Between human and animal waste, people with bad hygiene and bodies to decompose outdoors, the smell of ancient Rome sounds unlawful.
The roar of the crowd in the arena, the agitation of the Roman Forum, the great temples, the Roman army dressed in red with shields and bright armor – when people imagine ancient Rome, often think about their landscapes and sounds. We know less, however, about OS AROMAS DA ROME ANTIA.
We can’t, of course, go back and smell to find out. But literary texts, physical traces of structures, objects and environmental evidence (such as plants and animals) can offer clues.
So what would be the smell of ancient Rome?
When describing the smells of plants, the author and naturalist Plínio, the old man, uses words like yucundus (pleasant), accus (pungent), vis (strong) or dilutus (weak).
Unfortunately, none of these words are particularly evocative in their power to transport us back in time.
But we can probably assume safely that in many areas Rome was probably very dirty and with a fetid smell. Property owners did not usually connect their bathrooms to sewers in large Roman cities, perhaps fearing raids of rodents or odors.
Roman sewers resembled rainwater and served to drain standing waters from public areas.
Professionals collected feces for fertilizer and urine for processing tissues in toilets and domestic and public pits. Penic were also used, which could later be dumped into pits.
This process of waste deposition was exclusive to those who were able to live in homes; Many lived in small, non -residential spaces, apartments with few furniture or on the streets.
A common odor in the Roman city animal and the waste they produced. Roman bakeries often used large mills of volcanic stone (or “mos”) moved by mules or donkeys. There was also the smell of cargo and cattle animals that were brought to the city for slaughter or sale.
AS Grandes “stones of passage”Still seen on the streets of Pompeii probably served so that people could cross them and avoid the various feces that covered the sidewalk stones.
The discard of corpses (animals and humans) was not a formula. Depending on the social class of the person who had died, people could well have been left to the open, without cremation or burial.
Bodies, potentially decaying, were a more common view in ancient Rome than today.
Suetonium, in the first century DC, wrote the famous story of a dog carrying a severed human hand to the dining table of Emperor Vespasian.
Deodorants and toothpaste
In a world devoid of modern fragrant products – and the daily bath of the majority of the population – the ancient Roman villages would have Exhaled Body Odor.
Classic literature has some recipes for toothpaste and even deodorants.
However, many of the deodorants were used oral (chewed or swallowed) to eliminate the bad smell of armpits.
One of them was made by boiling stroke root in fine wine to induce urination (which was believed to eliminate the odor).
The Roman Spa Probably They were not so hygienic as they seem to tourists who visit them today. A small bathtub in a public shower behaved eight to 12 bathers.
The Romans had soap, but it was not often used for personal hygiene. Oil (including scented oil) was preferred. It was scraped from the skin with a sterigil (a curved bronze instrument).
This combination of oil and skin was then discarded (perhaps even thrown against the wall). The baths had drains – but as oil and water do not mix, probably They were quite dirty.
Perfumed perfumes
The Romans had perfumes and incense.
The invention of glass blowing at the end of the first century BC (probably in Jerusalem controlled by the Romans) made the glass easily available, and the glass perfume vials are a common archaeological find.
Animal and plant fats were infused with aromas – as Pink, cinnamon, iris, tender and saffron – and mixed with ingredients and medicinal pigments.
The roses of Paestum, in Campania (southern Italy), were particularly appreciated, and a perfumery was excavated at the Roman Forum of the city.
The commercial power of the vast Roman empire allowed obtain spices of India and the neighboring regions.
There were warehouses for stor like pepper, cinnamon and myrrh in the center of Rome.
In a recent Oxford Journal of Archaeology, researcher Cecilie Brøns writes that even old statues could be perfumed with aromatic oils.
The sources often do not describe the smell of perfumes used to anoint the statues, but a perfume predominantly based on roses It is specifically mentioned for this purpose in inscriptions from the Greek city of Delos (where archaeologists also identified perfumery workshops). Bee wax was probably added to perfumes as a stabilizer.
Increasing the aroma of the statues (particularly those of gods and goddesses) with perfumes and wreaths was important in their veneration and worship.
An olfactory attack
The old city would have smelled of human wastewood smoke, decomposition and decomposition, cremated meat, cooked foods, perfumes and incense, and many other things.
It sounds horrible for a modern person, but it seems that the Romans didn’t complain so much about the smell of the ancient city.
Perhaps, as the historian Neville Morley suggested, for them they were smells of home or even Civilization.
