• Zinck@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    Sorry to be that guy, but it seems the romans didn’t wipe with an sponge on a stick.

    From a mural in the baths form the Secen Sages in Ostia Antica, it seems it was use to clean the toilets after use.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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      5 months ago
      1. The idea that the tersorium was a toilet brush is very much a minority view.

      2. That line (“Use the tersorium”) points much more towards the use of the tersorium to wipe than to clean toilets.

      • Zinck@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        Makes much more sense that the use it like we do nowadays with toilet brushes. Especially if there was a mural telling people to use it. Usually you don’t have to reminder or care to tell people to wipe their own ass.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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          5 months ago
          1. Have you met people? We have to remind them to wash their hands even in the modern day, and too many men don’t wipe their own fucking ass. There’s Roman poetry excoriating men for not grooming themselves in the most basic ways.

          2. A public bathroom reminding people to perform hygiene maintenance on the toilets seems much less likely. Especially considering the small size of Roman latrine holes and the depth of most latrines.

          • Zinck@lemmy.zip
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            5 months ago

            -What should people care if one guy has a scratchy ass? Remember, in Roman time there was no concept of bacteria. -If there were so depth and small, maybe a stick will come in handy, don’t you think?

            • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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              5 months ago

              -What should people care if one guy has a scratchy ass? Remember, in Roman time there was no concept of bacteria.

              Because it’s in the interest of other people that people aren’t dragging their shit filled ass around in public, stinking up the place. The Roman concepts of cleanliness and miasma were still very much in play.

              -If there were so depth and small, maybe a stick will come in handy, don’t you think?

              Expecting the users of a public bathroom to go elbow-deep in a toilet with a sponge on a stick to blindly poke around in the hopes that they’ll do a good job cleaning sounds much less likely to me than expecting them to wipe.

              • Zinck@lemmy.zip
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                5 months ago

                -You are overestimating the amount of shit produced in one siting XD. Also, I you get yourself dirty is YOUR shame, so more interest in keeping yourself clean. -You don’t have to go that deep. Also, using a stick to clean your ass is very uncomfortable, one should expect that the romans would have found a better way in all its story.

                P.S. I love being able to discus how people in ancient times wiped them selves.

                • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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                  5 months ago

                  -You are overestimating the amount of shit produced in one siting XD.

                  People who don’t wipe very often smell - especially if, as in Roman society, you would not have necessarily been taking every shit at a convenient latrine.

                  Also, I you get yourself dirty is YOUR shame, so more interest in keeping yourself clean.

                  Romans were a very communal society, and as mentioned, public cleanliness and the idea of ‘foul air’ causing illness were important ideas to the Romans.

                  You don’t have to go that deep.

                  The hole isn’t large and the latrine isn’t exactly shallow. How deep are you going to get in that before you have to put your arm in there?