Sixty-six toilets is a lively group effort to address a major gap in the study of sanitation in ancient Rome. Although the acts of the international conference, Roman Toilets: Their Archaeology and Cultural History, presented a wealth of information on toilets in the Roman world, surprisingly few authors addressed the evidence from the city of Rome.[1] In this ambitious project, the editors enlisted the aid of 33 archaeologists to add to their own contributions. The 66 evacuation stations in question range widely in typology and size, from single toilets or urination holes to elaborate multi-seaters. Given the wide variety of evidence for this essential but neglected element of the great Urbs, this is a volume that offers new insights to scholars from a variety of specializations focused on Rome in the imperial and late antique periods, including its archaeology, topography, and city planning. There are many new discoveries; particularly welcome is the wealth of information on recent excavations. There are surprises as well, including what for me was an unimaginable novelty: trough-like urinals lining the corridors of the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus.
Part 1, Detailed descriptions of toilets and urinals of Rome, provides an overview by the editors and their team of collaborating archaeologists. The section is divided into functional categories: domestic and business spaces; baths; public spaces; imperial domain of the Palatine; urban walls; unknown functional contexts; and suburban villas: a case study of the Villa of the Quintilii. Part 1 concludes with a list of 14 features misidentified as toilets. Part 2, Sanitary, urbanistic, and social agency, presents five essays authored by the editors. Koloski-Ostrow provides an overview of health, hygiene, and sanitation; Jansen’s three essays consider the practical matters: water supply and drainage, the materials used to make toilets, and how Romans urinated, whereas Neudecker considers the place of toilets in the contexts of urbanism, quality of life, and changes in form and function over time.
Given the wealth of information in the 66 catalogue entries, I can only highlight those that struck me as noteworthy in terms of my own specializations in the archaeology of the Vesuvian region and ancient surface decoration. Excavations of an insula under San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital uncovered a toilet with remains of an ambitious wall painting program including a well-preserved image of Fortuna making an offering on a burning altar with her right hand while holding a cornucopia in her left (cat. no. 2, figs. 9-11). A rudder and orb leaning on her left flank add to her apotropaic power. Among the many graffiti is one identified as a caricature of Jesus as a fish designed to incite salubrious laughter to protect against the dangers of the latrine.[2]
The placement of the toilet between the Claudianum and the Macellum Magnum is particularly striking in reminding us that location was a prime consideration of this amenity (cat. 18). It’s a multi-seater (perhaps 24 places) situated between an imposing temple (the Claudianum) and the Macellum Magnum; it is recorded on the Forma Urbis. The multi-seater latrine on the southwest area of the Palatine was in a location that served both the sanctuary of Magna Mater and the imperial palace and dates to the second and third centuries CE (cat. 31). The stratigraphic drawings and reconstructions are particularly useful for our understanding of its form and function.
Location of comfort stations escalate to the level mass-evacuation with the urinals documented at the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. Elisa Cella and Gemma Jansen present the preserved urinals of the Colosseum (cat. 19-21), consisting of gutters located on the inboard side of the corridors behind the seating areas and having a total length of 1260 meters (fig. 3). No evidence of wooden or stone privacy barriers survives, leading one to imagine the potentially shocking spectacle of the masses standing or squatting to urinate. Marialetiza Buonfiglio’s entry on the urinal locations in the Circus Maximus provides a useful plan and reconstructs its urinals and their drain systems (cat. 26-28, figs. 7 and 9). She proposes that it was normal—more than in other spaces—to relieve oneself along one of these gutters (cat. 26-28, fig. 9). Beyond Rome, Cella and Jansen cite the long stretches of gutter urinals in the amphitheater at Pozzuoli, whereas Buonfiglio finds a parallel in the theater at Teano.
Particularly striking for its painted decoration is the multi-seater toilet in a small bath under the northern substructures of the Domus Tiberiana (68-81 CE, cat. 33). Painted on the walls around the toilet are muscular gladiators (one of their names, [ ]AN IANVARIUS survives); a vividly painted vaulted ceiling featuring fruit trees completes the decoration (fig. 11). Gemma Jansen’s discussion of the meaning of the five gladiators in this context proposes several interpretations: that they record a fight paid for by an emperor; that they served as role models; that they represent control of bodily functions. Most convincing to me is that they served as bringers of good luck as one of many apotropaia found in toilets (112-14).
New study of the nymphaeum of “sunken peristyle” of the Domus Augustana by Andrea Schmölder-Veit and Natascha Sojc recovers the much-spoliated remains of two toilets installed in the Hadrianic-period reconfiguration (cat. 35-36). Both are in the northwest corner, one under the staircase, the other consisting of three toilet niches installed into an apsidal space, no. 311, located to the north of room 339—a fountain converted into a piscina (figs. 6-7). The authors note that these retrofitted latrines were less than ideal, since the apse latrine was too visible while the one under the stairs lacked sufficient ventilation. Considerable spoliation of fine marble elements is evident when comparing Giuseppe Guttani’s drawing of 1785 with the photographs provided by the authors (fig. 8).[3]
A surprise for this reader is Hendrik Dey’s entry describing seventeen single-seater toilets of the early fifth century attached to the Aurelian Wall, the few that remain of the 116 necessaria listed in the Einsiedeln Itineraries, dating to the 760s CE (cat. 39-55). These toilets were supported by stone corbels inserted into the brickwork adjacent to every third of the 383 towers. Dey comments on the effect of these amenities provided for the city’s guards: “Honorius’ planners ensured that Rome’s monumentally restored defensive circuit was surrounded with a festering cordon of excrement” (144).
An unusually well-preserved Severan-age multi-seater discovered in 1963 under the piazza of S. Pietro in Montorio boasts two phases of a fresco decoration in the so-called Streifendekoration style, combined with remains of a contemporaneous black-and-white geometric mosaic (cat. 58). Paola Chini notes that this latrine, found four meters below the modern pavement, probably belonged to a domus situated on the shoulders of the Janiculum, given discoveries of other elements (a nymphaeum and a peristyle) nearby (155-56). Of particular interest are the graffiti, both graphic and pictorial, including traces of fingermarks made on the fresco before it had a chance to dry (fig. 7).
We get a glimpse of the luxury villas of Rome’s suburbium with the case study of the Villa of the Quintilii, subject of four excavation campaigns since its acquisition by the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma in 1985 (cat. 61-65). Following a useful overview of the site, Giuliana Galli and Riccardo Frontoni discuss the five toilets discovered to date. The best preserved is an elaborately decorated four-seater toilet in the baths, dated to the second half of the second century (cat. 64). It is remarkable for its refinement, including seats in Carrara bardiglio paired with a white ground decoration with sea creatures (figs. 14-18).
Part II provides useful discussions that include details on the typology and function of Rome’s toilets as well as overviews aimed at big questions like the Roman rationale for creating and organizing sanitation and its effects on the city’s highly diverse populations.
Koloski-Ostrow’s essay, entitled “Rome, caput mundi: Health, hygiene, and sanitation,” challenges the characterization of ancient cities, including Rome, as uniformly filthy and disease-ridden. She notes that Alex Scobie’s much-citated scenario was based on a biased collection of ancient sources and ignored archaeological evidence.[4] Even so, her useful overview of new scientific research on ancient parasites supports her contention that although Rome’s public toilets made the city cleaner, they did not eliminate major public health problems (192).Koloski-Ostrow casts doubt on one of the universally cited tropes of Roman toilet hygiene, the use of a sponge on a stick to clean one’s bottom (195-97). Her reading of Pliny the Elder’s review of cosmetic and medicinal use of human and animal waste in book 28 of his Natural History presents Romans as having a very different relationship to excreta from our own (197-98). The essay broadens the scope of the volume beyond toilets to consider dump sites at Rome and elsewhere in the Roman world, with important remarks on the Cloaca Maxima, aqueducts and water supply, and baths. All of these features, whether or not created expressly to improve hygiene in the urbs, interconnected to improve the quality of life.
Rome was fortunate in having the Cloaca Maxima, originally constructed to provide an outlet for floodwaters from the Tiber. As the city grew, so did the sewer network. In contrast to cities like Pompeii that used cesspits, Rome, with a plethora of connected sewers, possessed what Koloski-Ostrow calls “…a passage out of the city for filth”(202). She concludes that although Roman ideas about sanitation were different from our own, their sanitary measures not only improve our understanding of public and private life but also demonstrate the city’s role in shaping a new type of urban environment.
Gemma Jansen’s first essay, “Water supply and drainage systems related to the toilets of Rome,” amplifies Koloski-Ostrow’s remarks by demonstrating how toilets were connected to sewers with running water rather than to cesspits as previously proposed. Jansen disproves Rodolfo Lanciani’s still-dominant assertion that there were no house toilets connected to the sewer system. On the basis of solid archaeological evidence, she demonstrates that rather than being attached to cesspits (as at Pompeii), most toilets of Rome were connected to sewers under the streets designed to carry away rainwater and the overflow from Rome’s many fountains (218-20). She expands the known typology of toilets by demonstrating that in addition to those operating with continuously running water, there were two methods for constructing flushing toilets (figs. 4-5).
Jansen’s second essay, “From wood to rosso antico. Sitting on the toilet in ancient Rome,”
provides a surprisingly varied typology of Roman toilets and details on their construction, sizes, and materials. She explains that the keyhole shape on the sitting plate that corresponded to the slot at the front plates means that Romans did not clean themselves from behind, as today, but rather from the front. They could scoop up water from the gutter in front of the toilet with a small bowl or the bare hand (and only perhaps with the sponge on the stick, pace Koloski-Ostrow). Wooden seats prevailed outside of Rome: for example, of 300 toilets found at Pompeii, only three stone seats are recorded. Even though the stone front plates and the seat plates were often recycled, Rome has yielded the greatest number, followed by the city of Ephesos. Rome’s large public toilets, like the two 100-person installations at the Baths of Caracalla, constitute the apex of the phenomenon of the monumental, expensively-decorated public latrine as a highly-desirable luxury for both patron and users: the Prachtlatrine.[5] The finely wrought and decorated single chairs in marble take elimination luxury to a new level (figs. 14-19). Three of the existing seven come from Rome.
In her third essay, “Urinating the Roman way,” Jansen delves into question of how men urinated and where (with a short coda on the scant evidence for urinating women). A principal question is whether Romans thought that public urination was unacceptable. She concludes from the visual and textual evidence that public urination was unacceptable in sanctuaries, graves, and in front of public statues, but not in the urinals in the corridors of the Circus, where a man would be joined with hundreds of others (245). Using the configuration of the urinals in the Circus Maximus (cat. 26-28) as a model, Jansen presents the evidence for the large theater and the amphitheater at Pompeii, the Flavian amphitheater at Pozzuoli, and adds a few further remarks on the gutters in the Colosseum, concluding that “. . . gutters—whatever their shape or form—placed inside buildings where many people gather were regarded by Romans as urinals” (250).
Although today, in cultures in which men wear long robes, they urinate squatting, Jansen concludes that Roman men urinated standing. Examination of the position of urination gutters leads her to conclude that Romans urinated directly into the gutter—in most cases furnished with flowing water—and not against the wall behind it. Jansen also offers a corrective to the assertion that amphorae and dolia were placed along streets for the collection of urine to be used by fullers. For one thing, urine used for the cleaning process had to be free of impurities—a condition impossible to control on a street. For another, Miko Flohr and Andrew Wilson maintain that only a small amount of urine was needed for the cleaning process (254).[6]
Comparing the flushing gutters for the urinals in large spectator buildings with the water channels in front of toilets, Jansen wonders whether men used them as urinals (254-55). Although some questions remain unanswered, one can only agree with the author that the new evidence from Rome that large spectator buildings had mass urinals in the form of gutters constitutes an important contribution to research on Roman hygiene.
Neudecker’s essay, “Notdurft in Rom” (“The call of nature in Rome”), considers social and psychological aspects of toilet use. He attributes the enormous variety of toilets catalogued, different in size, location, and form, to the accidents of preservation. Rather than being a case study, this volume offers a glimpse into the wide spectrum of forms and locations of toilets prevalent in Rome. One can extrapolate from this evidence to assess their forms and their placement in cities throughout the empire. Neudecker frames the daily life around public and private toilets as a kind of “creative chaos” into which individuals constantly attempted to bring order (289). Although never a place of well-being (as noted also by Koloski-Ostrow), people improvised according to their ideas about well-being to make their use bearable—and in some cases astonishingly refined.
Neudecker’s essay summarizes the findings of this collective project systematically under the headings “Rome,” “Toilets,” and “Inner Life,” each with further subdivisions. Of particular interest to this reader is his overview of the evidence for the population of Rome (260), his sensitive discussion of urbanitas as the subjective self-consciousness of Romans (263-65), and his investigation into how toilets fit into the urban and social milieu (274-79). In his conclusion Neudecker adds a temporal-topographical element. He explains the boom in public toilets around 100 CE as a development arising from the expectations of the established population regarding quality of life, and the end of this boom in the late fourth century as part of the decline in population and the phenomenon of the reorganization of the city into small centers clustered around the aristocratic domus, each functioning like a small city (288-89). He explains the great variety in the toilets cataloged as an index of social class, with the masses of the population experiencing the flushing toilets only periodically, at work or while bathing. He concludes, like Koloski-Ostrow, that there was no comprehensive urban planning and sanitary care system. Among the open questions Neudecker lists at the end of his essay, the most intriguing to this reader is transhistorical: How was all the waste disposed of at the end of the sewers? Like the waste from all cities sited on rivers to this day, it ended down-river of the Tiber, and in great quantity.
The editors and publisher are to be congratulated for the excellent quality of this volume. Many of the figures are in color, with color also used to highlight black-and-white plans. Most of the essays are in English (29), with seven in German and six in Italian. I do have a minor complaint: the plan of Rome is the only instrument for locating the toilets (xi). It consists of a recent plan from Supplement III of the Neue Pauly (2007) on which the contributors have added green dots representing the location of the toilet or urinal; the catalog numbers appear inside the dots. The plan should have been twice as large, either as a gatefold or taking up two pages. This is even more important because the editors decided to organize the catalogue by function rather than by region or monument, so that the numbers are scattered over the whole map. For example, although catalog numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5 hover over the via Sacra and northeast slope of the Palatine, number 2, the insula under San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital, is at least a kilometer off to the southeast. Catalog 6, the domus of the commander of the castra on the Caelian is near number 2, but outside the walls, and so on.
This volume is an important contribution to our understanding of a universal practice of everyday life in the most populous city of the ancient world. It does a good job of thinking through both the individual and collective, city-wide aspects of waste elimination. It is also a testament to the advantages of collaborative work to bring the findings of focused archaeological research on specific and scattered sites into conversation with each other.
Notes
[1] Gemma C.M.Jansen, Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, and Eric M. Moormann, eds., Roman Toilets: Their Archaeology and Cultural History, BABESCH, Supplement 19 (Leuven: Peeters, 2011).
[2] John R. Clarke, Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007) 78–81.
[3] Giuseppe A. Guttani, ed., Monumenti antichi inediti ovvero notizie sulle antichità e belle arti di Roma (Rome: Pagliarini, 1785).
[4] Alex Scobie, “Slums, Sanitation, and Mortality in the Roman World,” Klio 68 (1968): 399–433.
[5] Richard Neudecker, Die Pracht der Latrine: Zum Wandel öffentlicher Bedürfnisanstalten in der kaiserzeitlichen Stadt. Studien zur antiken Stadt 1 (Munich: Pfeil, 1994).
[6] Miko Flohr and Andrew Wilson, “The Economy of Ordure,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 16 (2011): 150.