10 disgusting facts about ancient Rome
The facts listed are mostly about lack of hygiene, and those really are pretty disgusting.
I already knew about numbers five and two. Re number five, I remember when I was a teenager and went to Europe with a large tour group of other teens, when we visited Pompeii the boys were allowed into the exhibits with the pornography and the girls were not. Those were the days!
[ADDENDUM: After I wrote this post, I started to doubt whether my memory of the restriction of the pornographic art of Pompeii to just the male tourists was correct.
And so I checked it out, and yes, that’s the way it was. Here’s the scoop (along with photos of some of the art):
This art caused a stir that has yet to be stilled. It was hidden from view for years in a number of ways. Much that was taken from Pompeii and instilled in museums was hidden away in secret rooms. One such room was called the “Cabinet of Obscene Objects” later renamed the “Cabinet of Restricted, or Secret, Objects.” In Pompeii itself, women tourists weren’t allowed to view some of the major works of art until the second half of the twentieth century – to protect their delicate natures.
There wasn’t just some erotic art in Pompeii, either; there was a lot of it, and it was just about everywhere, apparently, according to the article.]
New energy drink.
There is a great lecture by Rabbi Ken Spiro called World Perfect, it’s part of his Destiny course, and he talks about the ancient world’s of The Greeks, Egyptian, & Roman Empires. The things these great empires did which by today’s standards we would find repulsive. For example the Egyptians ate blood pudding and the Greeks would give their boys to male neighbors to “pop their cherries.” It was considered a matter of honor if you were the neighbor chosen.
Homosexuality was normal. Defecating was done in public without walls, there were holes in the streets. It was a wild some of the things they believed and did.
It’s a matter of being used to it.
From a Mediterranean point of view, American food feels disgusting. It’s greasy, and sweet, and all that greasy liquid stuff…
I don’t understand how people can even eat it.
I’m used to buy fresh. Even the bread I buy is freshly made, it smells incredible when it just gets out of the oven warm. All this packed fatty smelly food… dead god, it feels just disgusting.
I eat blood pudding quite often, and I love it, specially with onions.
Assuming the blood is from a cow or some other animal often eaten — I like blood pudding to. Of course I am merely a Provincial, being born & bred in America, so cannot be expected to have lofty tastes. Fried chicken, corn on the cob dripping with butter, biscuits or cornbroad ditto and with honey; watermelon for dessert (go outside to eat it).
Gustatory heaven. Also lox & cream cheese on bagels. Oh, don’t get me started or we’ll be here all night.
For the rest, it turns out I am too squeamish to have read the entire List. The sort of thing that probably gave Hygiene a bad name.
Clearly, the ‘barbarians’ entering Rome was a relative term. The Japanese were revolted at the lack of European hygiene. Many cultures today, such as the Mexican and Chinese, treat hygiene as at best an afterthought. How many Americans wash their hands after using the bathroom?
I’m going to ask Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and GNC to start carrying that energy drink!
In toady media & MSM the downgrading the behavior of human men and women.
There are rises in shows, media figures which encourage in some way or another in regard to sex and other matter been filthy, untidy, drunken…..
let read from news
– Syphilis and gonorrhoea ‘still on the rise’ in England
– UK Government concerned too many people could be trying anal sex
So now we just put the porn on TV.
Seriously, though, fresh urine (#10) is sterile and has antiseptic qualities that make it very useful for cleaning battle wounds.
You can read about that particular home-remedy and more in “Honey, Mud, and Maggots” — a scientific analysis of many old stand-byes that details which ones actually worked, and why.
So much for “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
There was a great SNL sketch with Larraine Newman and Bill Murray (I believe Dom DeLuise was hosting) about the Roman vomitorium. Murray offers to hold Newman’s hair out of the way for her, to which she remarks that it’s nice to see chivalry is not yet dead in Rome.
As for the sexually explicit images, one of the theories I’ve come across for the Christian eschewing of promiscuous/illustrated sex was that, as Rome became more sexually licentious, this was one way of differentiating Christian from the pagan.
I offer this not as an “only” reason. The fundamental opposition of sex as fundamentally carnal vs. religion as fundamentally spiritual is, IMO, much more basic to such a distinction. However, it’s good to keep in mind that revolutions of any sort usually eschew that hallmarks and shibboleths of those institutions that they oppose just as the greeners wish to offer us a world without coal or the globalists offer nations without borders.
As for the art being “so obscene” that women were not permitted to see the images, that is an indication of 19th and 20th century mores rather than any indication of the repulsiveness or obscenity of the images. It just wasn’t “civilized” by the culture of those Victorian and post-Victorian times to subject dainty, civilized ladies to such coarse and vulgar imagery. As for the illustrations, after one sees them, it’s absolutely clear that two thousand years later there is nothing new under the sun.
The item I question is the one about the latrines exploding. Yes, methane gas was undoubtedly present to some extent, but the latrines of the larger cities (especially Rome itself) were constantly being flushed by water brought by the aqueduct system from the mountains. It would be the contemporary equivalent of allowing you toilet to run constantly. I can not see how A methane gas buildup could occur in any amount large enough to cause a toilet to explode.
Follow up.
SNL’s vomitorium was not a historical fact. To the best of my knowledge there was no dedicated structure for vomiting in Roman architecture. Vomitoria were, as I understand them, passages in theaters and amphitheaters allowing the attendees to leave rapidly, to “spew forth” as it were.
It would be a dangerous thing, indeed, to cite SNL as a historically accurate source.
Thanks for that Neo. Brightened my day. At least it was a respite from Trump/Hillary.
Clearly, hygiene and medicine have evolved–at least in most places. Disgusting as some of the descriptions are to modern sensibilities, I vividly remember life on a post-WWII farm that had no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity. You make do with what you have I suppose. Lucky us.
As to the comment on the benefits of urine; we were taught about those in survival school. The venue defined the circumstances for use; i.e. survival, as in desperation.
I visited Pompeii with my wife and other Navy officers and their wives in the 1950s. There was much talk about pornography, but I don’t remember anything very shocking. (My bride was easily shocked.) Of course much excavation has been accomplished since then.
Yann,
It is hard to beat chicken dredged in buttermilk, then breaded with cornmeal and fried in bacon grease; served with mustard greens, corn bread, and fried green tomatoes.also coated with cornmeal.
Oldflyer:
To the best of my recollection, back then the porno stuff in Pompeii was exhibited in a special room or a special building, and women were not allowed in.
I started to doubt my memory of that, and so I checked it out, and here’s the information (along with some photos of some of the art):
There wasn’t just some erotic art in Pompeii, there was a lot of it, and it was just about everywhere, apparently, according to the article.
“There wasn’t just some erotic art in Pompeii, there was a lot of it, and it was just about everywhere, . . . ” [Neo]
It was a normal part of the culture, unlike today where we view it as an aberrant part of culture.
Thanks, T, for that vomitorium note. That’s what I’ve read as well.
Neo, it may be that our wives frowned on our visiting the room. I bet they charged extra as well. Memory is not acute; but I know the guys were a little disappointed after all of the hype.
Yann, each to his own taste. I have enjoyed many meals along the Mediterranean from Beirut to Cost del Sol. In light of that, I find some of your comments puzzling. Of course if you have the time to walk to the village for fresh bread and fresh ingredients each day, that is a nice luxury that most do not enjoy. Eels, and some other local delicacies may be an acquired taste. If it is American food that you object to, I recently read that the McDonald’s facility in the Olympic village was swamped by athletes from all over the world; with waits that were measured by the hour. I noted in England that the local TGI Friday was always at capacity, and displayed a large sign advertising “Full American Menu”. (it was also one place where people who worked on the backside of the clock could get dinner outside of the traditional dining hour.) . It is fashionable for others to criticize American food, and fast food in particular, but it does not prevent many from enjoying it.
Accounts of the Mongols in the time of the Great Khan describe how they would drink the blood from cuts in their horse’s throats in times of need. Apparently, neither the rider, nor the horse suffered serious ill effects. I doubt that the horse had a vote.
Based on the coital positions shown in the paintings, it’s obvious that the missionaries had yet to make a dint in popular styles of, er, congress.
When I lived in Libya, we would go to the Roman ruin at Leptis Magna. Some of the old stone signs pointing down the street had some very suggestive symbols carved on the stone. Was always curious of what these meant.
It must have been in the mid 1970s that the Art Institute of Chicago had an exhibition that was a reconstruction of Pompey, complete with oil lamps and good luck charms meant to be rubbed that were faithful, larger than life, reproductions of male genitalia. My parents came to visit me and my girl friend and we all went off to the museum blissfully unaware of what we were about to see. Needless to say, my girl friend and I tried to stay as far away from my parents as possible as we wandered through the exhibition. I didn’t dare look at my mother to see how she was doing. Talk about embarrassing. There was dead silence when we left.
I can’t imagine what the discussion was like in my parent’s hotel room that night. My mom was pretty sheltered and even 20 years later, my dad had to explain Monica’s thong.
@parker
Holy sh*t, how can you even eat that?
Pornography in Rome eventually became about power politics.
The ones in power, received pleasure, everybody else below them, received pain while giving pleasure to their masters. That was the “proper system” that was setup, which is a different way of viewing corruption with power, than the norm.
It’s natural that the Roman legions would become ineffective, as the Senate politics and the heart of the people rotted.
The natural revulsion to all this obscenity was the major driving force in spreading Christianity in Roman Empire.
After months ‘n months of Trump we have posts on reality TV and the moral degradation of ancient Rome. Seems very logical.
T said:
Actually the main reason the Christian fathers appear to rail against sex is that nearly all sex workers were slaves. Slaves by definition can’t give consent because of course they can’t deny it. So all sex with slaves is rape.
I would be surprised if anyone gives me an argument.
Context is key. Commercial sex was rampant in the Roman world. And although not all sex workers were slaves, the vast majority were. And generally the rest were not really willing participants either.
Sergey Said:
I don’t know about this, but I am prepared to entertain debate.
It just doesn’t look like they were for the most part revolted. They seem to have liked it. Same thing goes for the gladitorial contests.
OK, the latter was a distinctly Roman taste and not shared throughout the empire. But the sex, definitely.
Listverse? Allegations without documentation. Titillation.
Urine from healthy urinary tracts is sterile. If you’re lost and afoot in the desert, it is better to drink your own urine for a few days than to piss that water away. An ancient survival technique.
Eskimo women used to wash their hair in urine; gave it a special sheen. But that was before Eskimos succumbed to outside influences and became utterly dependent on stuff like gasoline and jet-skis.
What should the Romans have used in place of today’s toilet paper? US small farmers with outhouses used to use corn cobs before toilet paper. Corn didn’t make it to the Old World until well after 1492.
Flush toilets were invented by Thomas Crapper only about 150 years ago.
Today, public defecation is routine, by the “homeless.”
Roman sexual excesses exceed today’s how, exactly?
Full nudity in service of “art” is legal in NYC, and Shakespeare will be performed in the nude in a public park in NYC for free later this year.
Umm kay. I hate to be the spoil sport, but while urine emitted from a healthy bladder is sterile it is STILL A FREAKIN’ WASTE PRODUCT!
You can use it for a lot of things like washing spitting cobra venom out of your eyes, or (because of the ammonia) cleaning coarse outer garments, or for that matter cleaning guns.
But don’t drink it.
For the sake of all that is holy.
I can make a still or find a water source.
Hey, there’s a survival tip for ya.
http://www.desertusa.com/desert-people/water-solar-still.html
“…Fortunately, there is an emergency survival technique for gathering water from our driest deserts during their most brutal seasons. It is commonly known as the solar still. One of the most significant survival tools created in the last 40 years, the solar still was developed by two physicians working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Results of extensive testing in the Arizona deserts by the U.S. Air Force proved that when properly assembled, the still can save your life.”
Please, no more talk of drinking pee.
I can wrap a plastic bag around a tree limb and will harvest condensation that will make you forget about drinking pee.
The more bags the better.
http://www.survivalresources.com/Articles/Transpiration_Bags.html
T, Steve57:
Actually, if you study the pre-Christian “Old Testament,” this prohibition against licentiousness predated Christianity and was a Jewish thing. It wasn’t mere prudishness, because Judaism has no concept of original sin and the idea is that sex itself is good but that unbridled sex is not good. Licentiousness is felt to both lead to civilizational and moral collapse and to be a symptom of it (Sodom and Gomorrah, for example).
I’m no Bible scholar, but that’s my understanding of it, and I believe that the Christian religion continued in that vein, with Augustine adding some extra original sin layers to it.
Yes, ultimately dysfunctional obscenity in the broad sense. I tend to think based on my readings that you are correct; and that there was in addition a strong element of doctrinal revulsion toward the worship of Eros, explicitly or implicitly as a god.
One need not cite the Christian reasons as it is obvious to any Christian, but for those who wish to read up on it they can always type in “Augustan Leges Iuliae” to their favorite search engine and start reading. Or they can read the famous passages from Tacitus on the Germans and how they contrast with the Romans of his own day.
Interestingly by the time of the late Republic, as we all know, it was too late even for a Princeps to do much about moral decline by law. It took Christianity.
“Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.”
Whether Blackstone actually said it or not … it is true. Garbage in, garbage out.
neo-neocon Says:
August 24th, 2016 at 12:05 pm
T, Steve57:
Actually, if you study the pre-Christian “Old Testament,” this prohibition against licentiousness predated Christianity and was a Jewish thing. It wasn’t mere prudishness, because Judaism has no concept of original sin and the idea is that sex itself is good but that unbridled sex is not good. ”
Well, yes and whoring after strange gods involved physical whoring too. I don’t want to go into the practices of pagan prostitutes because it is lunch time and makes me sick anytime of day nonetheless.
We all know that we’re made for something more than sexual degradation, even when we seek it out. The Christian message on sexuality resonated because it spoke to a truth about human nature. It still resonates – people can tell that we’re doing something wrong in society, even if they no longer have the right words to express it.
Chesterton said that the first millennium after the fall of Rome was needed to wash away the Greek and Roman excess from our relationship to sex and nature. It was only after we had reoriented ourselves that we could approach the subjects again in art. The Christian message, properly, isn’t that sex is wrong, but that it’s potentially dangerous. As Neo said, it’s wrong when it’s unbridled.
We might need to set aside sexuality for a few hundred years again.
“Slaves by definition can’t give consent because of course they can’t deny it. So all sex with slaves is rape.” [Steve57 @ 10:29]
The problem with this interpretation is that it employs a 20th/21st century prism. If slaves are property and cannot give consent, then they cannot deny consent, so our contemporary concept of rape does not exist in that argument.
I do not know whether there was any definition or consideration of what we would call rape in the ancient world, but the very use of the term here is the result of modern thinking. The only equivalent I can come up with quickly is the decision by Truman to drop the atomic bomb. If using the premise of today, one might offer an argument that it was the wrong decision, but it was a decision made within the culture, sensibilities and information available in 1945, so such arguments tend to be specious. Likewise the use of the term “rape” in ancient culture.
“Actually, if you study the pre-Christian “Old Testament,” this prohibition against licentiousness predated Christianity and was a Jewish thing. Actually, if you study the pre-Christian “Old Testament,” this prohibition against licentiousness predated Christianity and was a Jewish thing. It wasn’t mere prudishness, . . . but that unbridled sex is not good.” [Neo @ 12:05]
Thus the 7th and 10th Commandments: “Thou shalt not commit adultery;” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
Clearly these speak not only to unbridled sex, but primarily to familial relationships.
neo, I’m not disputing what you are saying. I am not saying that Christians invented the idea of sexual purity. I am saying that that the Christian fathers put some extra fire and brimstone, a little more “punch,” when it came to their sermons because their flock, when in Rome, did as the Romans. And they were trying to get them to stop.
“It wasn’t mere prudishness, . . . but that unbridled sex is not good.” [Neo @ 12:05]
Further, have you noticed that one of the hallmarks of most religions is to cause us to separate from the carnal, not just in the sexual sense but in the fundamental animalistic sense. Not only does Judeo-Christianity stand against unbridles sex, but also against unbridled eating, unbridled covetousness (envy, hatred), and unbridled relaxation (sloth). I’m not so familiar with Buddhism, but I believe that it, too fits this pattern.
It’s like Mr. Miyagi said to Daniel-san: “[Balance] not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better.”
Neo – correct as usual.
Nick – I don’t think “We all know that we’re made for something more than sexual degradation, even when we seek it out.” A lot of people don’t, or if they do, at least can’t control themselves. Years ago, on another list, in a debate on religion vs. secularism, somebody asked me, “Why should God care about adultery?” My answer was, “Go to the general fiction section of your local public library. Close your eyes, and pull ten books pf the shelves at random. At least five of them will be about how illicit sex messes up people’s lives. That’s why God cares about adultery.” There are just a lot of people who either don’t care about messing up people’s (including their own) lives, In fact, a lot of people think it’s a good idea — as Woody Allen once said to Tony Roberts in a movie, “Without alcohol and adultery, there would be no art.”
T – don’t know about other ancient cultures, but rape is certainly discussed in the Torah. Rape is a death penalty offense, although there are some significant differences between our view and their view.
First of all, rape of a married or betrothed women is treated completely differently from rape of a single women. If a betrothed woman is raped in a city, the crime is considered to be adultery (which is a death penalty offense, Duet. 22-22), and both rapist and victim are put to death, because it is assumed that in a city, she would have cried for help and would have been saved. If it happens in the country, however, it is rape and only the rapist dies, as even if she cried for help, there was no one to save her. (Deut. 22:23-27.)
With a single (unbetrothed) virgin, the crime is categorized as “seduction,” rather than rape. (This was a crime, at least in the US and the UK, until about 100-150 years ago.) The man is forced to pay the bride-price and marry the woman, without the possibility of divorce. If the woman’s father declines to let his daughter marry the seducer, he has to pay the bride-price anyway.
Obviously, this is based on a much different society, one in which everybody knows everybody, and if a woman screams for help, everyone would come running.
I also suspect, without any substantive authority whatsoever, that the difference in treatment between betrothed/married women and unbetrothed women has to do with preventing what we see today, unrestrained shtupping among horny young people, and also “he-said-she-said” situations.
I also suspect, without any substantive authority whatsoever, that the difference in treatment between betrothed/married women and unbetrothed women has to do with preventing what we see today, unrestrained shtupping among horny young people, and also “he-said-she-said” situations.
Traditional societies had men guarding the men, women guarding the women.
That’s why they often didn’t allow non family related males and females together, alone. Before the law could be engaged, the people at the grassroots were already engaged. Think global, act local.
The law was put into place because humans would otherwise start clan wars up about this issue.
The Roman matriarchs and upper middle class aristocrats, found Christianity appealing because of a number of factors.
For one, it prioritized the relationship of the family, the patriarch or matriarch, and prevented “whoredoms”. Meaning, there’s the story of one Roman politician or senator who kept trying to convince his wife to let him do anal sex on her, and he often taunted her by saying the boys he was using was better than her feminine charms.
The resistance of the wives to Rome’s whoredoms was not merely a matter of social or family status. As a personal preference, the matriarchs preferred not being treated as sex slaves or prostitutes. That was not only beneath their status, it also relegated them to being a figure of vice rather than a figure of virtue. Motherhood was prized as a virtue and one of the most valuable things women could do.
The second primary reason is probably abortion or sacrificing children to Bhaal for “population issues” or blessings or “blood magic”. This comes back to MIthraism. Christianity directly opposed blood and human sacrifices, which allowed many women, who converted, to reject these Pagan child sacrifice rites.
All of this is very different from 1st AD Christendom. Due to a number of factors, such as State Christianity, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Islamic purges of the ME, 1st AD Christendom got scattered and transformed beyond recognition. The basic tenets were the same, but the original hierarchy of 12 disciples was not continued. Many historical scholars talk about Jesus of Nazareth and how the Romans “doctored” the Bible, which is basically the same story.
What was left of Christendom was a shadow of itself after 1000 years, yet that shadow was mightier than the Roman culture and military in the end. Both the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, before and after the split, became Christian.
The Christian or rather the Roman Catholic push against homosexuality was more directly related to the excesses of Rome. Specifically Caligula and the Senators. While many religions and customs have a thing about sexual purity and protecting men from women, and women from men, that homosexuality thing was a big reaction to the Greeks and the Romans.
Remember the Spartans? After the Battle of Thermopylae, when the Romans conquered Greece, the Spartans became a decadent people, a luxury paradise of naked women gymnasts, designed to please Roman senators and upper class. The Greeks had an interesting view of marriage and love. True love, was said to be only between men, as men were equals in intellect and education. Women were for the creation of families and heirs. This, of course, was spread by Alexander to Baktria or Afghanistan. And that has morphed into current day “playing with boys” culture with Islam.
Neo
Actually, if you study the pre-Christian “Old Testament,” this prohibition against licentiousness predated Christianity and was a Jewish thing
Christianity was derived from the Jewish tradition. Jesus was an expert at the Jewish law, and stated that his teaching was congruent with the Jewish law.
Yaann,
Its called southern cooking and it is tasty. BTW, the chicken is freshly slaughtered, the mustard greens and green tomatoes fresh from the garden, and the bacon grease kept in the freezer until spooned into the frying pan. Perhaps you recoil from the buttermilk and cornmeal. 😉