What did they use for toilet paper in biblical times?

But what DID they use for toilet paper? Well, you could use a leaf, a handful of moss or your left hand! But what most Romans used was something called a spongia, a sea-sponge on a long stick. The stick was long because of the design of Roman toilets.

wondersandmarvels.com - What the Romans Used for Toilet Paper - Wonders & Marvels

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By Caroline Lawrence (Regular Contributor)

The ancient Romans were sophisticated in surprising ways. Take going to the bathroom, for example. In first century Rome, there were over one hundred public latrines, many of them with marble seats, scenes from Greek mythology on the walls, running water and ancient Roman toilet paper provided. But what DID they use for toilet paper? Well, you could use a leaf, a handful of moss or your left hand! But what most Romans used was something called a spongia, a sea-sponge on a long stick. The stick was long because of the design of Roman toilets. Public facilities had a long marble bench with holes on top – for the obvious thing – and holes at the front: for the sponge-sticks. There were no doors or dividing walls. You sat right next to your friend and did what you had to do. Most Romans wore tunics (a garment like a long tee-shirt) and probably nothing underneath. So you could just hike it up in back and sit on the cool marble seat, leaving the front of the tunic to cover your knees and your modesty. You would sit there, chatting with your friends, and when you finished your ‘task’ you would rinse the sponge in the channel of running water at your feet and – without standing up or revealing anything – you would push the spongia through the hole at the front, give your bottom a wipe, rinse off the spongia… and leave it in a basin for the next person to use!

Gotta love those ancient Romans.

For further reading:

As the Romans Did, by JoAnn Shelton

Pompeii, by Peter Connolly

Caroline Lawrence is the author of the Roman Mysteries series. Visit her website at www.romanmysteries.com.

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How sanitary were Roman baths?

Bathing was a communal activity: the largest known baths could take 3000 people at a time, clean and dirty, healthy and sick. No one used soap. People preferred to be slathered in oil and scraped clean with a curved implement called a strigil.

newscientist.com - Filthy Romans: Dirty secrets of the bath-obsessed ancients

The Romans brought their famous baths and toilets to three continents, so how come they left places more unhygienic than they found them?

Modern Toss

IF THERE’S one thing most people know about the ancient Romans, it’s that they spent a lot of time in the bath. As the Roman Empire expanded, public baths proliferated across the newly annexed territories. From plain and practical to polished-marble luxury, baths provided both colonists and colonised the means of a daily soak. Less well known is the Roman passion for another hygienic innovation: the public convenience. Wherever the Romans went, they took their toilets. What did all that washing and flushing do for the health of less fastidious folk who came under Roman rule? “Given what we know now about the benefits of sanitation, you might safely assume this would lead to an improvement in people’s health,” says Piers Mitchell, a doctor and palaeopathologist at the University of Cambridge. But hard evidence was lacking, so Mitchell went in search of it. He scoured records of Roman remains from towns and graveyards to fossilised faeces, for parasites such as intestinal worms, lice and fleas. What he found was precisely the opposite of what he expected. Good, clean fun? Or will you be sharing lice (below) and intestinal worm eggs? Interfoto/Sammlung Rauch/Mary Evans

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