More Ancient Roman Sewers and Toilets in the News

Who doesn't like news from the sewers? Ancient Roman sewers, that is, and some toilets and aqueducts and everything you need to flush properly.

Archaeologists have recently uncovered one of Rome's 11 aqueducts known as Aqua Traiana (5 points if you've figured out why it's called like that.) They found it by accident (aren't all great discoveries made like that?) when they were looking for another aqueduct – good thing there were so many of them!

The basin that collected water is richly decorated, painted with the expensive Egyptian blue; it contains a nyphaeum and a small temple, and might have been inaugurated by Trajan himself. The site is currently a waste dump for a pig farm.

Another striking discovery comes from Portus (one of Rome's ports, close to Ostia) where archaeologists recently unearthed a small, but stylish amphitheater, which might have been used by visiting emperors. They also find an elegant Ancient Roman toilet there, with marble walls and floors and three seats, for the emperor to have company when he was... well, busy. Now archaeologists are collecting dump from this Ancient Roman toilet to find out what people ate back then. They have all the fun, really they do.

Last but not least, a few years back Emperor Vespasian's summer villa was found North of Rome. I don't have a description of its toilets, but there must have been some, therefore I found it fitting to include the discovery in this small collage. After all, Vespasian did die of diarrhea, a fitting punishment from the toilet god for introducing a tax on urinals in Rome.