Long avoided by studies of Roman architecture, archaeology, or even daily life, the study of the remains of Roman waste disposal infrastructure has been given overdue scholarly attention only during the past several decades by a small but dedicated group of scholars. K.-O., an active and well-published member of this group, presents in the current volume a discussion of the archaeology, evolution and significance of Roman toilets, sewers and water systems in Italy between the first century b.c.e. and the first century c.e. Though often heralded uncritically in scholarship as advances of ‘Roman civilization’, K.-O. argues convincingly against seeing these features of Roman urban life either as the agents of actual improvement in sanitation or as features that were intended to achieve this goal, highlighting instead their primary purpose as drains for excess aqueduct water. Drawing on a wealth of information and a broad survey of the data that highlights especially the sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia and Rome, K.-O. examines a variety of issues related to these important elements of urban infrastructure, with the goal of providing a new understanding that challenges their long-standing role as indicators of a Roman ideal of urban sanitation or hygiene.

The volume is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 presents a general introduction to the topic with an overview of the toilets preserved at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Rome and Ostia, with special emphasis on public toilets and their surroundings. This is augmented by additional discussion of the archaeological remains of toilets at Minturnae, Puteoli, Oplontis, the Villa Adriana and the Villa at Piazza Armerina. Given how rarely the toilets in these locations appear in literature, these overviews present highly useful information and furthermore provide the case studies from which conclusions are to be drawn throughout the following chapters. In addition, K.-O. considers certain common aspects, such as location, methods of ventilation and frequency of sewer connectivity, while in passing proposing a number of interesting ideas and observations. In Chapter 2, K.-O. presents a range of cross-cultural comparative data on concepts of hygiene and sanitation, in aid of identifying whether similar concepts existed in ancient Rome. The collection of perspectives is diverse, ranging from Essene toilets in Judea to the views of modern ‘eco-fundamentalists’, and raises a number of important questions: to what extent did Romans value and reuse human waste? Did religious concerns determine practice? Were Roman ideals of sanitation and hygiene similar to sometimes shockingly low medieval standards? The reader is left to seek answers to these questions in the following chapters, as a reconstruction of what the actual Roman ideals may have been is not presented in this chapter. Chapter 3 examines several issues related to the growth of frequency of toilets and sewers in the archaeological record through the first century b.c.e. K.-O. suggests that factors similar to those influencing the growth of bath structures likely also applied to toilets. Hypothesising the process of the spread of the required technology and fashion from Greek and earlier Bronze Age eastern antecedents, she then situates the growth of toilets in the Roman world as a component of the spread of Hellenistic luxuria. However, she warns strictly against seeing any of these changes as related to ideals of urban health, and follows Scobie's (1986) decidedly pessimistic view of the value of Roman urban sanitation, highlighting the extent to which urban sewers, from the Cloaca Maxima to those at Pompeii and Herculaneum, failed to address even the most vital concerns of modern sewage management, such as sludge build-up, potential dangers of pests and even gas explosions. In Chapter 4, K.-O. takes on the question of how the toilets were used, highlighting a number of interesting observations that can be made from study of the material remains, from the apparent standardisation in construction to evidence for greater privacy than is normally appreciated (e.g. standard-sized keyhole shaped openings were probably intended to permit discreet wiping). She also investigates evidence for the use of the infamous sponge-stick and considers the processes by which private house cess pits might have been emptied. K.-O. challenges previous ideas regarding the reason for the growth of ‘luxury’ private toilets as elements of civic infrastructure, suggesting that, rather than reflecting philosophical or medical ideals of bodily health, these establishments embody the Roman desire to exclude ‘inappropriate’ activities from public view, especially those associated with the lower classes. Highlighting the deep signification that sewers have taken on in modern Western literature, in Chapter 5, K.-O. seeks to identify the symbolic role played by toilets and their associated activities in Latin literature and painting, revealing the mixed emotions about the Cloaca Maxima held by Livy and Cicero, and examining the role of excretion as an element of Roman satire. Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis also provides K.-O. with fertile ground for exploring the faecal imagery therein. Similarly, the study of toilet graffiti reveals interesting trends that deviate from modern experience and an important connection between toilets and the goddess Fortuna.

While there can be no question of the significant value and contribution of this volume, no publication could ever be perfect. Readers expecting a comprehensive examination of archaeological remains or a typological study of the features of ancient sanitation will be disappointed, since the work aims at meaning and significance, rather than an archaeological survey of surviving data. At the same time, many of the most interesting observations made in the work, even K.-O.'s central questioning of the existence of Roman concepts of urban sanitation and hygiene, tend to be somewhat buried in the text, and only become apparent as they recur over the course of several chapters. This can sometimes make the trajectory of the text hard to follow, and means that some interesting questions raised in the introduction, such as whether Roman women actually used public toilets, are never followed to completion in the course of the text, while other important information, such as the scope of the study, is not introduced formally until the second chapter. Deeper explanation behind certain assumptions such as the existence of ‘urban planners’ in ancient Rome would have strengthened some arguments and the decision to locate the extensive illustrations and copious notes at the end of the volume renders both of these valuable resources much more difficult to use. Finally, while K.-O.'s sources are wide-reaching and extensive, they do not always include the newest research. This is particularly evident in the discussion of building history in Pompeii, which cites mainly A. and M. DeVos (1982) and Richardson (1988).

Despite these minor shortcomings, the volume is both innovative and significant, presenting an examination of Roman sanitation from a wide variety of perspectives and contributing a wealth of interesting and pertinent observations deriving from K.-O.'s wide experience and deep expertise. The volume will be especially valued not only as a general introduction to toilets, sewers and sanitation, but for the highly-sensitive reading of the evidence that K.-O. presents, in which she raises a number of important questions and challenges many long-held assumptions. Readers will find the sheer scope of material touched upon and the range of data employed, as well as the care with which it is presented, to be a considerable resource and an inspiration for further study. However, what really sets this volume apart is K.-O.'s desire for the evidence of Roman toilets, sewers and aqueducts to provide more than simply a measure of Roman desire for ‘sanitation’ – an overly simplistic and entirely uncritical interpretation of the data that has prevailed in the literature for far too long. Rather than simply challenging this interpretation, K.-O. goes further, asking whether the advent and spread of these features throughout Italy might be telling us rather more and rather different things about their importance in Roman society than has generally been acknowledged.