Toilets through time | 1. Roman latrines

History Extra podcast

Immediate Media

History

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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	New Series, those about to die only on prime video.
0:04.0	Let the game spagge!
0:06.0	Win or lose.
0:08.0	All must fight to survive.
0:09.0	My son, sure then you can fight.
0:11.0	Enter the arena of the Gladiators, starring Anthony Hopkins.
0:15.5	Nothing is more important than our beloved role.
0:18.4	From the Director of Independence Day.
0:20.8	The moment is upon us.
0:22.4	Kill or be killed.
0:25.0	Those about to die.
0:27.0	Watch now only on Prime Video.
0:30.0	This is a history extra production.
0:34.0	A urinating man should habitually project a chilly silence.
0:44.0	You shouldn't be having a chat while you're actually going to the loop.
0:48.0	Well, Theer ladies used goose feathers to wipe their bottoms.
0:52.8	Or this makes me cringe, oyster shells.
0:55.6	The gladiator really didn't want to fight and actually, as a result,
0:59.2	killed himself by sticking the toilet sponge down his throat.
1:04.0	People in novels don't go to the toilet, do they?
1:08.0	The great house of easement, a communal toilet had no fewer than 28 seats.
1:16.0	You would have been in touching distance from the person next to you.
	...

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