A Comm for Historymemes

You say counterintuitive, but I dare ask: how many social media users are on the can right now? Shitting might be more of a social activity than people care to admit.

Back that azz up.

Thanks, I hate it! All of it. Especially the communal butt sponges. I'm gonna choose to believe that was a Time Traveler's prank.

Wonderful. Loved your explanation. Do you have sources for that Juvenal poem?

Define 'cleaned'?

That channel in front of the latrines would be used to give the sponge a rinse between uses; after a user was done wiping, they'd put it back into a bucket full of salt water or vinegar (or some mixture thereof).

In any case, it's a great way to pass along parasites. 😬

I can’t remember where I read this or if I’m making it up but I think the sponge stick was stored in a bucket of urine.

They also used urine to clean laundry. I think 🤔 again it could have dreamt that.

I’m hoping they filtered the urine or something.

The only time Romans didn't want to build a wall.

As the latrine situation implies, Romans were not very privacy-oriented! To the point that Julius Caesar, of dictator and conqueror fame, was considered somewhat weird because he read silently, in his head, rather than out loud. It seemed furtive and secretive to the Romans, for whom almost everything was an affair to be shared!

Hermogenes, it seems to me, Ponticus, is as great a thief of napkins as Massa was of money. Even though you watch his right hand, and hold his left, he will find means to abstract your napkin. With like subtilty does the breath of the stag draw out the cold snake; and the rainbow exhale the waters from the clouds. Lately, while a respite was implored for Myrinus, who had been wounded in a conflict, Hermogenes contrived to filch four napkins. Just as the praetor was going to drop his white napkin, to start the horses in the circus, Hermogenes stole it. When at last nobody brought a napkin with him, for fear of thefts, Hermogenes stole the cloth from the table.

And should there be nothing of this kind to steal, Hermogenes does not hesitate to detach the ornaments from the couches, or the feet from the tables. However immoderate may be the heat in the theatres, the awnings are withdrawn when Hermogenes makes his appearance. The sailors, in trembling haste, proceed to furl their sails whenever Hermogenes shows himself in the harbour. The bareheaded priests of Isis, clad in linen vestments, and the choristers who play the sistrum, betake themselves to flight when Hermogenes comes to worship.

Hermogenes never took a napkin to dinner; Hermogenes never came away from a dinner without one.

The OG enshittification