The Puzzling Channels in Ancient Latrines

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In the previous article Ronny Reich and Ya‘akov Billig told us that the strange-looking grooves in the stones amount to nothing more that a flushing channel. But how does this channel work? It is, after all, the most important evidence that the stones had been used in a latrine.

I admit my first thought was that somehow people relieved themselves into the flushing channel. But my friend Ronny Reich insists that this could not be: The flushing channel was on the floor—not under, but in front of a person sitting on the toilet. Yet Reich could not give an answer that satisfied me completely, so he suggested that I research the question myself.

My chief research tool is the telephone. I try to find an expert in a subject and then consult that person. In this case I quickly found Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, or AOKO as she is known at Brandeis University, where she teaches classics and is sometimes called “the toilet lady.”¹ She sent me two of her articles that, I think, when examined with the work of other scholars, reveal an evolution in thought on the subject during the past decade.

For example, A. Trevor Hodge, who taught classics at Carleton University in Ottawa, noted in a 1992 book that Roman latrines often contained rows of 10 or 20 or even 40 toilet seats, “allowing the occupants to consort in happy camaraderie.” The toilet seat, usually made of wood but sometimes of stone or marble, was mounted above a continuously flowing stream of water “and thus obviated the need for flushing.” So far, so good. But then 050he adds: “This highly hygienic procedure was reinforced by arranging for a small gutter or runnel [what we have been calling the flushing channel], again carrying a continuous stream of water, to run along the floor just in front of the seats [emphasis added], in which patrons could bend forward and dip their hands; no doubt it also conveniently carried away any spillage, and generally helped in keeping the place clean.”²

Both of these explanations seem quite wrong to me. I cannot imagine people reaching down to the floor in front of them to wash their hands after using the toilet. Roman engineers would surely provide a better way to wash one’s hands. Nor can I accept the “spillage” explanation. I can understand that someone might miss the spot, but certainly not that far from the mark.

But Hodge’s book hints at a third explanation. In a footnote he quotes a German scholar who says that the absence of toilet paper in Roman latrines “sometimes led to the substitution of sponges.”³

Koloski-Ostrow offered the same spillage argument as Hodge in an article she published in 1996—but then as an alternative explanation added that the channel on the floor in front of the toilet seats may have been “for rinsing out soiled sponges tied to the ends of sticks,” which Romans apparently used instead of toilet paper.⁴ In a later article, she again says that the sponge “served as communal toilet paper.”⁵

The main evidence for the use of sponges in Roman latrines is found in Epistle 70 of Seneca’s Moral Epistles. The Roman philosopher, dramatist and statesman is discussing how men value freedom, going so far as to commit suicide in order to escape servitude. Even men “of the meanest lot in life” have this “mighty impulse,” says the philosopher—and he illustrates his point with an anecdote about a slave who was being trained to fight wild animals in the amphitheater, where he was certain to meet a brutal, public death. The slave was constantly guarded to assure that he would not escape or harm himself—except when he went to the latrine to relieve himself. While so engaged, Seneca tells us, the slave “seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge which was devoted to the vilest uses [quod ad emundanda obscena adhaerente spongia positum est], and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus, he blocked up his windpipe and choked the breath from his body. That was truly to insult death … What a brave fellow!”⁶

Koloski-Ostrow regards this passage as the “locus classicus” that reveals how the Romans cleaned themselves after using the toilet.⁷

One of the epigrams of Martial, the Roman poet and satirist,^a also supports this conjecture. Ruminating on a sumptuous dinner, Martial wrote: “Tomorrow ‘twill be nought, nay today, nay a moment hence, nought that the luckless sponge at the end of a degraded mop-stick [quod sciat infelix damnatae spongea virgae] would 051discover … Of mullets and hares and sow’s paps, this is the result.” A footnote in the 1961 Loeb Classical Library translation of Martial says that the sponge was used for “sanitary purposes,” citing Seneca.⁸

If, in fact, this was how Romans cleaned themselves, we have a clue about how the “flushing channel” in the Jerusalem latrine functioned. The user of the latrine would extend the stick, with the sponge on its end, to the round depression in the channel, which contained a flow of water, and rinse it so it could be used by the next person.

But even this seemed a bit awkward to me. I could understand about the sponge—but it was the stick to which it was attached that puzzled me. How was the sponge fastened? And how could the stick be both short enough to use for the purpose intended and long enough to reach the flushing channel on the floor?

Perhaps the sponge was used first by hand and afterwards placed at the end of a stick so that it could be cleaned. The user would lean forward and dip the sponge, on the end of the stick, into the flushing channel.

Incidentally, in one respect the Jerusalem latrine is unique. The runnel in front of the toilet seats is narrower than many (4.5 inches), but it periodically widens into round basins (10 to 12 inches in diameter), as described in the previous article, apparently for washing the sponge. These basins are not seen in the runnels of other ancient latrines.

Ancient toilet seats have a smaller opening on top than most modern toilet seats and also have an opening in the vertical face on the front of the toilet. This opening, according to my research, would facilitate the use of the sponge, perhaps followed by a water rinse from the front, between the user’s legs, rather than from the back. Is this difference in practice between ancient users of sponge and water and modern users of toilet paper simply a cultural difference—front for the ancients, back for the moderns? Or does it have something to do with the applicable cleansing agents?

There is yet another possibility. Did the Romans simply clean themselves with water in the hand, scooped up from the flushing channel and applied through the opening on the front vertical face of the toilet under the seat opening?

After all, many people around the world apparently still clean themselves with water in the hand—to be precise, the left hand. One scholar I talked to about this was my old friend Clinton Bailey, probably the world’s expert on Bedouin poetry. Bailey regaled me with an account of a trip to Iran long ago, in which he was guided by a young Persian friend. On their first night, they stayed in a hotel used by locals. The young man showed Bailey his room and the customary toilet—a hole in the floor. Bailey asked where the toilet paper was. His friend did not know what toilet paper was, so Bailey explained it to him. The young fellow found the idea of using dry paper for this purpose both 070unsanitary and disgusting. One cleaned oneself with water, Bailey’s guide explained, and for this purpose a pitcher of water stood beside the toilet hole.

The Quran, too, says in at least two different chapters, or suras, that water is to be used for cleaning oneself after using the toilet—although clean, dry soil may be substituted when water is not available (Suras 4:43, 5:6).

The number of toilet seats (up to 64, in one case) in a large exposed room indicates ancients apparently were not reluctant to be convivial even while relieving themselves. Did women and men use these latrines together? Maybe so. Both men and women wore togas that were almost floor-length. To sit on the toilet, they simply lifted the back of their togas and sat down. Nothing was exposed. In any event, as one scholar has remarked, “People met there, conversed, and exchanged invitations to dinner without embarrassment.”⁹

I suspect that our erudite readers will have additional thoughts on the subject. We look forward to publishing some of them in future issues. For the moment, however, some questions must remain unanswered.

In the previous article Ronny Reich and Ya‘akov Billig told us that the strange-looking grooves in the stones amount to nothing more that a flushing channel. But how does this channel work? It is, after all, the most important evidence that the stones had been used in a latrine. I admit my first thought was that somehow people relieved themselves into the flushing channel. But my friend Ronny Reich insists that this could not be: The flushing channel was on the floor—not under, but in front of a person sitting on the toilet. Yet Reich could not give an […]