 But don't rest, I said. There's more if you please.
Bombus also makes underwear, slippers, and tees. And for each thing you purchase, they donate one new to someone who needs it so they're cozy too.

Speaker 16 Everybody deserves to feel good all the time. So gift bombas this season.
That's the end of this rhyme. Go to bombus.com slash audio and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase.

Speaker 1 Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five.
Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season. But support can still fit into your life.

Speaker 1 With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S.
offering both virtual and in-person sessions.

Speaker 1 You can search by insurance, provider specialty, treatment methods, and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy.

Speaker 1 There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session.
Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost.

Speaker 1 Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan.

Speaker 1 Visit growtherapy.com/slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com/slash ACAST.
Growtherapy.com/slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

Speaker 13 Well, for the places in the Roman Empire where they did, where communal toilets did catch on, Hannah, do we know much about,

Speaker 13 I guess, the logistics, or do we know much about how they were set up? Who was in charge of these toilets and so on?

Speaker 14 It's a really interesting question, actually, because in terms of like the communal toilets, the question of who set them up is really interesting when we think about how we fund our cities today, how we fund our infrastructure today.

Speaker 14 You know, we use taxes for our roads and so on and so forth. That wasn't the case in ancient Rome.
There weren't the councils in the same way that we have them today.

Speaker 14 And actually, although Romans did collect taxes, the taxes really were, to be honest, too small to be doing substantial infrastructure, to undertake substantial infrastructure projects.

Speaker 14 So, what they relied upon was benefaction, private benefaction in public areas.

Speaker 14 So, that means that it would be generally elite Romans who would typically be setting up and who would be funding the public toilets in cities. And actually, they would do so,

Speaker 14 yes, for an idea of when I say public health, I mean sort of a notion of clean, cleanliness,

Speaker 14 but also actually just keeping waste off the streets and for urban aesthetics, I guess. And similarly, by setting up these communal toilets, it was a way of showing their own

Speaker 14 wealth and so on. It's what we call eurgatism, that notion of gift giving to your community so that they see your wealth and they remember your wealth and realize that you are a someone.

Speaker 13 So, you can imagine in some of these communal toilets, if you walked into it, there could well be a plaque or an inscription above saying this was set up by Cornelius Gracchus or whoever from X family in the year whatever.

Speaker 13 Basically, a reminder that whenever you went to the Lou to remember who to thank almost and maybe with the next election or something like that coming up to, you know, just remember what I did for you in that time.

Speaker 14 Absolutely. And actually, that really is the idea of yurgotism.

Speaker 14 that actually it's about getting your name out there, whatever way you're gift giving, you know, whether that's through building a toilet, a theatre, you know, whatever it might be, but it was about making a name for yourself so that people would remember you at the time of voting and so that you would have a symbol of your status and wealth, that you were someone in the city.

Speaker 13 It's interesting. You have one senator who dedicates a theatre, the other dedicates a toilet, and then you see who wins at the next vote.

Speaker 13 So if the person who makes the toilet gets the vote, they just knew exactly what the people wanted. So there you go.

Speaker 14 That's exactly right.

Speaker 13 So talk me through a visit to one of these communal toilets. What do we know? This is something that you've already hinted at, but I think we should mention and highlight again.

Speaker 13 These aren't private cubicles, are they? You walk in and it's certainly not a private experience.

Speaker 14 Right. So this is a really interesting question.

Speaker 14 I am really interested in the question of public and private experience in the ancient world. And the concept of going to the toilet is actually, I mean, if you think about it,

Speaker 14 it's innately tied to our bodies, our senses, our emotions. You know, that sort of notion of going to the loo, well,

Speaker 14 what's it going to be like in a communal toilet in an ancient city?

Speaker 14 So, the question that you bring out here about privacy is really important for us to think about, but also for us to be aware that our concept of privacy is not necessarily the same as ancient concepts of privacy.

Speaker 14 So, in terms of visual privacy, going to the toilet in a communal Roman lieu,

Speaker 14 well, there probably was some element of privacy from at least the outside world, so that people who were outside the toilet would not necessarily be able to view into the toilet because there would be doors or some sort of screen, a curtain or a partition or something like that.

Speaker 14 And we have evidence of that at at a number of communal toilets. So it suggests that there was some element of blockading that entrance from the main world outside.

Speaker 14 Inside, however, the situation is very, very different.

Speaker 14 So a

Speaker 14 really important feature of the public Roman toilet is that, as I say, they are communal, many, they are communal,

Speaker 14 but there aren't screens,

Speaker 14 there aren't cubicles that would give any sort of block

Speaker 14 between users. So, actually, that lack of screens, that lack of cubicles,

Speaker 14 would surely allow

Speaker 14 views between users.

Speaker 14 And now, one thing that will have impacted what you can and can't see in the toilet as you're in that room is, of course, the amount of lighting that there is.

Speaker 14 If there's obviously a lot of light, you'll see a lot more. Obviously less light, you'll see less light.
So that could be quite variable.

Speaker 14 The other thing that would impact what you could and couldn't see while people were on the loo would be in terms of the clothing that they were wearing. Users would be seated.

Speaker 14 So the clothing you would be wearing as you were seating would indeed cover elements of what was going on. Although, of course, that depends on the clothing you're wearing.

Speaker 14 If you're wearing a toga, potentially more than if you're wearing a tunic, which may be rather more opening up, seeing a lot more.

Speaker 14 The other thing, of course, is the question of whether people would avert their eyes. Did people go to the toilet and actually avert their eyes from other people surrounding them?

Speaker 14 Well, we can't really answer that, but it's difficult to say. So that's the visual side of it, but that's not the only sensory experience to be had whilst on the toilet.
That's very true.

Speaker 14 Indeed.

Speaker 14 Smell would obviously be a fundamental experience here. And, you know, it's very difficult to think about just how ventilated these toilets might have been, but it probably varied considerably.

Speaker 14 There may have been some toilets that didn't have roofs. There may have been some that had windows.
And of course, those elements would have helped with ventilation.

Speaker 14 But then it's possible that a number of toilets really did have roofs or didn't have windows and then the

Speaker 14 ventilation there would be much, much less. And actually one of the questions there might be

Speaker 14 in different parts of the empire would some toilets be unroofed and some toilets be roofed because it would be far worse in Britain to be going to the toilet in an unroofed communal latrine than, say, in Syria, which is rather warmer.

Speaker 14 So, you may, that may be one climactic difference as to how toilets were built across the empire. So, then you've got the notion of ventilation and it's going to smell.

Speaker 14 The toilets themselves would have smelled because, one thing, for example, we have no archaeological evidence of stench traps.

Speaker 14 So, actually, that doesn't, you know, the whole idea idea of the stench trap is to, you know, it's a water seal to protect or to prevent the upward passage of the smelly gases.

Speaker 14 With no stench trap, they're not being kept down. They're just, ooh, free-flowing.

Speaker 13 Is there any kind of Roman sense that, yes, okay, they can't get rid of those smells, but do they have almost a Febreze equivalent?

Speaker 13 Did they try to get sweet smelling aromatics or the like that they could also include to maybe, although it hasn't gone away, but at least try to conceal the smell to an extent.

Speaker 14 Yeah, and actually, we do have examples, particularly there have been examples actually found in private toilets where you would have herbs hanging up or herbs, remnants of burnt herbs nearby, which very possibly might have been about trying to disguise the smell.

Speaker 14 That certainly is a possibility, and I, you know, evidence has been found in a number of toilets, in a number of examples.

Speaker 14 The other element of going to the communal toilet, not only is it visible, not only is it smelly, but then you're touching people.

Speaker 14 You're in close proximity to other people as you are sitting going to the toilet. So, actually, that could very possibly have been a concern for people.

Speaker 14 And of course, you are sitting on a toilet seat above a deep dark hole where there could easily be the concern for rats and flies and all sorts of other unwanted existing in the depths of the dark toilet system.

Speaker 14 And then, of course, you've got the noise. You know, actually, if you've got a lot of people going to the toilet, you've got the sound of going to the loo.
Yes, exactly. Yes.

Speaker 14 You've got the sound of water running in the gutters in front of you. You've got the chatter of people.
You know, actually, that is one thing.

Speaker 14 And that was why I said, when I said, did people avert their eyes?

Speaker 14 Well, I don't think we've got much evidence of that at all, because what we do have is evidence of people talking to each other on the loo. Interesting.

Speaker 14 It does seem to be that it was a place where people would sit and have a good old natter.

Speaker 13 The equivalent of a newspaper, I guess, or a toilet book in Roman times.

Speaker 14 Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right.
Catching up on the gossip. Yeah, finding out what's going on.
It's a place where there were many, many experiences, sensory experiences to be had.

Speaker 14 I guess one of the questions then is, and particularly about smell, but actually the sound and so on, how much would those sensory experiences have displeased Romans is open to question?

Speaker 14 You know, we live in quite a deodorized world, so for us, smell can be quite foul, but actually, you do get habituated to smell. So

Speaker 14 how badly some of this smelt? To us, if we went back in a time machine, yeah, the smell, I should imagine, would be horrendous in these toilets. But actually,

Speaker 14 would it have been as bad or would it have been perceived as bad? That is a more difficult question to answer.

Speaker 13 Because we don't have that information surviving from a philosopher or someone writing down saying like the stench of the toilets was horrific, or this is like the depths of depravity or anything like that.

Speaker 14 We do have comments about the smell of toilets, but and we do have the we do have disgust written about the disgust of towards latrines.

Speaker 14 But just I'm just thinking about if you're walking around the street and so on,

Speaker 14 actually, if you come across the smell of a toilet, would it really impinge and be so

Speaker 14 you know i guess what i'm trying to say here is we need to be very careful about putting our modern concepts of our sensory experiences of our world and actually just transporting those onto understanding the sensory experiences of the ancient world is i guess the point i'm trying to make here

Speaker 13 completely that does raise another important question though is there a sense that almost like with so many other things like with ancient rome I mean, your status in society depends, you know, very much set what types of pleasures you enjoyed.

Speaker 13 And I guess it's the same with toilets. Would you expect richer Romans to ever visit one of these communal toilets? Or is this a place that, as a richer Roman, you did not go?

Speaker 14 It is difficult to answer this in terms of being absolutely sure, but we know that upper-class Romans would pay, obviously, for the setup of

Speaker 14 communal toilets, but it is probable they didn't use them that much. If they had the choice of using their own rather than a communal toilet, then that's likely to be what they would be aiming to use.

Speaker 13 Was it divided up by gender, or would men and women visit these communal toilets together?

Speaker 14 So that's also the other side, again, and it's a very frustrating answer I'm going to give you here because the thing is, it's very difficult to say, but actually, the architectural design of toilets, their location, doesn't give us any real firm evidence as to any gender separation.

Speaker 14 There's actually also no written evidence about any gender separation.

Speaker 14 We have a wall painting in Ostia where we've got a depiction of men on a toilet,

Speaker 14 but that's that's just one picture. It's two wall painting.

Speaker 13 You have a wall painting showing it. Wow.

Speaker 14 Yeah, that's quite something. Absolutely.
We have a wall painting in Ostia of men sitting in a toilet. It's a painting known as the Sette Sapiente.

Speaker 14 seven philosophers having a conversation about digestion and going to the toilet.

Speaker 13 Yeah. Brilliant.

Speaker 14 Absolutely. But, I mean, that's seven men going to the loo,

Speaker 14 but actually, it's really, it's too limited for us to really make any statement, a fundamental statement about gender or gender ideas within toilet and segregation in toilets.

Speaker 14 So I would be very wary about saying that.

Speaker 14 However, it's again probably

Speaker 14 unlikely you would find an elite woman many times in a communal toilet because actually, it's the dangers of that would probably be quite high. Being mugged, whatever, that could be a real problem.

Speaker 14 The experience itself, obviously, also potentially wasn't going to be seen as very nice either.

Speaker 14 So, again, it's that notion of if you've got a toilet in your house, you'd rather use your own toilet in your house.

Speaker 14 It's not likely to be somewhere where you would find an elite man or an elite woman wanting to spend a penny or a sestercius or whatever.

Speaker 13 Well, that's another quick question. I hadn't thought about it.
But of course, you know, in some public toilets today, there is the case that, you know, you sometimes you have to pay to get entry.

Speaker 13 Do we have any idea at all from the surviving evidence? You're shaking your head. I could, I can imagine the answer already, but like whether there were certain ones where the person who

Speaker 13 built the communal toilet actually says, I'm going to get a bit of money out of this at the same time.

Speaker 14 I can't recall of coming across any evidence for that. That doesn't mean there might not be some.
I just have never come across that evidence.

Speaker 14 And I think that actually it would be difficult for them to have done so because then it takes away from that kudos of that. It comes, it takes away from that gift giving.

Speaker 14 So I think that would be unlikely. I've just thought of one area where we do see also

Speaker 14 segregation in terms of status. Okay.

Speaker 14 And that is actually within army toilets within Britain. Ah, okay.

Speaker 14 There does seem to be some evidence of social segregation because, where we see multiple communal latrines for lower-ranked soldiers, it does seem that the centurions might have separate individual toilets.

Speaker 14 So we see this at modern-day Chester.

Speaker 14 We see that there were single toilets for the commandant in his house, for example, and then there were communal toilets elsewhere for the other sort of lower-ranking soldiers.

Speaker 14 So we do see some evidence of segregation, but yeah.

Speaker 13 Interesting in the military context. It does seem to certainly make sense with the commander's house and all that in those Roman forts.

Speaker 3 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 7 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price.

Speaker 10 You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 5 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 17 Studies show that 100% of everybody in the world wants to curl up indoors and do nothing because it's so darn cold out there.

Speaker 17 That's why many people are turning to Bambas, whose pillowy plush slippers slippers and warm merino wool socks have been said to be the most comfortable in the history of feet.

Speaker 17 Bombas products have been found to boost coziness by up to 1 million percent. Okay, enough fake statistics, but could bomba socks and slippers really be the cure?

Speaker 17 Go to bombas.com/slash audio and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase. That's bombbas.com and use code audio.

Speaker 13 Hannah, I can't have us talk about toilets and communal toilets without also asking about the famous sponge on a stick.

Speaker 13 Now, it feels like this is one of the most popular parts of Romans and going to the loo. I mean, how popular was this object as the Roman equivalent of toilet paper, I guess?

Speaker 14 Okay, so the sponge on a stick.

Speaker 14 This is is always the question.

Speaker 14 A toilet stick, yeah.

Speaker 14 So the difficulty actually that we have about this sponge on a stick is actually being sure about really how it was used. Okay.

Speaker 14 So we have a story from Seneca

Speaker 14 who tells us about a gladiator who was going to be forced to fight and didn't want to.

Speaker 14 And as he was preparing for his going to fight,

Speaker 14 he picked up the xylospongium.

Speaker 14 That's the Greek terminology, but it was often referred to by the Greek terminology and or Roman terminology, but essentially the sponge on the stick.

Speaker 14 He picked that up and stuffed it down his throat and suffocated himself. And actually, Seneca...

Speaker 14 just as an aside here seneca was actually he really praised this exactly good way to die wasn't it totally it's hilarious it's a really it was like a really good way to die.

Speaker 14 It was a self-determined death, although it was a really rather undignified weapon of death. So, yeah.

Speaker 14 But the problem is, so that's the story, and that's what everyone talks about.

Speaker 14 But actually, the literary texts don't describe the actual use of the sponge on the stick. I have mentioned earlier that there was a gutter in front of the users on the ground that had flowing water.

Speaker 14 And the sponge on the stick would sit in this

Speaker 14 for cleaning.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 the suggestion is, obviously, one of the suggestions is that sponge on the stick would be used to wipe yourself after you've pooed.

Speaker 13 Yeah, wipe your bum.

Speaker 14 Exactly right. So it becomes that toilet paper.
And it was shared around.

Speaker 14 Nice.

Speaker 14 So it becomes that, yeah, as the equivalent then of Roman toilet paper. That's one idea.

Speaker 14 There is actually another train of thought to suggest it might have actually been used to clean the toilet and the gullies themselves.

Speaker 14 But actually, maybe it wasn't used as toilet paper. The difficulty is, is really, how do we come to the answer? Because the problem is a sponge on a stick doesn't survive.

Speaker 14 But it's difficult, and it isn't in the evidence. It isn't in the literary evidence.
And we do know actually that they would use other elements as well. They would use other.

Speaker 14 So if you're asking about you, smooth stones were one thing that could be used. That really does sort of make you wince, doesn't it? Yeah.
Yeah. Wow.
Or moss and leaves.

Speaker 13 Moss, yes. I've heard the moss one before, particularly on like a Roman fortress, like house steads on Hadrian's Wall, right? Normally, moss is readily available and they could use that instead.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 14 And in fact, they've done loads of, they've actually, you know, you can actually then have a look and see when you've done excavations, you can actually not find the moss, but remnants of parasite eggs, which suggests so on and so forth, that feces has been there.

Speaker 14 So, yeah, the sponge on a stick, I mean, the Latin term, the tessorium, literally means a wiping thing. So, it could be to wipe your bottom, but it could be to wipe the toilet.

Speaker 14 One point else that I would suggest, and I think it's something to bear in mind.

Speaker 14 One thing I would suggest that I actually find myself thinking about quite a lot, which is a little bit odd, sponge as a material in some parts of the empire will be readily available.

Speaker 14 But in some parts of the empire, sponge would really not be readily available and would be quite expensive and difficult to get hold of. So there may also be a question of

Speaker 14 were there geographical aspects that changed what you used to wipe yourself with.

Speaker 14 If sponge is difficult to get hold of, of, why would you then use it to wipe your bottom?

Speaker 14 That's just my musings on toilets.

Speaker 13 No, but

Speaker 13 I get what you mean.

Speaker 13 In the world that we come from today, once again, I think this is the modern world idea that we have because we are so used to everywhere we go, effectively there will be toilet roll or toilet paper and that's kind of the accepted thing.

Speaker 13 But whether that actually was the case back in Roman times, you know, different things and is it different materials where you go? I actually think it's very likely indeed, isn't it?

Speaker 13 So, you shouldn't think of it as being uniform, you know, wherever you go in the Roman world, even though it seems like, as you say, these communal toilets they spread outwards as the Roman Empire is spreading outwards, too.

Speaker 14 Yeah, and

Speaker 14 I think when you think about it, who are doing who's doing the writing? Well, that's elite Romans. That's where we get a lot of our Roman.
So, Seneca the Younger.

Speaker 14 Yeah, he's telling, he's an elite Roman. He's telling us what it's like where he is.

Speaker 14 But we don't get written sources from Britons, so we don't know what it's like for them and what they're seeing so i get i guess that's uh just one of the queries i would raise and it's something as i say i have thought a bit about

Speaker 13 because i'm that exciting well no i'm very excited to talk all things roman toilets with these so don't don't you worry at all we want to harness that excitement especially if we go into the next bit now actually going over to private toilets and actually one question I have about toilets in elite houses and even sometimes like imperial palaces and the like, I mean, just how sophisticated could they be?

Speaker 13 Because I remember doing an interview in the past where people say we've got a flushing toilet from the Minoan palace at Kanosos or something like that.

Speaker 13 So do we have evidence of the Roman equivalent of flushing toilets in the most, in the richest houses and palaces that we know of?

Speaker 14 Yeah, yeah, we do. Because actually what you would do is you would have your toilet, you have, you would be able to flush it through with water.

Speaker 14 You would actually commune, there were communal toilets that would actually have water flowing through them.

Speaker 14 So they were automatically flushing constantly. So, yes, that's we absolutely have examples of flushing, flushing toilets.
Yes, in private situations and communal public flushing toilets. But

Speaker 14 in terms of private toilets, in terms of actually how you might make your toilet really stand out, yeah, they could be really luxurious, they could be elaborately carved.

Speaker 14 They could have mosaic floors.

Speaker 14 You could actually sort of

Speaker 14 really make your toilet stand out however you wanted with decorations, with all sorts of accoutrements. There's evidence for hand basins in some, but not other toilets.
It wasn't a must.

Speaker 14 You might have fountains. which, okay, could offer alternative, possibly hand washing facilities, although if you wash your hands or not, that's up to you, basically.

Speaker 14 But it would also potentially improve the ambience of the toilet, the noise of the toilet. Yeah.

Speaker 13 And the trickling of water.

Speaker 14 Very nice. Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 13 And come to think of it, the more you do think about it, like that whole, you know, society part of it with the elites of Rome, you know,

Speaker 13 inviting your fellow elites over to dinner. You've got your triclinium, you've got your beautiful wall paintings and mosaics in those public areas to show off your wealth and talk about it.

Speaker 14 Of course,

Speaker 13 your guests will probably want to use the toilet once you're over there. And then it also becomes, I guess, a public space.

Speaker 13 So people, you know, you would embellish your toilets, wouldn't you, with lots of beautiful patterns and artistic images and so on.

Speaker 13 Because once again, that's an area that you can show off how rich and affluent you are, and that you could afford the best, even for your toilet.

Speaker 14 Yeah, you certainly could do.

Speaker 14 I mean that having been said, not all toilets in big posh houses were all that opulent either. I guess it becomes that element of choice of what you want to do.
Right.

Speaker 14 I mean we do find you know toilets tend to be located in or near kitchens. So perhaps that was about keeping the noisy and the smelly places located together.

Speaker 14 They could also be tucked away under the stairs or they could be situated in gardens or indeed actually sort of near the street, so that the smell might waft into the street rather more than wafting into the house.

Speaker 14 But I guess the point that's important to think about is again, it comes back to this statement of it's not uniform. You know, individual details of toilets can vary.

Speaker 14 And I think you can set your toilet up as you see fit, but you would often, as I say, locate them in your kitchen or near your kitchen.

Speaker 14 There were certain places where you might locate your toilet, but what you then then did with decorating that toilet, it's up to you.

Speaker 13 So having talked about everything that we've done so far, communal toilets and toilets were the richest in society, how likely would you say it is that an everyday Roman would have had access to a toilet in their own house?

Speaker 13 So like, you know, an everyday person living in a place like Pompeii, you know, not a very big house whatsoever.

Speaker 13 Like, is it very much, is the communal toilet your main kind of official toilet or what do we know?

Speaker 14 Yeah. So, I mean, we do know that a number of dwellings do have their own private toilets.
We do also know that a number of dwellings absolutely don't.

Speaker 14 Particularly, as you say, it often does come down to status and the amount of money you have, the amount of wealth you have.

Speaker 14 Those who are of the lower echelons of society might very well not have had access to a toilet of their own.

Speaker 14 So, that may be then where they would be needing to go to the use the communal toilets, for example.

Speaker 14 yeah absolutely certainly we do not have they are they are not within every house under any stretch of the imagination no and if they didn't have one in their house is that when they would resort to chamber pots yeah yeah indeed you may go to the toilet communal toilets but you're unlikely to want to go to a communal toilet in the middle of the night for example

Speaker 14 so that's of course where you would be using chamber pots absolutely right yeah and indeed i mean actually we do find,

Speaker 14 we do have this great story from Petronius. He's writing under the reign of the Emperor Nero, and he writes about this dinner party of this elite freedman.

Speaker 14 Trimalchio, exactly, Cana Trimalchionis.

Speaker 14 And the way he's represented in this story by Petronius is he's a very uncouth,

Speaker 14 for want of a better way of putting it, individual. And as they're all dining in there, in his

Speaker 14 rather vulgar, vulgarly decorated tropinium, he at one point clicks his fingers and summons a slave to come with a chamber pot so he can relieve himself in front of his guests. Lovely.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 13 But in that case, is that the case of Petronius just once again showing how vulgar Trimalchio is, how he doesn't do things as expected for an elite Roman that they would actually go to their private toilet.

Speaker 13 He's doing something that's associated with someone of

Speaker 13 a lower status. So

Speaker 13 it's poking fun at Trimalchio.

Speaker 14 Exactly right. And of course, you always have to say, well, how reliable is the story? It's a novel, it's an ancient novel.
So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14 And actually, the whole point is he's making a social statement. He's making a statement about Trimalchio being an ex-slave, about Trimalchio being a freedman, and not really understanding what

Speaker 14 elite society does and how they should behave. So, what he's doing is calling for the chamber pot and using it in and amongst everyone.

Speaker 13 So, I'd like now to ask about sanitation and, first of all, the importance of washing your hands.

Speaker 13 Did the Romans, was there a general acceptance of the need to wash your hands after you've been to the toilet? Do we know much about that?

Speaker 14 So, it's really interesting to think about hygiene and hand washing and so on.

Speaker 14 Romans might, Kansaw will say, they might have washed their hands, but that's the point, because they didn't really have any notion that the idea of washing your hands would be for hygiene purposes.

Speaker 14 Actually, you know, we do have this story about Trimalchio washing his hands after using the chamber pot, but actually, and then what he did was he dried his hand on the enslaved person's hair.

Speaker 14 So really not very much about hygiene hygiene at all. And actually, what he's doing there, that's about showing power and control, actually.
That's about really highlighting that he is now a

Speaker 14 freed man and this is now his enslaved individual. But the point is that when we're thinking about hygiene and

Speaker 14 Romans,

Speaker 14 Romans had developed sewers and they developed sewers to remove waste, but they didn't really understand that notion of bacteria and bacterial diseases and that they were held within feces.

Speaker 14 So that idea of washing your hands as a means of hygiene was not really going to be the reason why Romans would wash their hands.

Speaker 13 It's interesting because also you associate with the Romans and the Greeks to an extent as well, this idea of cleanliness, if you're about to perform a religious ritual or going to the baths and so on.

Speaker 13 So, you know, constantly you get these ideas of the Romans wanting to get clean. But you've highlighted another thing there that, you know, if you can't see dirtiness on yourself,

Speaker 13 that's another case entirely.

Speaker 13 So that's, I guess, where you can differentiate between maybe not washing your hands after going to the loo and, you know, having physical dirt on your body and wanting to clean yourself of that.

Speaker 14 Yeah. And actually, the point you make about sort of ritual purity, that may be exactly why Romans would wash their hands.

Speaker 14 The notion of if they're going to do something that needs ritual purity, that may be where you you would see references to hand washing, for example.

Speaker 14 But the idea of needing to wash your hands after going to the loo, that wasn't the necessary, you know, there is no written, there is no reference in ancient texts, for example, that sewers were built for hygienic purposes.

Speaker 14 For example,

Speaker 14 you know, it was a more of a practical thing. You build a sewer because there's no other way to get rid of dirt, the waste, human waste, wastewater.

Speaker 14 So it's about getting it away from the urban environment. But that's not necessarily the same thing about hygiene and healthful reasons.

Speaker 13 Yeah, so you don't think they had any idea about diseases like cholera, where drinking water could mix with human waste and so on.

Speaker 13 So there's no clear desire to differentiate the two kind of water strands.

Speaker 14 No, I mean, there were concerns about cleanliness of water in, for example, in bathhouses to extent.

Speaker 14 I mean, mean, you need to be careful about, you wouldn't want to be deliberately depositing excrement in water. That seems to sort of be a step too far.

Speaker 14 But the idea of waterborne diseases like cholera, that was not a consideration. So it wasn't until, you know, London had a series of cholera epidemics in the 1800s, and a man called John Snow, Dr.

Speaker 14 John Snow, realized that the disease was being caused by water that was contaminated by feces that was carrying dangerous bacteria.

Speaker 14 And that was, that gave the understanding of, okay, you need to be careful about bacteria for hygiene. That understanding was not

Speaker 14 in any way understood in the ancient Roman world.

Speaker 14 But what is interesting is when those modern-day hygienists who are thinking about, okay, we know about these waterborne diseases now, what do we do?

Speaker 14 What they did do actually is really interesting because they looked back to antiquity to places including ancient Rome and they saw the fabulous sewage systems that were developed and they studied them as an example of, yeah, this is how we can get rid of water.

Speaker 14 We can use this as a means of public health.

Speaker 14 So sewers were a really important technical, you know, technological way forward. They removed waste into underground channels, absolutely.
It removed waste. You don't want to go near waste.

Speaker 14 And these sewers were held up by these modern-day hygienists as really important because they were getting rid of what you don't want around.

Speaker 13 And then would the sewers, the output of the sewers, be something like a river nearby or the sea and so on? But I guess also the fact that we've done an episode on aqueducts recently.

Speaker 13 So this continual idea of almost downward movement of water.

Speaker 13 So, they get their water from a reservoir higher up somewhere, let's say, the Apennine Mountains or whatever, and the water would come down via the aqueducts into fountains and so on.

Speaker 13 Maybe some of it is used into one of the big tanks, maybe for water in one of these communal latrines. And then the waste gets taken away in the sewers.

Speaker 13 So, actually, in that way, they don't mix as much as you might initially think.

Speaker 14 No, absolutely. And actually, that is the thing, that the Romans also were really proud of their sewers.

Speaker 14 sewers they were really really proud of their sewers they wrote about them they thought they were really impressive buildings really impressive constructions we've got loads a number of writers talking about you know pliny the elder in his natural histories he actually sort of sees the sewers as areas of pride you know they are a really noteworthy achievement And yet they also,

Speaker 14 just like those modern day hygienists, they also understood that they were taking away waste that was not nice. So, you've got this weird ambiguity in antiquity.
Our sewers are great.

Speaker 14 They take away rubbish that isn't very nice. And those modern hygienists, let's look at the Roman sewers.
They were fantastic. They can help us with our public hygiene.

Speaker 14 And they take away the stuff that's not very nice. So there's this weird ambiguity here that's quite interesting.

Speaker 13 One of my most popular social videos of all time is me. walking through a Roman sewer beneath Colchester today.

Speaker 13 And I think the top comments are just like you're walking through ancient Pooh and they're like, which is quite funny.

Speaker 13 But we we could do a whole another episode dedicated to sewers and like they are another marvel of Roman infrastructure.

Speaker 13 We're running out of time, Hannah, but I would like to ask one other question, which is these communal toilets in particular, I mean, if sanitation, you know, some really interesting elements, but they aren't the most hygienic of places.

Speaker 13 Given that you do get so many diseases and epidemics across the Roman world throughout the time, do you think that communal toilets did become hotspots for diseases and central areas for the spread of diseases in Roman societies?

Speaker 14 Well, I imagine in a sense they must have done to some extent. They were dirty.
They were

Speaker 14 where

Speaker 14 feces and urine were

Speaker 14 got rid of. They were where people had contact with each other.
They were where people did or didn't wash their hands. They were where people did or didn't share the sponge on on the stick.

Speaker 14 They were where they were also, they didn't have that stench trap. They were directly connected to the sewer or the cesspit underneath.

Speaker 14 So rats and other animals could also then get into that area and further spread disease.

Speaker 14 So I think we need to bear in mind that actually toilets were not really about improving the health of the Roman world.

Speaker 14 I think they could have been incredibly dangerous.

Speaker 14 And actually, there are a number of toilets where there are decorations on the walls of sort of almost apotropaic symbols or snakes or to ward off the evil eyes, almost as a sort of protection against almost like possibly you're going into a dangerous area here.

Speaker 14 Now, whether that wouldn't have been a knowledge of you're going into a dangerous area because of disease as such, just you're going to an area that's polluted because it's dealing with feces.

Speaker 14 But also, there could be all sorts of other things that exist.

Speaker 14 I mean, we do have one story of a toilet in a house where the guy who owned the house, he suddenly realized that things were being eaten from his kitchen. So he set up a tram.

Speaker 14 He realized it was an octopus that was coming up out of the toilet and eating stuff in his kitchen. Now, I mean, really how reliable that is, I actually have to flag.

Speaker 14 But I think what it does highlight to us is that that, that the cesspit or the sewers, they weren't closed off. You know, you could just stuff could come up.

Speaker 13 Is there a story of a snake coming up in one? Like kind of a scary story of me, you might hear in Australia today of a, you know, a snake peeping its head out of a toilet or something like that.

Speaker 13 Do you get that from Roman times as well in the East?

Speaker 14 We do know that various creatures might very well live in them, sort of poisonous centipes, poisonous spiders.

Speaker 14 You never know, getting bitten by a spider that lives in a loo, that's not going to be a very hygienic bite. Wow.

Speaker 13 Okay. We might want to leave it there then.
That's kind of, Hannah, we've covered so much. And what a story it is.
It is an important part of the Roman daily life.

Speaker 13 And is there anything, Hannah, that you'd like to leave us with with the topic of Roman toilets?

Speaker 13 How would you want us primarily to think of Roman toilets today?

Speaker 14 I think I want you to realise that they're quite varied in that you've got individual toilets, you've got communal toilets.

Speaker 14 You've got some being connected to sewers, you've got some not being connected to sewers, but being connected to cesspits. You've got some people having toilets, some people not having toilets.

Speaker 14 So, actually, it really does highlight that point we made earlier about there isn't a uniformity here. And I think that's really important to understand about the Roman world.

Speaker 14 It's not a uniform story of this, this, this, and this. You know, it's not just everything all falls one way.
And I think that's the brilliance of the Romans, actually.

Speaker 14 They were quite keen to adapt things and use what worked in certain places and what didn't work in other places they wouldn't use.

Speaker 14 And I think

Speaker 14 that's why they're so brilliant in terms of just their ingenuity. I find that really exciting.

Speaker 14 I guess one other thing, just to highlight, is we do get some great stories about those people who didn't have toilets and did rely on chamber pots.

Speaker 14 One of the real risks of walking around the city of Rome was do be aware of people emptying their chamber pots out of their windows because it may very well land on you as you walk around the streets of Rome.

Speaker 13 Oh, wow. God, the smell of walking around Rome, if that was the case.
What

Speaker 13 topic. Anna, this has been absolutely brilliant.
It just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Speaker 14 Thank you very much for having me. It's been great.

Speaker 13 Well, there you go. There was Dr.
Hannah Platts talking through the story of Roman toilets. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Thank you for listening.

Speaker 13 Please follow the ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favor.

Speaker 13 If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts at free.

Speaker 13 and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all from from me.
I'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 3 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 7 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 No antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price.

Speaker 10 You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 6 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 13 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

Speaker 13 Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

Speaker 13 Potential savings will vary, not available in all states.