Toilets

Remains of a toilet house in Herculaneum, attached to the baths
(Photo by Author)

People’s body functions were no different in antiquity than they are today, and toilets were just as important then as they are now, despite many people’s wish to place the Roman’s on an inhuman pedestal. In fact, toilets were extremely important to Romans, who in about the first century BCE created a proliferation of public and private toilets not seen before. They became a key player in Roman infrastructure and served to help curb the human waste problems present in a city that large, and keep the streets in a more respectable condition.

                There are two main types of toilets, public and private. Public toilets were often large rooms that were lined with stone (or wooden) benches 43 cm high, a very comfortable sitting height. These benches had round holes in the top, spaced 56cm apart, with a keyhole shaped slit continuing on the front where a sponge tipped stick could be inserted for cleaning (like our modern day toilet-paper, just more environmentally friendly!). At the foot of the bench lay another shallow channel that archaeologists suspect were used for cleaning these sticks to provide some measure of sanitation. These bench holes would drop into a channel to a maximum of 380 cm, where waste water from the baths (or just water in general) would sweep away the refuse into the sewer. An intimate experience no doubt, but something that would have been normal in Roman minds.

Close up of the trough at the feet of the toilet in Herculaneum
(Photo by Author)

                The second type of toilet is a private one. Located in the culina, or kitchen, they were simple – usually single person toilets, used not only for bathroom needs, but also as a waste disposal for food scraps. These toilets were not like the public toilets in that they connected to the sewers (usually), but like modern day outhouses, that stood upon pits to be piled up with waste, and then emptied when reaching a state of filling. Human waste was actually considered a resource in Rome, and was sold to farmers to be turned into field fertilizer, if it wasn’t used by the master in his private gardens.

Bibliography

 Wald, Chelsea. "The Secret History of Ancient Toilets." Nature 533, no. 7604 (2016): 456-

          58. Accessed June 30, 2016.  doi:10.1038/533456a.