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HistoryExtra podcast

Toilets through time | 1. Roman latrines

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.34.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What was it like to do your business in a Roman communal toilet? In the first episode of our new mini-series, Toilets Through Time, David Musgrove begins his journey through the bathrooms of British history in the Roman era, with historian Dr Hannah Platts. They discuss dubious ancient ablutions, the confronting experience of sitting alongside your neighbours on the toilet, and why one gladiator reportedly stuck a toilet sponge down his own throat. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is presented by eBay.

0:03.8

Rob, everyone loves a deal and a bargain from time to time, don't they?

0:07.8

Absolutely, mate. And do you know where you can grab a great deal? Talk to me. Where?

0:11.9

The eBay app. Yes, you are correct. You didn't need to talk to me. I already knew it. I love eBay.

0:17.2

When you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling, it's so simple and most

0:25.9

importantly, free. It's free, Rob. When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great

0:31.2

deals on things you love. You can't help but say when it's eBay. It excludes vehicles and business

0:35.9

sellers.

0:40.7

This is a history extra production.

0:53.6

A urinating man should habitually project a chilly silence. You shouldn't be having a chat while you're actually going to the loop.

0:55.8

Wealthier ladies used goose feathers to wipe their bottoms. Or this makes me cringe, oyster shells.

1:03.3

The gladiator really didn't want to fight and actually, as a result, killed himself by sticking the toilet sponge down his throat.

1:13.1

People in novels don't go to the toilet, do they?

1:16.2

The Great House of Easement, a communal toilet had no fewer than 28 seats.

1:24.1

You would have been in touching distance from the person next to you. One euphemism for easing yourself was, I'm going to bury a Quaker.

1:33.3

Claudius issued an edict to encourage farting at the table.

1:38.3

There was a rather amusing ditty which talked about going to Bagnig Wells where you could hear the thunder of the

1:45.9

bum. Why would something so foul come out of a human being? It's not godly, it's not pure.

1:52.3

Pooh falling out of a human body is the proof of the fall of man.

1:56.8

Roman sewers were U-shaped, which actually meant that they got blocked.

2:01.5

As he bent down to pay his respects to the Queen, unfortunately he let out a very loud fart.

2:08.0

What was it like to do your business in a Roman communal toilet?

...

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