Latrinae et Foricae:
Toilets in the Roman World
Barry Hobson
Duckworth, 2009

It’s physically impossible to read this book without giggling. This is most emphatically not a criticism.

Barry Hobson has written the best, most comprehensive popular survey-style account of toilets in the Roman world ever produced, and he’s perfectly aware – indeed, how could he of all people not be? – that his subject provokes certain involuntary responses. In his opening pages, he concentrates on one such reaction, something a bit more serious than giggling:

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In the discussion of this subject it is hard to avoid the use of terminology which might be offensive to some. There are aspects of the study of human excrement which may give rise to disgust.

But readers should put aside any such disgust – and stop that giggling – because Hobson’s subject is, in fact, not only fascinating but illuminating, starting with his book’s very title: the distinction between foricae, or multi-seater public toilets, and latrinae, or single-seat private (or even semi-private) toilets. The divide between the two is not only the divide between wealth and poverty but also between hydrological technology and the lack of it, between concepts of privacy and their lack, and the differences between cultures that place a high value on the prompt, systematic removal of dirt, garbage, and even excrement and those that don’t. It’s not idle to study these things, nor is it irresponsible; toilets, it turns out, can do more than provide joke material for Petronius and Martial. голова болит секс голова болит секс

Hobson deals with those writers, of course – his book touches on virtually every ancient mention having anything to do with toilets – and he spends a lot of time investigating Pompeii and Herculaneum, where evidence of his specialty is better preserved than anywhere else. He examines graffiti, decoration, architecture, innovations, and he does it all with a precise scholarly tone perhaps just slightly exaggerated to compensate for the sniggering coming from the back of the classroom:

The Romans have deservedly earned a reputation for sub-street sewage systems, but it is important to understand exactly what constituted toilet drains since there is a modern tendency to define a sewer as a drain conveying faecal material. In fact the passage of sewage into pipes flowing in Roman cities was by no means the norm. голова болит секс

There is less grandeur in Latrinae et Foricae than you’ll find in a study of legions or high deeds of state, but Hobson’s steady implication – the obvious truth that his subject concerns every single Roman who ever lived, from Augustus Caesar on down – is incontrovertible, and that makes his book fascinating. As a contribution to the study of ancient Rome, it does its humble duty with consummate efficiency – giggling or no giggling.

–Steve Donoghue

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