Disgusting Things That Were Normal in Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, peeing was a big deal. So much so that the government had special taxes on the sale of urine, as some people made a living from collecting this excrement, both from public urinals and private homes.

And what did they use urine for? For many things, like cleaning your clothes and teeth, for example. It's not a joke.

In the case of clothes, workers filled a bathtub with pee and stepped on the togas to wash them. In the case of teeth, people simply used urine as mouthwash, claiming it kept their teeth shining. Several Roman authors, such as Catullus, attested that people used human and animal urine to clean their teeth.

In other words, pee, for the ancient Romans, was an excellent cleaning product. It makes sense, as Revista Galileu explains, since, after a long time, urine decomposes into ammonia, a common substance in hygiene products.

Rome was advanced in certain ways – for example, it had public toilets and sewage systems, something even later societies would not have had for centuries. But not everything can be perfect, right?

Archaeologists believe these bathrooms were rarely, if ever, cleaned. They were full of parasites – so much so that the ancient Romans went to the bathroom with special combs to scrape off lice. The worst part, however, was when the person “finished” what they had gone to do. Each public bathroom, shared with dozens of other people, had a single sponge on a stick used by everyone to clean themselves.