Image Details

Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow

The window high above the entrance to the latrine in Pompeii’s forum was designed to illuminate and ventilate what must have been a dark and foul place. This may explain an anomaly: During the first centuries of the Common Era, numerous urban benefactors built lavish communal latrines, replete with marble statues and mosaic floors, but these benefactors left no inscriptions taking credit for their philanthropy. No wealthy Roman, apparently, wanted his name connected to a smelly, dank latrine.