Background
It has become commonplace to argue that premodern cities, including ancient Rome and Pompeii, smelled bad due to lack of proper sanitation and waste management. This argument contains two crucial but untested assumptions: (1) there were strong smells, and (2) there were no attempts to manage these smells. In this article, I argue, based on a detailed, bottom-up approach to the archaeology of one Pompeian city block (IX,3), that the ancient Pompeian air was not as foul smelling as previously thought, that the olfactory nuisances were manageable, and that there were clear attempts at sanitation and waste management. In addition, olfactory experiences are reflected in the architecture and the use of domestic space, which was designed to keep odors under control. Pompeian spatial arrangements, however, mirror social hierarchies, and because uneven power relations played a part in odor regulation, the olfactory landscape was not the same for all inhabitants.
Studies of past smellscapes
Smells are made up of volatilized chemical compounds, and we are able to notice odors when these molecules are carried to our nasal cavity, where they activate olfactory receptors.Footnote 1 Smelling is, however, not only a physiological phenomenon but also a cultural and historical one – as the pioneering scholars of historical and archaeological sensory studies, C. Classen and J. Day, argue – and without understanding the ancient sensory landscape and its cultural aspects, our knowledge of the past inevitably remains limited.Footnote 2 The ephemeral nature of smells makes them a difficult topic of study but a necessary one if we want to understand historical societies in depth.Footnote 3
The importance of understanding the cultural and social aspects of redolence was recognized in social studies in the late 1980s, when C. Classen, D. Howes, and A. Synnott formed the Centre for Sensory Studies and published the first books on the cultural history, anthropology, and sociology of the senses.Footnote 4 The historical aspects of odors were brought into the wider discussion earlier in the 1980s by A. Corbin in his famous exploration into olfaction in 18th–19th-c. France. In classical studies, the theme was introduced by S. Lilja by the beginning of the 1970s in her philological treatise on odors in Greco-Roman poetry.Footnote 5 Drawing inspiration from these works, current archaeological research has witnessed a phenomenon that can be called a sensory turn,Footnote 6 or even a sensual revolution,Footnote 7 with a growing number of publications aimed at sketching the sensory landscapes of past societies.Footnote 8 Some significant contributions have been made recently, including research on the ancient Greco-Roman sensorium, such as Routledge's Senses in Antiquity publication series, with papers on the senses in literature and philosophy, as well as some introductory articles on sensations in urban and domestic space.Footnote 9 The volume in the series dedicated to smells aims to “reinstate olfaction as a potent tool for understanding and evaluating the Greco-Roman world,” as stated by the editor, M. Bradley. According to him, olfaction is critical in Western history in evaluating the “moral fibre of bodies, cities and spaces.”Footnote 10
Given that the recent sensory-related research on the Greco-Roman world mainly concentrates on the literary evidence, our understanding of the senses in the Roman townscape from the archaeological point of view is still in its early stages. In classical archaeology, sight has largely dominated the research on the spatial design of domestic and urban space. The ground-breaking works on spatial studies by the Pompeianists in the 1980s and 1990s laid the foundations for the visual understanding of space, especially through the investigation of sight lines and visual axes in houses, as well as how decorative elements – such as wall paintings and mosaics – shaped and defined spaces and how social activities in houses coincided with the spaces' function, their decoration, and their architectural form. The Roman/Campanian houses are read as documents of social life, where the organization of space and decoration formed a code that guided movement – not only of the familia but also of visitors to the house.Footnote 11 A. Wallace-Hadrill has outlined specific boundaries inside Roman houses. According to him, two “axes of differentiation” can be detected: public–private and grand–humble. The public and grand areas were used to receive clients (clientes), while friends (amici) were invited to enjoy private and luxurious spaces. Slaves labored throughout the house, in grand spaces as well as humble ones.Footnote 12
Space is not configured only by sight, however; other senses play their part as well. But how does olfaction affect the use of space? M. Smith and J. Drobnick argue that smells help define and differentiate spaces, and according to E. Betts, each sense influences the perception of spaces and places.Footnote 13 The study of “smellscapes” (a term popularized by J. Porteous in his eponymous article) or olfactory geographies (the term preferred by P. Rodaway) provides a way of understanding how people position themselves in space by using smells as guidelines for moving about, away from danger and toward such fundamental needs as food.Footnote 14 And, as theories on the relationship of culture, use of space, and architecture state, space is socially constructed, and the way a society arranges lived space reveals its underlying values and structures.Footnote 15 Consequently, finding out how living in built-up city blocks was arranged and how these arrangements were experienced by the senses will elucidate the social relationships of ancient society, and distinguishing sensory experiences will lead to a better understanding of how cultural norms, the use of space, the environment, and physiological necessities influenced each other.
The stink of the city in earlier scholarship
Mainly following in Corbin's footsteps, historical sensory studies have long been divided into the study of the fragrant and the foul (meaning stenches and filth), juxtaposing foul-smelling premodern urban space with the presumably deodorized modern world.Footnote 16 For instance, Classen and Howes call premodern cities “notoriously malodorous” owing to fetid industries – such as tanneries, where hides were treated with tannic acid, urine, and feces – and the accumulation of garbage.Footnote 17 J. Reinarz, in his extensive work on historical smells, also classifies slaughterhouses, tanneries, and laundries among particularly malodorous urban spaces.Footnote 18 Ancient Rome and the smaller towns in the Empire have long been seen as filthy and stinky places of squalor as well.
The pioneering study on aromas by Classen, Howes, and Synnott concentrates on the perfumed smellscapes of antiquity but it also touches on the (assumed) foul-smelling cityscape. According to them, certain urban areas of Rome were distinguishable by their unpleasant smells coming from tanneries, laundries, rotting garbage, and latrines.Footnote 19 A. Scobie, who wrote in the mid-1980s about the sanitary conditions of the city of Rome, painted a picture of mixed sanitary practices: on the one hand, Romans had standardized systems for latrines and bathing; on the other, these were often lacking in sanitation. He describes a city in which open cesspits were situated in kitchens, and inadequately cleaned streets were used for defecation. Scobie considered private latrines extremely unhygienic sources of incessant smells and possible food contamination.Footnote 20 In his time, the latrines were a rather unknown feature in Roman archaeology – despite the input by H. Mygind almost a century before – a situation that has changed a great deal in recent decades, with several publications discussing the ways ancient Romans relieved themselves. G. Jansen, the pioneering scholar of Roman toilet design, agrees with Scobie and claims that Roman toilets were dirty and stinky and that city streets “were covered with filth and feces from pack animals, stray dogs, and pigs.”Footnote 21
Similar sentiments are expressed elsewhere. For instance, D. Potter claims that the air in Roman urban areas reeked.Footnote 22 In her work on Roman toilets, A. O. Koloski-Ostrow argues that the air in Roman towns was spoiled by the foul smells of toilets, that the city of Rome was filled with squalor, that toilets were characterized by their stench, and that excrement and urine were left on uncleaned and filthy streets.Footnote 23 According to Koloski-Ostrow, summertime Pompeii was a stinking mess, where filth, manure, and dirty water churned in the streets because the few sewers of the city mainly served the public bathhouses and did not flush the toilets, which used cesspits instead.Footnote 24 She also believes that the streets of Rome were probably covered with manure, vomit, urine, and feces, and that urban smellscapes were aggravated by smelly laundries and tanneries set amid private housing without much urban zoning. She explains the preference for cesspits over sewers by the lack of sewer traps, which meant that house owners could not control what natural – or even supernatural – creatures crept out of the sewers.Footnote 25
G. Aldrete thinks along the same lines. According to him, human excrement was present everywhere in the city of Rome, given that chamber pots were emptied into the streets and there was no regular garbage collection, meaning that waste ended up in the streets.Footnote 26 He also includes butchers and tanners among smell polluters contributing to repulsive sanitary conditions in Rome and refers to “large, open garbage pits” just outside the city walls that contributed to the insalubrious environment, without specifying which pits he is talking about.Footnote 27 These are probably the so-called puticuli in the area of the Esquiline. First dug up in the 1800s by R. Lanciani, who interpreted these vaulted structures as vast mass graves that still smelled unbearably after 2,000 years of deposition, they are often used as an example of unsanitary conditions in ancient Rome.Footnote 28 Other scholars also insist that, in both Rome and Pompeii, excrement and other waste accumulated in the streets – which were considered a proper place for such discards – and there was little or no waste management.Footnote 29
The problem is that instead of reflecting a systematic review and analysis of the evidence, most of these claims are based on a rather dramatic interpretation of very few archaeological finds or assumptions generalized from only a small number of literary sources. In truth, Latin literature is surprisingly quiet about urban smells. This absence becomes evident in E. Ramage's survey of the literary evidence for Roman urban problems; these include overcrowding, traffic, noise, air pollution, and the dumping of garbage into the Tiber, but there are no mentions of offensive smells.Footnote 30 The silence of the textual sources concerning city stenches has also been noted by N. Morley, according to whom the Roman writers are expressing an “apparent blindness to the appalling stench of the city.”Footnote 31
If we look more closely at the evidence used in previous studies, it becomes clear that, for instance, the claim that human ordure was dumped all over the city streets is often either founded on nothing or extrapolated from a couple of ambiguous literary passages. The statements, “for example, in Pompeii, buckets containing waste and fecal matter were thrown out of windows onto the street, where it collected and rotted” in Havlíček and Morcinek and “the street was assumed to be the proper place for such disposals [of bodily waste]” in Illich are expressed without references to sources.Footnote 32 Otherwise, the claim rests primarily on two references, Juvenal's Satire 3, esp. lines 230–86, and Justinian's Digest 9.3.Footnote 33 Juvenal's evocative description of urban perils surely invites such interpretations: among urban inconveniences, he mentions how nighttime walkers were in danger of being struck on the head by falling roof tiles or broken pots thrown out of houses – or, if they were lucky, only by the contents of such vessels.Footnote 34 This vivid testimony cannot be discarded fully, but it should be read as satirical exaggeration, which hardly suffices to testify to a widespread custom of depositing feces on streets, especially because excrement or urine is not mentioned explicitly. And, if chamber pots were emptied onto streets, it would not make sense to throw out the whole pot, only its contents. The reference to patulas defundere pelves (“pour out wide basins”) in line 3.277 could suggest this practice but not necessarily. Just before, in lines 3.261–62, the poet has made mention of a household washing dishes; emptying the contents of shallow basins could be a reference to dishwater. Another possible interpretation is that of water used for washing in general, given that the word pelvis refers to a (foot) washing basin.Footnote 35 The legislation in Justinian's Digest 9.3 deals with anything that might have been thrown or poured out from houses to the detriment of people in the street below. The chapter is concerned with the safety of streets endangered by heavy objects that can kill passersby, and no specific reference to excrement, urine, or chamber pots is made. As concrete examples of possible items falling, the text mentions an artwork hanging from a wall projection and an amphora suspended by a net.Footnote 36 And, although these passages tell us that objects thrown or matter poured out in the streets was considered a real danger, they can hardly be regarded as solid proof that emptying chamber pot contents into the streets was an established practice, let alone as evidence that streets were an appropriate place to deposit excrement.
Modern scholarship should take Lanciani's claims with a pinch of salt, given that, as A. Emmerson accurately argues, his reports present a rather sensational exaggeration of his finds. The puticuli were in reality a series of cesspits used for waste management rather than mass graves, and their contents must have decayed soon after being deposited instead of still festering after 2,000 years.Footnote 37 Morley calls Lanciani's descriptions “anecdotes” and criticizes the reconstruction of the Roman olfactory environment by Classen et al. (Reference Classen, Howes and Synnott1994), which is based mainly on J. Carcopino's popularized and unanalytical account of Roman city life.Footnote 38 Morley also takes a critical stance on contrasting the deodorized modern world to the foul-smelling past, an idea repeated in studies since Corbin and often illustrated using fictional time travelers from the modern world who would be overwhelmed by the past stenches. To him, this offers a distorted version of history, not much better than the fictional purity of the Roman world conveyed in the idealized works by such artists as L. Alma-Tadema.Footnote 39
Despite the acute criticism, however, even Morley assumes that Roman cities must have been malodorous, given that they relied on cesspits to deal with human waste rather than sewers, which would carry excrement away from the living quarters.Footnote 40 Therefore, he ends up explaining the literary silence regarding city stenches in terms of adaptation and habituation rather than considering the possibility that the cities were not as foul smelling as previous scholarship has proposed.Footnote 41 Similar assumptions are frequent in the scholarship.Footnote 42 Such presumptions, however, reveal more about us than ancient Romans. For a modern Westerner who has never experienced a cesspit toilet, the sewage system might seem far preferable, but, as Jansen aptly points out, this judgment reflects our own preferences rather than Roman ones.Footnote 43
Athough the view of ancient urban air as foul smelling is prevalent, thorough research of the Pompeian evidence has contested this view before. For instance, B. Hobson regards Pompeian toilets as malodorous, but he proposes that certain measures were taken to control the smells.Footnote 44 M. Flohr argues that the unpleasantness of the Pompeian laundries (fullonicae), emphasized in previous studies,Footnote 45 has been exaggerated.Footnote 46 Similar results have been found in studies of other time periods as well, as in R. van Oosten's research on historical Dutch cesspits. That work shows how the “Great Stink” in the Dutch city of Leiden in the 17th century was the result of the change from a cesspool system to canals as the primary means of disposing of latrine waste. Consequently, the stink – well attested in contemporary sources – is a feature of an early modern rather than a premodern city, not caused by cesspit latrines but by a sewage system that used canals for dumping waste.Footnote 47 Also, L. Bartosiewicz's study shows that even societies that “had no choice but living with [heavy smells]” managed the sources of the strongest smells through spatial arrangements.Footnote 48 The ancient Romans had means and resources to deal with waste and – as Ramage points out – urban problems in Rome may have been many, but efforts to solve these were constant.Footnote 49
Considering all this, I believe it is time to reassess ancient urban smellscapes. To do this, I will consider the ancient olfactory conditions in one Pompeian city block (IX,3) and its closest neighbors (Fig. 1). This paper concentrates on the sources of the smells classified as foul and nauseating in previous scholarship – defecation, household waste, smoke, and certain industries such as laundries, tanneries, and the production of garum, fermented fish sauce. The essential research questions are what kind of smells there were in the case-study area, where these were located, and what their contextualized locations tell us about the olfactory experiences of the area.
Map of properties in insula IX,3 and its closest neighbors (Map by M. Holappa / EPUH.)
Pompeii, as a well-preserved Campanian town, offers a unique opportunity to study the ancient smellscape. There, we can trace these sources of smells with an accuracy not possible anywhere else – except for the neighboring town of Herculaneum – even though the original smells have long since vanished. In addition to the arguments presented in the introduction, I maintain that in order to pursue the smellscapes of the Campanian/Roman past, we should start with the smallest and most detailed pieces of evidence and proceed from there. This means first looking at what sources of smells were actually present in ancient cityscapes.Footnote 50 This is a necessary step to establish a foundation for further analysis and theories. This paper concentrates on Pompeian evidence, which cannot be directly generalized as “Roman,” but it aims to offer the first steps toward a wider understanding of ancient cities.
Methodological considerations: foul or fragrant?
It is difficult to discover how pleasant or disturbing certain smells are considered to be in any culture and no single objective method exists. Personal and learned preferences, as well as different coping styles, play their role, as does the sensitivity of the recipient.Footnote 51 Other factors include environmental conditions such as temperature and other seasonal aspects, air pressure, and the movement of air, as well as the built environment – that is, buildings and other structures that can allow or block aromas. The cultural dichotomy of foul and fragrant has not received much attention in previous studies.Footnote 52 Several scholars seem to have presumed that certain odors are found disgusting cross-culturally,Footnote 53 which is in striking contrast to the basic tenet of the cultural history of the senses: that sensations are as much culturally constructed as biologically.Footnote 54 But it is true that despite the cultural and personal variation in sensations, certain attitudes can be considered universal, such as disgust – especially toward excrement, vomit, and other bodily discharges and putrefaction – which has evolved for preventing the threat of infectious disease.Footnote 55 Culture can overcome the negative reaction toward such filth but not easily.Footnote 56
Therefore, to argue that in a certain culture the smells associated with excretion and putrefaction were not considered a nuisance, one would need an extraordinarily strong body of evidence to back up such claims. The ancient Roman material does not offer this. Roman literature deals widely with olfaction, and a careful reading of the sources reveals a general distinction between pleasant scents and foul smells. And although the Roman literature is biased in favor of the male elite, overlooking more marginalized groups, the large body of literary evidence and inscriptions is enough to substantiate certain general cultural preferences: the Roman division between good and bad odors brings no great surprises to a modern Western reader. The Roman use of perfumes and incense is well represented in modern research literature and shows that, for example, fruits and plants, frankincense, aromatic oils, and perfumes produced positive associations.Footnote 57 On the other hand, excreta, bodily odors, rotting foodstuffs, filth, and sulfur were considered noxious.Footnote 58 Odors of other people – especially bad breath, sweaty armpits, and farts – are commonly featured in Latin literature, and no adaptation or habituation seems to have developed in human odor relations.Footnote 59 However, the situation is not quite as straightforward as this. Some complexity of olfactory sensations in ancient Rome can be seen, for instance, in the attitudes toward manure, which is seen in a positive light when appearing as a fertilizer.Footnote 60
To make the best use of limited space, I will concentrate on olfaction. Nevertheless, as has been argued in recent scholarship focusing on the overlaps of sensory stimuli, the rigid division into five separate senses in the Aristotelian spirit gives a somewhat one-sided view of sensory experiences.Footnote 61 Not only did many of the substances discussed in this paper most likely evoke negative reactions through their smells, but their appearance and consistency also rendered them unpleasant to look at or touch. Most importantly, we can safely assume that reactions to the strong smells of feces and rotting meat evolved to prevent humans from tasting such substances. Therefore, we can argue that these nuisances were multisensory in nature.
Embodied methodologies
Measuring odor annoyance is a complex and uncertain process even in present-day neighborhoods, although olfactometric tools have been developed.Footnote 62 Particular areas can be investigated by various means, including standardized surveys and odor diaries that map where and when odors occur and how irritating they are perceived to be.Footnote 63 For the researcher of the past, such methods are obviously not available, and one must rely on what evidence exists, even though it is often scattered and biased. Doing sensorial archaeology is admittedly difficult, as has been dwelled upon in several theoretical treatises on archeological approaches to the senses.Footnote 64 A decade ago, F. Fahlander and A. Kjellström argued that there are no “ready-made” theories and methods available that are particularly intended for sensory archaeology.Footnote 65 In recent studies, various methods to trace vanished sensory encounters have been developed, from the more traditional approaches that use either literary or archaeological evidence – or these in combination – to more experimental ones.
The more experimental methods include the phenomenological approach, which puts the researcher's own bodily experience at the center of the investigation. This approach was inspired by M. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological philosophy, recently developed especially by C. Tilley, and adopted, for instance, by Betts, J. Veitch, and R. Laurence, whose works on the senses in antiquity are also heavily influenced by Lefebvre's theories of the body and space.Footnote 66 This approach is also supported by H. Hunter-Crawley, who calls for a paradigmatic shift in classical archaeology in favor of an embodied approach to sensory studies, which she trusts will lead to a more diverse understanding of the ancient world.Footnote 67 Closely linked to this embodied approach is a technique called “smellwalking,” which emphasizes movement through space while recording the smells encountered.Footnote 68 This leads us to yet another approach to past redolence – namely, olfactory maps, which have recently been developed and produced by K. McLean.Footnote 69 Such maps work well in illustrating the spatial aspects of olfaction; however, they yet again subordinate smell to vision. The other (new) approaches are also not without their limitations.
Considering the methods of spatial studies previously employed in classical/Campanian archaeology, including attempts to understand space through techniques borrowed from more exact sciences, such as space syntax analysis, 3D modeling, and GIS analysis,Footnote 70 as well as, yet again, the key principle of cultural and historical sensory studies – that sensory perceptions are culturally conditioned reactions to physical stimuli – it is not surprising that the subjectiveness of the phenomenological approach has received criticism. It is rather risky to assume that the body of one modern researcher could be used as a universal, unbiased measuring stick. Classen and Howes consider personal experience to be an inadequate method if used alone, and they believe in particular that generalized observations derived from the bodily perception of a single scholar can only produce very simplistic results.Footnote 71 Tilley defends the method by pointing out that because we understand the world through our own “embodied selves,” the phenomenological perspective works in the background of all interpretations of research material, whether we recognize it or not.Footnote 72 Derrick considers that the culture-specific bias could be leveled by using a multitude of perceivers and perceptions.Footnote 73 According to Betts, Roman historical and archaeological sensory research needs to incorporate evidence from both textual sources and material culture, as well as from embodied spaces. She states that although the phenomenological approach comes with provisos concerning the differences among bodies and cultural conceptions, it still offers the possibility of recreating physiological sensations that can be used to further hypothesize about past responses to them.Footnote 74
Given that no single, unproblematic, “one size fits all” method is available, I aim to combine different approaches to outline certain aspects of the 79 CE smellscape of our case-study city block. The starting point is traditional archaeological research into Pompeian evidenceFootnote 75 – namely, the study of buildings' archaeology, and the analysis of finds from both the mid-19th-c. excavations and the new investigations by the Finnish Pompeii Project (Expeditio Pompeiana Universitatis Helsingiensis, henceforth EPUH) – combined with the most essential literary material to trace and map the sources of irritating smells in the city block (Fig. 2). From there I proceed by looking at the locations of these sources of smells and analyzing the cultural attitudes to them by examining what their spatial arrangements reveal. The personal olfactory experiences of the inhabitants of this city block have disappeared beyond our reach, but by populating the spaces within the insula and interpreting olfactory possibilities through the physical remains, we can at least hypothesize about how these spaces could have been perceived by different inhabitants of the city block – not only the elite but subelite inhabitants, workers, and slaves as well. Putting the human body into the Pompeian ruins is a methodology of research into domestic space that has been applied successfully by F. M. Green, who has demonstrated how Pompeian kitchen design provides nonverbal clues to the class distinctions among the inhabitants of houses.Footnote 76 In this paper, I aim to follow this approach by looking further at the olfactory conditions in the kitchens of our case-study area.
Latrines, downpipes, sources of smoke, and open areas of insula IX,3. Dye workshops are marked with “D,” bakeries with “B,” the fullonica with “F,” and the stable with “S.” (Map by Maija Holappa, EPUH.)
This exploration into the embodied understanding of senses and space in insula IX,3 contains two crucial factors, I would argue: on the one hand, my own experiences and perceptions of the spaces work as an inspiration for this study; on the other hand, because my perceptions are influenced by my cultural framework, this needs to be recognized first. I have worked with the EPUH project for several years, spending a considerable amount of time in the area of insula IX,3 (amounting altogether to 12 fieldwork months), and I have become intimately familiar with how the space in the area feels now and how the space among the ruins works. The critical issue is obviously that I have been sensing the area as an empty set of ruins with no original roofs or doors, as space that is not used as it was in antiquity, but that is perceived through my own cultural concepts and my own body, which is capable of smelling things normatively – unlike, for instance, my anosmic or hypersensitive colleagues. Modern perception is further skewed by such anachronistic smells as strong coffee served in the field office. As objectivity and neutrality cannot come from denying the influence of one's perceptions – but rather the contrary – the realization of one's own perceptions is the first step toward understanding the space. By incorporating the shared understanding of bodily experiences into a detailed study of archaeological material, we can start our exploration into Pompeian smellscapes reasonably safely.
Introduction to the neighborhood: the insula of Marcus Lucretius (IX,3) and its surroundings in Pompeii (VII,2, IX,2, IX,4, and IX,6)
The archaeological evidence for this study comes from city block IX,3 and is drawn from both the excavations in the mid-19th c. and the recent reexamination of the insula by the EPUH team. The largest dwelling of the city block, the house of Marcus Lucretius, was first excavated between 1847 and 1871. EPUH worked in insula IX,3 from 2002 to 2012, and the first results have been published in Berg and Kuivalainen Reference Berg and Kuivalainen2019, whereas the second volume on the structural documentation and archaeological excavations is currently in preparation. Unpublished documentation of EPUH findings, which I have used here, consists mainly of the fieldwork reports for 2004–2012 compiled by EPUH lead archaeologist E.-M. Viitanen. In addition, I have utilized three other unpublished works by EPUH team members: H. Ynnilä's PhD dissertation, “Pompeii, Insula IX.3: A case study of urban infrastructure,” M. MacKinnon's zooarchaeological report on the House of Marcus Lucretius (IX,3,5/24), and J. Andrews's report on the upper floors of insula IX,3. The data concerning the neighboring areas I have drawn mainly from Eschebach et al. Reference Eschebach, Eschebach and Müller-Trollius1993.Footnote 77
Insula IX,3 is situated in the geographical center of the town, along the Via Stabiana, just to the south of the so-called Central Baths (IX,4). The block covers a little over 3,000 m2, which in 79 CE was divided into 18 properties with over 150 different spaces. In the northeastern part of the insula, there is an unbuilt plot on which two–three houses seem to have been situated earlier. These might have been destroyed in the 62 CE earthquake and, for some reason, never rebuilt. The largest dwelling of the quarter, the House of Marcus Lucretius (IX,3,5/24), consists of 555 m2 and an additional 277 m2 of upper floor area.Footnote 78 It belongs to the quartile of largest houses in Wallace-Hadrill's classification of Campanian houses.Footnote 79 The layout of the largest house aligns with the private Campanian residences in which the degree of internal partitioning was high and the design was intended to provide several differentiated spaces. Besides this wealthy, upper-class domus, there were three other private dwellings in the block (IX,3,15, IX,3,23, and IX,3,25) and several commercial establishments with possible residential use. In the northwest corner of the insula, in IX,1–2, there was a dyehouse, converted from an earlier private residence. The southwest and southeast corners house bakeries. Other units seem to have been workshops or shops with various functions, of which some are rather difficult to identify. Similar types of premises are found in the neighboring quarters.
All the streets bordering insula IX,3 have very distinct profiles, from the bustling Via Stabiana to the quiet, unpaved northern alley between the Central Baths and insula IX,3. On both sides of the Via Stabiana (IX,3,1–10 and VII, 2,1–15) – the busy artery running between the Porta Vesuvio and the Porta Stabia – there are several small shops characterized by wide doors leading into commercial establishments with only one or two ground-floor rooms. This multitude of shops seems to indicate heavy traffic in the area, as does the range of other services found here: in addition to the bakery in IX,3,10, there was another one in VII,2,6, a bar in the northeast corner at VII,2,15, and two dyehouses on opposite sides of the street (IX,1–2 and VII,2,11). On the southern side of the insula of Marcus Lucretius, opening onto the so-called Via degli Augustali, there is slightly more variation between the function of the units. Private houses on both sides of the street (IX,3,15, IX,2,26, and IX,2,27) were surrounded by commercial units, where production took place alongside the sale of the products; the only stables in this neighborhood are also situated here (IX,2,24).
Although the traffic on the Via Stabiana, and most likely even on the Via degli Augustali, must have been frequent, the same cannot be said about the narrow unpaved alley to the north of IX,3, onto which there opened only a few modest private houses (IX,3,23 and IX,3,25, and IX,3,24, the posticum of the House of Marcus Lucretius), a secondary entrance to the baths (IX,4,10) not yet in use, and a small stall (IX,4,11–13). The scarcity of finds inside the two small dwellings on this side of the city block – IX,3,23 and 25 – might indicate that these premises were not fully inhabited in 79 CE. This, combined with the ongoing construction work in the Central Baths, might have rendered this narrow alley a suitable out-of-sight dumping area, as will be discussed below in the section on waste management. Similarly, the unbuilt-on plot on the eastern side of IX,3, along the so-called Vicolo di Tesmo, seems to have been a vacant area into which waste was dumped. On the eastern side of the Vicolo di Tesmo, at IX,6, there are a couple of private houses (IX,6,3–7) and one commercial establishment, a laundry (IX,6,1a), in the southwestern corner.
The evidence: sources of smell in IX,3 and its closest neighbors
The textile industry
The Pompeian textile industry comprised laundries (fullonicae) and dye workshops, where new textiles were colored (by infectores) and worn-out ones were re-dyed (by offectores). In addition, possible workshops for felt making (officinae coactiliariae) and raw-wool processing (officinae lanifricariae) are found in the city, but the evidence to confirm their identification is lacking.Footnote 80 The industrial washing of clothes, or fulling (from Latin fullo, launderer), has long been considered one of the most malodorous businesses because it uses both urine and sulfur as detergents.Footnote 81 As a result, one would expect laundries to be located outside urban areas rather than within the urban framework. However, in his recent (re)examination of Pompeii's fullonicae, Flohr offers another view of the smells produced in the laundries, downplaying the unpleasantness of these institutions. In his view, the location of laundries was not determined by their stench, because they did not produce as many olfactory nuisances as one would expect: the fulling stalls using urine were located in the rear areas of the laundries, far enough from the street not to offend the noses of passersby. He also discredits the often-repeated account of how urine was collected in jars posted on street corners. According to him, Pompeii does not offer enough evidence to support the existence of this custom, and even the literary evidence for it is scarce.Footnote 82 This interpretation has mostly relied on a frequently quoted passage from Martial (6.93), which mentions a greedy fuller's foul-smelling jar, broken in the middle of the street. Even though this passage does seem to suggest that urine was collected in the streets (of Rome), it does not confirm the general smelliness of the fulling business. Instead, it testifies to dodgy business practices and an accidental and temporary odor nuisance resulting from the vessel breaking.
The only fullonica in our case-study neighborhood has been identified by Flohr at IX,6,1a.Footnote 83 On the south side of insula IX,3 there is a small workshop at IX,3,16. Moeller considered this a workshop for felt making (officina coactiliaria);Footnote 84 however, it is not possible to verify this identification: the EPUH investigation found cisterns and channels in this small site but nothing directly related to maintaining a fire, which would be needed in the process.Footnote 85
Workshop IX,3,1–2 in the northwest corner of the insula is one of seven dye shops identified in Pompeii.Footnote 86 Another dye workshop is nearby, on the opposite side of the street at VII,2,11.Footnote 87 The identification of these workshops is based on the structures associated with the dyeing process, such as (probably) metal cauldrons set into masonry, with furnaces or firing chambers underneath, a water supply, and soaking vats. The masonry structure intended for three metal cauldrons visible in the workshop at IX,3,1–2 is not in its original state, as can be observed from the earlier documentation of these premises.Footnote 88 Based on their small size, these masonry vats were most likely used for re-dyeing old cloth.Footnote 89 Dyes were kept warm and liquid in the cauldrons, into which the textiles were dipped.Footnote 90 Both plant-based and animal-derived dyes were used in Greco-Roman antiquity, the latter being rarer. The sea snail, murex, was an expensive source of purple color, and this luxurious dye was known to have a distinctive stench.Footnote 91 To achieve a cheaper reddish hue, the root of madder was used, as was saffron for yellow, and indigo for blue. In addition, several other plant dyes were known and used in antiquity.Footnote 92 Pompeian dye workshops are known mainly for mordant dye production, indicating the use of madder, a dye that needs to be fixed in textiles with mordants. In some dye workshops, the installations may be suited to fermentation, which is required for dyeing with indigo.Footnote 93 As mordants, alum and other metal salts were needed, and as leveling agents, tannic acid, ammonia, and certain salts were used.Footnote 94 Of these, the strong-smelling ammonia would probably be the biggest concern for odor control.
According to E. Breton, a large quantity of carbonized substances were also found in our case-study dye shop.Footnote 95 Unfortunately, what this material was remains unclear; however, early excavation reports mention a small vessel containing sulfur, which may have contributed to the smellscape of this area.Footnote 96 If the dye used here was extracted from the murex sea snail, its odor would have been a noticeable feature in the area. However, it seems likelier that the dyes used in this rather small and humble workshop were from the cheaper range of plant-derived colors. Other odors emanating from here would be a mixture of other possible chemicals and smoke from the furnaces. The cauldrons with underlying fire are set into covered atrium R43 of this former private residence. A wide window in the back wall of the atrium area opens onto a garden, R49-51, which helped to conduct the remaining smoke and possible smells outside the premises. The location of this outlet ensured that the fumes were directed away from both the busiest street and the most prestigious areas of the city block.
Considering the evidence of textile making, it is apparent that insula IX,3 and its neighborhood were affected to some extent by the odors coming from the chemicals used in the dyeing and cleaning processes as well as from the smoke of furnaces used to keep the dyes warm. However, the spatial arrangements suggest that the smells were rather localized and mostly limited to the inner parts of the dyeing premises, which were ventilated through open areas, as seen in the example from IX,3,1–2. The dye shops most likely did not offend elite noses because the fumes were kept away from the most prestigious areas of the city block. By organizing ventilation, the workers’ olfactory senses were mitigated as well. Therefore, it is not surprising to find such workshops close to luxurious private dwellings. As Flohr argues, in Pompeii, the smellscape was more affected by other processes, such as commercial food preparation and sale, than by fulling and textile workshops.Footnote 97
Smoke
Feeding the population of Pompeii relied both on kitchens in private houses and on commercial establishments selling food either to eat in or to take away. In Pompeii, 158 shops selling food along with 37 bakeries have been identified.Footnote 98 According to S. Ellis, most of the bars, identified by their retail counters, had cooking facilities as well, producing smoke alongside the smells coming from the foodstuffs.Footnote 99 The preferred Pompeian fuel seems to have been charcoal, which is a more efficient and less smoke-producing choice than raw wood, even though this is hard to verify.Footnote 100
In city block IX,3, several sources produced heat and smoke. The most notable of the commercial cooking establishments are the two large bakeries in the southwest and southeast corners, both of which had large ovens producing smoke in addition to the smell of baking bread. The bakery in IX,3,10–12 has a large opening to the Via Stabiana, with a counter and five dolia for storage; another two doors to the Via degli Augustali; an oven; and four mills, which were probably not functional in 79 CE.Footnote 101 In the other pistrina, in IX,3,19–20, the four mills were found to be complete and were therefore very likely in use in 79 CE.Footnote 102 In insula IX,3, two smaller (possible) commercial kitchens have been identified as well. The identification of IX,3,8 is not entirely certain, but smells from cooking possibly emanated from this small workshop, where a small podium and pots, pans, bowls, and other cooking implements were found. Although the evidence for it is scarce, Andrews suggests that IX,3,8,57 had an upper floor.Footnote 103 If this is the case, this little shop might not have been well aired and was therefore a rather uncomfortable working space. IX,3,13 is a possible bar, judging by the hearths and other cooking-related finds. Here, the cooking platform was placed in the open atrium area R70.Footnote 104 Fire seems to have been present in workshop R79 in IX,3,14, judging by the heating-related structures. Its function, however, remains unclear; it was more likely used for activities other than cooking.Footnote 105 The neighboring city blocks are somewhat similar, with several commercial kitchens, such as the bar in the northeast corner of VII,2 and the bakery inside the so-called House of T. Terentius Nero (VII,2,6).Footnote 106
The numerous commercial cooking establishments in the insula and nearby must have produced some fumes in the area. However, the architecture, as well as oven design in the bakeries, helped to direct smoke away from the living quarters. Areas where fumes were produced were often unroofed or partly unroofed, or had large windows into open spaces, such as atria and peristyles, which brought in fresh air and drew out smoke, heat, and smells.Footnote 107 Ynnilä argues that the axiality of the houses, regarded in many previous studies as a means of creating visually imposing vistas, ensured good ventilation: interconnected rooms with a large number of doors created drafts in the houses when needed.Footnote 108 This can be interpreted as a clear indication of how other sensory aspects – not vision alone – influenced the design and use of Pompeian spaces.
As will be discussed more thoroughly below, private Pompeian kitchens were often connected to latrines; these complexes were situated either in or close to unroofed rooms for redirecting smoke and smells, and often tucked away in back areas at some distance from the noses of the elite. This pattern is clear in the House of Marcus Lucretius IX,3,5/24, where a service area (R11–14) containing kitchen, toilet, and storage room is situated on the north side of house 5 and separated from the reception areas by a corridor. In the second-largest private house of the block – IX,3,15 – a small room (R93) situated in the back of the peristyle area served as a kitchen and toilet.Footnote 109 Also, in IX,3,1–2, cooking took place in a secluded area (R54) at the back of house, close to the privy.Footnote 110 The modest house IX,3,25, opening to the northern alley, had cooking facilities in the atrium area R136.Footnote 111
Enslaved inhabitants of the city block must have been the primary users of these kitchen complexes, even though there is no direct archaeological evidence confirming this. This invisibility of slaves in the Roman archaeological record is an issue raised in numerous previous studies.Footnote 112 S. Joshel and L. Petersen, however, propose an approach that uses the “archaeological record as readable for the material lives of slaves.”Footnote 113 Using this approach, we can populate the kitchen area of the House of Marcus Lucretius with the slaves of the household and hypothesize what kind of olfactory experiences they must have encountered. Such an approach has been employed by Green, whose work on the “cooking class” of Pompeian households shows that domestic hierarchies can be detected by investigating the response of bodies to the cooking paraphernalia and fixtures.Footnote 114
The kitchen-latrine complex in IX,3,5/24, on the north side of atrium R2, consists of four mainly undecorated spaces with earthen or simple plaster-covered floors: the kitchen is situated in R14 and the latrine in R13; room R12 was most likely used for storage. Corridor R11 separated the kitchen complex from the more prestigious areas, whereas rooms 12–14 are static with no access to further spaces.Footnote 115 Kitchen R14 is the largest of these rooms, with a cooking platform fitted with a domed oven, the remains of two immured downpipes cut into the walls and leading into the cesspit in toilet R13, and two windows – one in the east wall, opening into the partly unroofed room 12, and another (now blocked) in the west wall, opening into space R39 in the modest, two-room, neighboring house, IX 3,3. The fumes, smoke, and odors in R14 would thus have exited via R12 and R39, away from the elite living areas of the House of Marcus Lucretius.Footnote 116 The cooking platform in the kitchen rises to a height of 75–77.5 cm, which is slightly higher than the Pompeian average of 70.88 cm measured by Green but still so low that a person using it would have to assume a bent-over position to reach the surface.Footnote 117 This hunched posture would very likely add to the intake of smoke and fumes caused by food preparation.
In addition, to the uncomfortable working position and the smoke, the kitchen slaves would come into close contact with other smells. According to zooarchaeologist M. MacKinnon, who analyzed the bones excavated by the EPUH team in the House of Marcus Lucretius, the elite inhabitants of the house consumed significant amounts of meat and especially juvenile pigs.Footnote 118 Therefore, the noses of the cooks and other users of this space must have been filled with odors emanating from food preparation – whether boiling, stewing, roasting, frying, grilling, or baking, which were the preferred methods of Roman meat preparation, according to MacKinnon – and possibly also from blood, with its distinct metallic smell, as well as from food remains, such as bones with meat still attached.Footnote 119 Rotting meat produces especially pungent smells due to the microbial processes causing the decay of animal tissue, which releases mainly a diamine composite called cadaverine.Footnote 120 However, it is plausible that meat and other expensive products were fully consumed even in the elite houses, and that little was left to rot.
Food remains could be cleared away immediately after use and probably did not contribute significantly to the smellscape. The toilet in R13, next to this kitchen, was used for discarding scraps: poultry bones, fish remains, and some seashells were found in the latrine pit, along with pig bones.Footnote 121 As will be discussed below, the latrine did not necessarily produce such piercing stinks as has been suggested in earlier scholarship, but the slaves working in the kitchen complex must still have inhaled a mixture of odors and fumes, not only from cooking but also from freshly produced feces from the multiseater toilet R13. As discussed above, the situation was mitigated by windows opening into open areas, which ensured that the smoke and smells did not travel to the more prestigious areas. However, this mitigating effect was probably not very noticeable for the slaves hunched over the cooking podium or cleaning the latrine.
Cooking smells were considered irritating by elite men, although they probably enjoyed the results offered during exquisite dinners.Footnote 122 The smells of banqueting could have been experienced quite differently, however, by those in the lower echelons of the social hierarchy; especially if one is poor and hungry, the smell of a luxurious dinner can make one feel uncomfortable.
As noted above, smoke was probably quite widespread in insula IX,3, but many measures were taken to air out the most smoke-filled areas; kitchens in particular were connected to unroofed spaces to ensure ventilation. The many food-preparing establishments suggest that the smoke and smells emanating from food preparation were an important contributor to the smellscape of this neighborhood and quite likely overpowered some other smells. However, the role of smoke should not be overstated, given that the preferred Pompeian fuel seems to have been charcoal rather than raw wood, which produces significantly more smoke when burning.Footnote 123 In studies of urban smellscapes, distinguishing the use of charcoal from raw wood is therefore especially important.
Other industries and workshops
Besides the textile and food industries, other small-scale production and sales took place in the heart of Pompeii. In all, 10 openings of IX,3 faced the busy thoroughfare of Via Stabiana, including the front door of the House of Marcus Lucretius (IX,3,5), the dyehouse in IX,3,1–2, and a possible doctor's office or apothecary in workshop IX,3,6. On the opposite side, in insula VII,2, there are 15 openings, 10 of which are classified as shops. These shops and workshops are generally small, consisting of one or two rooms and characterized by wide door openings. The identification of these spaces, and therefore the analysis of their smellscape, remains challenging and in some cases impossible. For instance, IX,3,4 and IX,3,9 are small (work)shops with wide doors opening onto Via Stabiana, with no finds to confirm their function. In certain cases, however, finds and structural evidence provide clues to the identification. It seems that metal production and sales took place in many of these workshops, and one unit may have been a stone carver's workshop. Consequently, these workshops probably produced auditory nuisances rather than olfactory ones.Footnote 124
No evidence of tanneries or garum-producing facilities can be found in either this city block or neighboring ones. In fact, the fish-salting industry in Pompeii seems to have been abandoned by the Augustan era, as noted by Ellis.Footnote 125 Some evidence of earlier-period garum-producing establishments as well as the only tannery known from 79 CE Pompeii come from the humble and low-lying, downwind area of the Stabian Gate (VIII,7,7–8, 9–11 and 12; I,5,2), at the town's margins.Footnote 126 This seems to imply that although many industries and commercial establishments were integrated into city blocks with residential buildings, the most offensive ones were located away from the prestigious areas, suggesting that attention was paid to the placement of different commercial establishments.
Latrines
If we assume an estimated population of 10,000 inhabitants in Pompeii and use the mean figures for daily excrement production noted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (100 to 250 g of feces per day) and on the U.S. National Library of Medicine website, MedlinePlus (0.80 to 2.00 l of urine per day), the residents of this town are likely to have produced some 1,000–2,500 kg of feces and 8,000 to 20,000 l of urine daily. This amount of excrement is one of the main concerns in assessing the sensory landscape of an ancient town. Feces, universally considered repugnant, emits a distinctive odor that comes from sulfur-containing compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and skatole. The fresh urine of a healthy person has a very faint odor. Once the urine has left the body, the smell may become more pungent if left exposed to microbial activity. Bacteria decompose urea into ammonia, which produces the distinctive smell of urine.Footnote 127
Most Pompeian toilets were connected not to sewers, which mainly served to dispose of wastewater, but to cesspits. From the cesspits, the liquids were absorbed by the porous volcanic soil and the remaining waste was emptied either from the street or from inside the house.Footnote 128 Public toilets are known from Pompeii, and many private houses had latrines. According to a survey of toilet locations by K. Trusler, 41% of residential buildings had ground-floor toilets and 25% had upper-floor toilets. Even though these numbers are slightly lower than assumed in earlier scholarship, they still show that sanitation facilities were widely available to the inhabitants of Pompeii.Footnote 129 Upper-floor toilets were emptied into cesspits via downpipes that were tightly fitted with a flange and enclosed in stone, masonry fill, or bricks, and plastered over to prevent seepage and reduce the smell.Footnote 130 The high number of latrines even in modest houses and upper-floor apartments indicates that there was no need to empty chamber pots onto the streets.
Latrines were often situated next to kitchens, as discussed above and noted already in several studies.Footnote 131 This pattern is confirmed by Trusler's meticulous survey, which shows a tendency in the largest and mid-sized houses to cluster latrines with kitchens and to locate toilets in small function rooms and near rear entrances – isolated areas away from the main circulation spaces and elite (reception) areas. In smaller houses, placing a toilet near the front entrances or other places with easy access was a more common solution.Footnote 132
In insula IX,3 itself, there are at least 11 ground-floor toilets and 8–10 immured terracotta downpipes that were possibly used for upper-floor privies. The locations of these facilities follow the patterns noted by Trusler and Hobson: ground-floor toilets are often away from the main circulation areas, in the back of the house, and/or next to kitchens.Footnote 133 In smaller commercial establishments, we find more diverse patterns, such as the latrine in the middle of the one-room house IX,3,8 (R57). Also, in commercial establishment IX,3,14, the toilet is situated in the middle part of the house (R78) but behind the open, commercial space. In the two smaller private houses – IX,3,15 and IX,3,25 – there are toilets placed in the entrance corridor (fauces).Footnote 134 In the neighboring quarters, on the sides closest to our case-study insula, the number of privies varies, but there are confirmed ground-floor toilets as well as latrine downpipes in each area.Footnote 135
The fact that ground-floor toilets in larger dwellings were typically located in remote corners of the house, whereas on upper floors or in smaller houses they are found in more easily accessed spaces, has led Hobson and Trusler to suggest that the inhabitants of the elite houses relied mainly on chamber pots, which were emptied by slaves in these out-of-the-way latrines; in contrast, the subelite inhabitants of small houses and upper-floor apartments used the toilets in their dwelling units directly, instead of relying on chamber pots.Footnote 136 Although this proposition cannot be ruled out, I would suggest that there were also other factors in play in the use of these spaces. Even though the toilets in elite houses are clearly separated from the main reception areas, such as atria and dining rooms, they are not so far away as to prevent the elite inhabitants from using these facilities. It is quite likely that the ground-floor latrines were located near kitchens for convenience: the toilet also served for the disposal of food remains. Another reason to place latrines away from reception areas relates to the need for keeping possible smells under control. In addition, spatial isolation, as well as doors and curtains, would have provided privacy in latrines. And indeed, doors or partitions have been found in most Pompeian doorways, including latrines.Footnote 137 On the other hand, no chamber pots have been identified among the finds from the original mid-19th-c. excavations in house IX,3,5/24. This, however, does not necessarily attest to a complete lack of them; modest earthenware pots might have escaped the notice of the early excavators.
Previous studies have assumed that burned charcoal was deposited in latrines to control the smells.Footnote 138 Although very few cesspits have been fully excavated at Pompeii (to my knowledge, the cesspits excavated in the alleys on both sides of insula IX,12 and published in Berg Reference Berg, Guzzo and Guidobaldi2008 are the only ones), the EPUH excavations in the uppermost layers of toilet R13 of IX,3,5/24 revealed charcoal mixed in with the toilet waste. Underneath some loose lapilli, a layer of the latrine contents dating to the time of the eruption revealed a variety of organic remains: besides charcoal, wood fibers, bones, and other food remains were also found. Some pieces of pottery were mixed in with the organic materials. The excavated soil was fine, gray, and sticky, showing that the organic matter was decaying.Footnote 139
Based on this admittedly very limited evidence, I propose that this facility was functioning as a composting toilet. The main indicator is the presence of wood fibers, which are a necessary component of the composting process. To achieve optimal conditions for composting, one needs to mix wet nitrogen-bearing waste material (such as excrement) with dry material containing a high degree of carbon (such as wood fibers). The mix needs to be kept well aerated (replenished with oxygen) to remain odor-free. Charcoal not only helps to keep smells under control but also works as a soil improvement. It might even help with the decomposition process by absorbing elements possibly detrimental to the composting process. Bone finds indicate that the toilet was used for getting rid of food waste, and even though bones are slow to decompose, they are good for soil enrichment. Even pieces of pottery might contribute to the compost by keeping the mass aerated. If the mass is left to compost for long enough (6–12 months), the risk of contracting parasites would be reduced. However, even a shorter composting period in optimal conditions would reduce the smells noticeably.Footnote 140
The possibility that cesspits were composting toilets has not been seriously considered in previous studies of ancient smellscapes; the modern preference for sewage and flush toilets has instead dominated discussion. The composting facilities of Roman latrines have been noted by Koloski-Ostrow, according to whom Romans used composting privies to handle human waste. However, she misses the opportunity to study what possibilities Roman toilet design afforded for odor control by dismissing this practice, regarding it as something only “eco-fundamentalists” would argue for.Footnote 141 I would like to introduce my own experiences into the discussion of this topic. Using composting toilets is not far-fetched; it is both an ecological and a functional solution to get rid of ordure, even in the modern world. I wrote this article at my family's holiday home, which, like many similar residences in Finland, does not have an indoor flush toilet or a sewer system installed. Instead, it has an outhouse.Footnote 142 This outdoor toilet is fitted with a composting system, which ensures that the odors in the toilet are kept to a minimum even on the hottest summer days. Therefore, I can say from personal experience that flushing away ordure as sewage is not the only way to achieve odor-free toilets.
A moderate level of smells could even explain why elaborate latrines did not prevent Romans from contracting parasites, which were commonplace throughout the Roman world, including Pompeii.Footnote 143 We know from the modern world that composted excrement is considered safe to handle and to use in fields if it is odor free.Footnote 144 Because sensory perception was the key to distinguishing what was beneficial for health in ancient Rome,Footnote 145 where there was no knowledge of the role of microscopic pathogens in causing illnesses, it would be no surprise if mild-smelling substances, such as the contents of a composting toilet, were used in an unhealthy way.
The use of excrement as fertilizer was widely established in the ancient world and advocated by Roman agricultural writers.Footnote 146 Latin texts confirm that even human ordure was used as fertilizer and that it may have been composted with food remains before being spread in the fields.Footnote 147 It is safe to assume that the contents of Pompeian toilets were meant to be used as fertilizer in fields or in residential gardens.
However, this suggestion about the possible composting feature of Pompeian toilets is based on evidence from one small context only. Proving or disproving this hypothesis would require extensive excavations with meticulous soil sampling in Pompeian toilets. In addition, even if the smells were reduced by composting, irritating smells would still be present: especially when cesspits were frequented often, the smell of freshly produced feces must have emanated from them. Spatial isolation, mentioned above, would then take care of keeping the smell contained in the service area of the house, away from the most prestigious spaces.
If we look at the spatial arrangements in the largest elite house in our case-study area, the House of Marcus Lucretius, and especially at the relationship between the kitchen-latrine complex and the lavish dining room R16, the spatial distance between the two becomes clear. Between the toilet or kitchen and the triclinium, there was one large open area (atrium R2) to cross, ensuring that most offensive smells were kept away from the elite family members and guests banqueting in the grand dining room, decorated with luxurious wall paintings. In contrast, the undecorated spaces in the kitchen complex were on the private and humble axis of differentiation and clearly separated from the more prestigious areas, not only by the lack of decorative elements but also by their smellscape. As discussed above, this modest back area was mainly used by the slaves of the household, who must have been tasked with both cooking and cleaning the toilets, and possibly emptying the cesspits. Pompeian odor regulation reflected social hierarchies and power relations: these malodorous tasks were left for the slaves, and the elite noses were shielded from the smells.
Animal excrement
In addition to human waste, animal droppings also need to be taken into account in densely populated ancient towns. In previous research, dogs and draft animals fouling the streets have been considered a common sight in Roman towns, where there was supposedly a real danger of stepping in animal droppings or other detritus.Footnote 148 The presence of draft animals and dogs is indeed well attested in Pompeii, both citywide and in our case-study neighborhood. The dogs of Pompeii are known from several sources, including works of art like the famous cave canem mosaic in the entrance corridor of the House of the Tragic Poet VI,8, plaster casts, and skeletal evidence, which show that dogs were kept for guarding houses and even as pets.Footnote 149 A. King reports that canine excrement – as calcified coprolites – has been found in excavations in the Forum area. In addition, several equine skeletons have been found in Pompeii. According to King, these are either horses or mules, although this is difficult to discern from the skeletal evidence.Footnote 150 Horses and mules were used in Pompeii for transportation and mill rotation in bakeries, and stables have been found in several areas – not only clustered near gates but also inside the urban area, as observed by Poehler.Footnote 151 Given that a 450 kg horse produces approximately 14.5 kg of feces and 10 l of urine daily, that is, over 23 kg of manure, there was a need for good maintenance and regular tidying of stalls to keep odors under control, even if the excrement did not end up in the streets.Footnote 152 Clean stables do not emit irritating smells, which could explain why so many of them were situated within the urban area.Footnote 153 Horse dung consists mostly of undigested grass and is therefore rather dry, free from piercing odors, and can be stored in properly located piles close to human habitation for long periods of time.Footnote 154 Horse and donkey manure was also considered a valuable fertilizer.Footnote 155 The clearance of manure from stables was probably a job for a specific occupational group, the stercorarii, who advertised their services in inscriptions, and it is probable that these same workers also emptied latrine cesspits, as has been suggested in earlier research.Footnote 156 Dung heaps could become bothersome, but a legal case discussing the necessity of removing a manure pit refers to the damp it causes rather than to its smell; this suggests that the odors were not that big a problem.Footnote 157
The stables closest to the House of Marcus Lucretius were situated on the south side of the block, in IX,2,24, diagonally opposite the sizable private house in IX,3,15, on the same street as the two bakeries with mills. The entrance of this building is fitted with a stone ramp, and the finds in this house include possible mangers and skeletons of equines and a dog.Footnote 158 Dog remains have also been found in IX,3,16 and IX,3,19–20, indicating the presence of animals in the heart of the city and implying that they were not considered a major odor nuisance that affected the general smellscape too negatively.Footnote 159
According to Roman legislation, the upkeep of street fronts was the duty of house owners, and their cleanliness probably varied according to the owners’ resources and personal preferences, even though this legal duty was enforced by city officials (aediles).Footnote 160 A well-kept façade also meant keeping odors away from the noses of those house owners who wanted this. However, yet again, olfactory experiences most likely differed between inhabitants. Keeping stalls clean and cleaning up after animals were likely tasks for slaves or other low-ranking servants, so they had to cope with the smells as well.Footnote 161
Waste management
Waste management and the disposal of sources of smell such as leftovers from food preparation are important aspects of city life, especially in densely inhabited urban contexts such as Pompeii. As noted above, latrines were used for disposing of scraps. Even the numerous cesspits, however, would not have been enough for getting rid of all of the garbage, and other solutions were needed. Was Pompeian waste collected and removed from the city, or was it deposited in streets and intramural middens? Some of the evidence, albeit scarce, seems to point toward the first solution, even though the latter has also gained support. For instance, the excavations in the alley on the west side of insula IX,12 have revealed that although sidewalks were kept clean, some waste material was dumped in the middle of the street.Footnote 162
The recent excavations in insula IX,3 shed light on the matter. EPUH excavations within the insula as well as in two trenches in the northern alley have produced nearly 4,000 bone and shell pieces, which have been analyzed by MacKinnon.Footnote 163 This material comes mainly from three locations – namely, kitchen-latrine complex R12–14, garden R18, and the alleyway between IX,3 and the Central Baths. In the narrow alley, an intact layer of lapilli was found, revealing that the early excavators had not cleared this area in the mid-19th c. and that the 79 CE street level was now investigated for the first time. On the street, there was a notable amount of rubbish, including over 100 pieces of unworked bone and some pottery, glass, wall plaster, and tiles. The bones included some chunkier pieces, especially cattle long bones, which by contrast were almost nonexistent inside the houses.
According to MacKinnon, however, this amount is less than one would expect in an urban context, and based on the EPUH finds, no actual midden could be identified in the insula. In addition, the vast majority of these bone specimens lacked any signs of having been exposed to the elements or gnawed by rodents or dogs, which suggests that they were not left lying around for a long time.Footnote 164 Similar patterns of waste disposal have also been found elsewhere in the town, leading the excavators to suggest that an effective rubbish removal system was being used, carried out either by servants of the household or a municipal collection system.Footnote 165 The plot with demolished houses in the northeast corner of insula IX,3 also produced animal bones in the first excavations, which led the early excavators to suggest that this area had been used for dumping rubbish. The EPUH findings of pottery and other household refuse in IX 3,21–22 corroborate this, even though this corner of the insula has witnessed extensive post-excavation disturbance, including bombing in 1943.Footnote 166
A distinctive Pompeian practice was to deposit refuse in waste pits dug inside houses. In the house of Marcus Lucretius IX,3,5/24, several such pits were found in the EPUH excavations. These were situated in the garden and kitchen area as well as in the rear area of the house (IX,3,24), and they contained mainly pottery and discarded building material – such as wall plaster fragments and other items without troubling odors. The exception was the pits in R12 next to the kitchen, which also revealed some organic material.Footnote 167 Otherwise, the waste was deposited outside the town area. According to Emmerson, massive piles of waste were deposited against the exterior of the Pompeian city walls after the reusable material had been salvaged from temporary garbage heaps located inside the city walls, testifying to dynamic waste management practices.Footnote 168
In sum, it seems that most Pompeian waste was dealt with quickly and either deposited underground or removed from houses, and that at least the more sizable pieces of rubbish were cleared away from the streets. However, there was more tolerance for refuse in street contexts and “out-of-the-way” areas, such as the vacant plot in insula IX,3. Otherwise, waste was primarily dumped outside the city walls. This seems to match up with previous scholarship stressing the importance of urban waste removal and tidy streets for the benefit of the house-owning class. But given that house cleaning was carried out by low-ranking slaves, their sensory experiences (the kinesthetic and tactile sensations of manual labor as well as olfactory sensations) must have been quite different.Footnote 169
Conclusion and thoughts for further studies
In this overview of one city block in the heart of Pompeii, I have analyzed the evidence for the stinks that have previously been considered to render ancient towns foul smelling: ordure and other waste, industrial activities, and smoke. As seen above, however, the evidence from this neighborhood suggests that the urban smellscape probably did not constantly reek, as suggested in earlier works, but was milder and manageable, while stronger and fouler smells were limited to certain areas. The inhabitants of Pompeii paid close attention to olfactory nuisances and attempted to regulate their sources.
It must be noted that there is no actual evidence to corroborate the dramatic narrative –insisted on in certain studies – of feces accumulating in the city streets as chamber pots were emptied there. Rather, the dense network of latrines ensured that there was no need to use the streets as dumping grounds. The cesspit system for latrines was preferred over sewers due to its functionality, not because of fears of supernatural creatures creeping out of the sewers. And, if the Pompeian cesspit latrines composted their contents, this would have further lessened their odoriferous effects. Practicality, convenience, and the local terrain – each played its part in arranging Pompeian sanitation.
The evidence also suggests that in Pompeii there was a dynamic system of managing waste, with the most odoriferous – i.e., organic material – mainly disposed of in cesspits and not left lying around for dogs and rodents to scavenge. However, the evidence also suggests that out-of-sight (and “out-of-nose”) areas encouraged littering. The marginalization of bad smells is also reflected in the placement of the most irritating industries on the margins (or outside) of the urban area and close to the city gates. Recent Pompeian scholarship has questioned the polluting role of the textile industry within the urban matrix, which had been repeated in many earlier studies, and the findings from our case-study area align with the latest research. The spatial arrangements that combined enclosed and open areas took care of ventilation, directing industrial fumes away from elite living areas and main streets. Complex layouts with many spaces and numerous doors that could be opened and closed when needed to block aromas or create drafts further reveal how sensory needs are reflected in architectural practices. However, a noticeable amount of smoke coming from commercial kitchens and other workshops with fireplaces, which were common in our case-study area, likely permeated the Pompeian air.
Olfactory experience, however, was not the same for everyone, even in this densely built city block. In the grand private house of Marcus Lucretius, most notably, the architecture and spatial arrangements reflect the patterns of Roman social life. While the houses were open for reception, the movement of visitors was guided by several different means. Previous scholarship has shown how visual cues directed the social flow inside houses. However, sensory aspects other than vision played a role as well. As seen above, the kitchen-latrine complex in the House of Marcus Lucretius was not only demarcated by its humble and undecorated appearance but also separated from the reception areas by the smells that one would notice when venturing into the area. The spatial arrangements were designed to keep odors under control and away from the elite living areas, revealing how strict social hierarchies and inequality – deeply ingrained in ancient Roman society – were reflected in Pompeian odor regulation. Although the noses of elite inhabitants were shielded from the most offensive smells, much less consideration was paid to the poorer classes and slaves, who were expected to work in the more odoriferous areas and tasked with the odorous housework. Although some measures were taken to mitigate the sensory impact of the strongest-smelling areas, these seem to have been designed to ensure that the smells were directed away from elite areas rather than to ease the situation of slaves working in these areas. What remains uncertain is the personal experience of these inhabitants. Coping mechanisms – such as habituation or other factors alleviating one's reaction to disgusting things – might have played a role, but there is no reliable method of ascertaining this.
Finally, I would like to point out that our journey toward understanding ancient urban smellscapes is still in its early stages. Even though it is clear that the results from one city block cannot be extrapolated to the whole of Pompeii – and even less to the city of Rome and wider Roman society – it is time to start reconsidering the long-cherished notion of premodern cities being awfully foul-smelling and therefore somewhat (morally) inferior to presumably clean and deodorized modern cities. In addition, I hope this paper has provided some food for thought about how to proceed with further studies. Piecing together the olfactory or multisensory urban landscape must be based on a bottom-up approach: instead of taking a few vague literary passages and the most sensational archaeological studies – which align with modern prejudices concerning the foulness of ancient cities – we need scholars from different backgrounds to dig more deeply and widely into the sources from Pompeii and beyond, combining all possible methods to understand how urban areas were sensed in the past.
Acknowledgments
I would like to start by thanking the EPUH Project and its lead archaeologist E.-M. Viitanen for the opportunity to use this unique material. Special thanks go to EPUH surveyor M. Holappa for the help with maps. In addition, I would like to thank the Parco Archeologico di Pompei. I would also like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers, whose insightful comments helped me make my article a much stronger contribution. I am also very grateful to the generous funders for financing this work. I owe particular thanks to my amazing parents for their never-ending support and for their tips on managing the smellscape of a holiday home. This project has received funding from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754513 and The Aarhus University Research Foundation.
