Hygiene under ancient Rome

The Romains attached greattest importance to the quality of the Eau which they drank and in which they bathed regularly. This led them to build aqueducts, thermal baths associated with thermal springs, sewer S and Latrine S. the latrines were honourable institutions: testimonys tell that traders attended them to conclude from the businesses.

The Roman doctors had a great control of hygiene: although not knowing the existence of the Bacterium S, they knew that they were to make boil their surgical instruments, that one did not have to mix waste water and clean water…

The otium

The otium was one period of calm, the time of the intellectual and body re-establishment, a rather complicated continuation of cleaning, bath and massage in the public baths. The otium was accompanied or followed readings, concerts or of pleasure with pretty slaves. Once clean, an abundant meal could be tasted in the Triclinium with customers and friends according to the proverb lie sanatorium in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body). The discussions could continue in the latrinae , large collective toilets.

Latrines

In Rome, the latrines had much magnificence, the walls out of marble and were often decorated of mosaic or paintings. The middle-class went there in a relaxed way and spoke there about the news about the day or their businesses. The baths and the latrines were for this reason associated. One also finds some in the houses of corporations.

Rome does not form any exception here. Around the Mediterranean, many cities had large latrines richly decorated, in which to 80 people could find place. In Rome, one washed them in a permanent way with the overflow of the thermal springs, the aqueducts and the wells. The sewers passed under the seats of toilets out of marble or wooden and evacuated the feces in large collecting channels which were thrown in the Tiber. In the middle of the part, another drain collected the splashes or the urine.

The Roman villas had direct connections to the sewers, but the modest houses ( Insula E ) had only large buckets posed under the staircase. With Bulla Regia, in a town of Tunisia, one found at the time of archaeological excavations in a villa, toilets with double seats and wash-hand basins. Alba Fucens in Italy of means to the Via dei Pilastri such latrines survived to us.

The historian Henry Thédenat identified a building, still existing, with three niches with the Domus Augustana on the Palatin like latrines imperial. Two seats of Porphyre of the palate of Constantin are exposed to the Louvre.

Military latrines

There were latrines in the military camps the most moved back of the empire. The army medical officers knew the relationship between hygiene and the diseases, the generals knew what the prevention of epidemic, influenced the capacity of the army. For the prevention, the baths and the latrines were included in the valetudinarium . The latrines of the Castellum of Vercovicium on the Hadrian's Wall are goods representative. All the free waters of the camp were used to evacuate the feces, if they were insufficient, one used the water of cisterns. This waste water was evacuated outside the camp by a ditch which ended in a pit.

History of the latrines

One does not know exactly when the latrines appeared. Probably, one built the first at the end of the République. One identified what could be latrines with the Théâtre of Pumped to the Largo Argentina. The majority of the latrines known were built between and the 4th century. Rome at the 4th century counted 144 latrinae and 253 necessariae , figures which gather also the urinals. Constant improvements were made to the military latrines between the 2nd century and the 4th century. The construction of latrines was financed only by private funds, the Romans not investing only in hygiene that if there were an appreciable advantage.

The latrines Romans were equalized only as from the 16th century, in England. The systems of retention of odors were reinvented only starting from 1775. The sewerage systems were comparable, only starting from 1842 with the construction of the sewers of London.

Hygiene in the Roman religion

The goddess Salus was the goddess of health and cleanliness, girl of Esculape, god of medicine and sister of Panacée, which symbolizes the remedial medicine. The Romans had dedicated a furnace bridge to the goddess Cloacine at the entry of the principal sewer of Rome, the Cloaca Maxima.

Hygiene in Roman medicine

It is in the control of hygiene that the Roman doctors are perhaps more surprising. Although not knowing the existence of the Bacterium S, they knew that they were to make boil their surgical instruments, that one did not have to mix waste water and clean water…

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