Roman Latrines

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According to the satirist Juvenal (c. 55–130 C.E.), ancient Rome was a nasty place of piercing noises, rotting food, precariously loaded wagons, sweaty crowds and thick mud (or choking dust, depending on the time of year). And things got even worse after dark, when muggers, hoodlums and drunks reigned in the streets. The city’s inhabitants would simply fling broken objects, such as ceramic jars, out on the roads, which served as a common dump. Worst of all, Romans living in the upper stories of buildings would empty their slop buckets (patulas defundere pelves)—full of kitchen refuse, urine and excrement—on the heads of startled passersby (Satires 3.269-277).

Was Juvenal trying to be funny, or was he describing a disgusting reality? Did the Romans really dump the unsavory (and unhealthy) contents of their chamber pots right onto the street? Did they evacuate their bowels in public bath waters, as some scholars suggest?¹ What did they think about human waste, and how did they deal with it?

These are difficult questions to answer, largely because the archaeological evidence is slight. Although many Roman toilets have been excavated over the last century or so, they have not been given the kind of attention lavished on other structures, like bathing complexes and temples. For obvious reasons, few archaeologists have dreamed of excavating dung piles, exploring privy deposits or sorting through household garbage.

Recently, however, that has changed, particularly as we have come to realize how much Roman toilets can teach us. Not only do they embody ideas and attitudes concerning cleanliness, physical health, beauty and privacy, but they also provide essential data about diet and disease.² Indeed, the lowly toilet has a much more complex story to tell—that is, one more intimately bound up with daily life—than the most elegant temple or civic building.³

Toilets have been around since the dawn of civilization. Minoans, Egyptians, Greeks and other ancient peoples were accomplished builders of toilets, particularly the single-seat cesspit type. Cesspits from the third millennium B.C.E. or the 21st century C.E. all resemble one another; they are simply waste receptacles dug out of the ground. Roman architects built thousands of cesspit toilets. In Pompeii, one-seat public cesspit toilets were even built into niches along the streets.⁴

Multi-seat public toilets, on the other hand, represent something new on the ancient urban 050landscape and distinguish Roman toilets from their predecessors. A multi-seat toilet was essentially a long bench with a number of seats with holes in them. Romans built multi-seat toilets in or near public areas or buildings, where they would be conveniently accessible. Multi-seat toilets were also usually built over main sewer lines, so that running sewer water could wash away the effluvia (in cesspit toilets, on the other hand, debris simply built up).

Another new characteristic of the multi-seat toilets is their high degree of standardization. Although the shapes of toilet rooms differed from place to place (they were round, rectangular, triangular, oval or square), the space between the bench’s seats, the diameter of the apertures (approximately 20 inches) and the height of the bench itself did not vary by more than a few inches. Roman toilets were probably standardized to make them transportable and recognizable across Roman geography.

In constructing these toilets, the Romans paid attention to lighting and ventilation, often placing one or two windows high on the wall. They also took pains to protect the privacy of people inside the latrine from the outside. Some public toilets had splayed entrances, while others had a kind of swinging door, like a western saloon. Nevertheless, for more than 400 years, the principal toilet design—with the standardized measurement and the use of sewer water for flushing—remained quite fixed. Clearly the multi-seat public toilet was an extremely useful technology that became solidly embedded in the social fabric of Roman life.

Most scholars agree that Roman public toilets became a regular feature of city life by the second century B.C.E. We have well-preserved remains from this period at Pompeii and elsewhere. Also in the second century B.C.E. large public baths were being regularly constructed in Roman cities. Indeed, many public toilets were built inside baths, which suggests that the Romans closely associated these activities. So it appears that around the second century B.C.E., for some reason, Roman culture began to become increasingly aware of and concerned with sanitation. Roman medical writers may have contributed to the growing interest in latrines. It’s also possible that the designs of latrines under construction in Roman cities were influenced by latrines in military camps.

In the early second century C.E. the Romans began to build fancier toilets.⁵ 051According to the German scholar Richard Neudecker, Roman officials then came to understand the political potential of regulating private behavior at all levels of society. So they began to encourage the construction of “luxury latrines” with marble walls, sculptures and mosaic floors, often built near busy intersections of Roman cities and intended to attract the Roman elites.⁶ It seems much more likely, however, that these new lavish public latrines functioned like other public buildings—as architectural showpieces for urban benefactions, whether made by political officials, aristocrats or wealthy merchants. Unfortunately, we do not have any inscriptions stating that so-and-so built a public latrine as a benefaction for his city. Apparently, Romans did not want to be closely associated personally with a toilet.

There are inscriptions, however, stating that Roman aediles (officials) were elected specifically to keep the streets repaired and clean. They were also responsible for the care and upkeep of many public buildings, such as baths and toilets. Though the sanitary standards in force might not have satisfied modern demands, the fact that there were officials responsible for sanitation in public latrines does indicate that the Romans were concerned about hygiene.

A very common misconception about the use of Roman public toilets can be attributed to a casual remark by the first-century C.E. poet Martial. In his Epigrams, Martial shows scorn for a certain Vaccera, who dallies for hours, even whole days, in Rome’s public latrines—not “to take his crap” but to get invited to dinner parties (11.77). A number of 20th-century historians took this as evidence that latrines were public forums teeming with sociable Romans of all classes. It was also suggested that closely spaced seats of public toilets were intended to encourage social intercourse. Indeed, toilets could accommodate large numbers of 052people. The best public latrines in Roman Italy (Rome, Ostia, Pompeii, Herculaneum) serviced about 25 people at a time. Some Roman public toilets in Carthage and Athens could seat more than 100 people at a time. What are we to make of this?

Probably these large toilets were simply built for efficiency. (Tourists in many a modern American city would be well served by such convenient latrines.) And think of what these ancient public toilets must have been like: dank, dimly lit chambers with poor ventilation and odious fumes. It is hard to imagine long conversations taking place there. A Roman Vaccera loitering on latrine benches would have been more likely to have his derriere singed from a mephitic explosion than to find the perfect dinner date.

In fact, new evidence suggests that anyone who could avoid a public latrine did so. Most private dwellings in Pompeii and Herculaneum were outfitted with single-seat toilets, usually of the cesspit type.⁷ This means that thousands of privileged Romans—though not those who lived in multistory tenements—were not frequenting overcrowded public latrines. If they had the means, Romans far preferred the privacy and convenience afforded by a single-seat toilet at home.⁸

Private toilets excavated at Pompeii and Herculaneum are often found in or near the kitchen. These cesspit toilets were undoubtedly placed to take advantage of slop water for flushing and to provide an easy dump for spoiled food and other household garbage.

In aristocratic country villas, multi-seat latrines were used along with private single-seat toilets. At the Roman estate of Oplontis, modern Torre Annunciata, there is a fine multi-seat latrine in the service quarters of the villa.⁹ In Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, built in the second century C.E., multi-seat toilets were clearly intended for users of lower rank, such as servants or soldiers. The villa’s single-seat toilets, found near the elegant dining couches of the Canopus and inside the “imperial” quarters of the so-called Maritime Theater, are more richly outfitted than the multi-seat arrangements. Different classes of people at the villa would have been afforded different levels of privacy for their evacuations, depending on their status.

The simplest method for disposing of human waste from cesspit toilets was directly into the garden. While we moderns have 053enormous fears about human excrement near our food supply, the Romans took a different view. Ancient authors write about carefully building cesspit latrines in country farm estates for easy access to the garden. To the Romans, excrement was clearly indispensable as agricultural fertilizer.¹⁰

The wealthiest Romans probably preferred the chamber pot (lasanum) over any of the available privies, public or private, around a Roman city. Why would a paterfamilias risk a bite from a wayward rat, when a slave could carry his bowel movement off to the garden in a handy chamber pot? The first-century C.E. author Petronius provides some colorful testimony on this point in his novel, Satyricon. When we first meet the millionaire and freedman Trimalchio, he is urinating into a chamber pot held by a eunuch during a ball game. Later, at a dinner party he is hosting, Trimalchio tells his guests about his constipation, announces that he needs to move his bowels right away and then invites everyone to join him. He explains that everything—“water, pots, and the rest of the stuff”—is ready right outside the dining room door.¹¹

Many Roman public toilets, especially the later and more luxurious ones, are equipped with a small trench cut at the foot of the toilet bench. Although the purpose of this trench is still debated, I believe it was used for washing off a sponge that was tied to the end of a short stick and used as toilet paper. Since the earliest latrines do not include this shallow trench, it was probably considered an improvement in better-equipped toilets of the late first and second centuries C.E. The sponge stick itself was probably considered a major improvement upon earlier cleaning devices, such as small stones, shells, or bunches of grass and leaves.¹²

Our classical source for the use of sponge sticks is the Roman author Seneca (c. 4 B.C.E.-65 C.E.). In his Epistles, he mentions the sponge stick as part of a more philosophical story about the independent spirit of a German gladiator condemned to death. The gladiator decides to commit suicide in the amphitheater’s latrine, the only place where he is left unguarded. He picks up a sponge stick and shoves it down his throat rather than face the death assigned to him in the amphitheater. The Latin text specifically indicates that the instrument of the gladiator’s demise is “the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, devoted to the vilest uses.”¹³ I interpret “vilest uses” to mean the cleaning of excrement both from persons using the latrine and from the 055toilet seats. A passage in Martial’s Epigrams—referring to the “sponge of the damned rod of wood” (damnatae spongea virgae)—supports this interpretation.¹⁴

Alas, no sponge tied to a stick has come down to us in the archaeological record, even from the latrines of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Wood and sea sponges are too fragile to have survived, though bits of sponge have been excavated from latrines in Britain. Nonetheless, a stunning piece of archaeological evidence seems to confirm that sponge sticks were used for these purposes. In a painting on the walls of one of the small rooms near the vestibule of the Baths of the Seven Sages at Ostia, the sages Solon of Athens and Thales of Miletus (on the Aegean coast of Anatolia) offer advice about proper bowel movements. They speak in street Latin that is hand-lettered over their heads. According to one of these captions, “To crap well, Solon stroked his stomach” (Ut bene cacaret ventrem palpavit Solon). Another goes, “Thales advised those having trouble crapping to struggle hard at it” (Durum cacantes monuit ut nitant Thales).¹⁵ These writings are not mere graffiti but sayings painted in bold black letters as an integral part of the overall decoration of the room.

Still another of the inscribed messages says: “Use the sponge on the stick” (Utaris xylospongium). This command is a part of a joke on the sages themselves, who are shown espousing their toilet talk with the aid of small wooden batons, little teaching rods without sponges. If the Romans did not use sponges tied onto sticks for “the vilest uses,” that is, for cleaning themselves, in the toilet, the joke on the walls in the Bath of the Seven Sages falls rather flat. The Ostian bath humor seems to verify that Seneca and Martial were indeed referring to this curious device of Roman daily life.

We leave the last word to Jonathan Swift, a man who knew well both the sublimity and baseness of human nature and human activity. In 1729 Swift built two privies and then praised them in a verse encomium:

Two temples of Magnifick Size,

Attract the curious Trav’llers eyes,

That might be envy’d by the Greeks

Rais’d up by you in twenty weeks:

Here, gentle Goddess Cloacine

Receives all Off’rings at her shrine,

In Sep’rate cells the He’s and She’s

Here pay their vows with bended knees.

According to the satirist Juvenal (c. 55–130 C.E.), ancient Rome was a nasty place of piercing noises, rotting food, precariously loaded wagons, sweaty crowds and thick mud (or choking dust, depending on the time of year). And things got even worse after dark, when muggers, hoodlums and drunks reigned in the streets. The city’s inhabitants would simply fling broken objects, such as ceramic jars, out on the roads, which served as a common dump. Worst of all, Romans living in the upper stories of buildings would empty their slop buckets (patulas defundere pelves)—full of kitchen refuse, urine and […]