Roman Plumbing: Overrated

Romans didn't view bathroom functions to be, as our name for them applies, something to be done in a place dedicated for that purpose. If you were a Roman citizen out on the town with your buddies, you wouldn't peel off one at a time to use a washroom. You'd all sit down together on a public urinal and keep the conversation going as you dropped your deuces. Many Roman houses did have toilets, but they were usually in the kitchen, of all places! This flies in the face of modern notions about sanitary food preparation, but also in the face of privacy. If you were Roman, taking a dump was, more often than not, done in full view of others.

One thing that really is mind-bending about the ancient Romans is their total lack of privacy. You went to toilet in public, with friends. You went to the toilet in your home as your slaves prepared food around you. You had sex with a slave standing over you in case you got thirsty and needed to send for water. Being alone for any reason was a totally foreign concept. Slaves talk. Anything you did was public knowledge in fairly short order. For this reason, Romans also really didn't have the concept of the self-defined man. For example, donating anonymously to feel good about yourself was simply not done. Who you were was what people thought of you.

The paper doesn't mention population density, but I'd think that would an important part of the story. Keeping infection rates at the same level in urbanized, densely populated areas as is present in places where people live in more widespread, small agricultural communities seems like a pretty important deal.

It's hard to imagine the larger Roman cities, and Rome itself, could exist without some manner of legal and technological organization to manage sanitation.

Maybe Roman toilets are overrated, but 2000 years later, countries like India still don't have them.