KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

Our only long literary description of the options for urination and defecation during
dinner comes from the Satyricon. The open manner in which Trimalchio speaks of bodily
discharges implies the opposite, that the matters were anything but openly discussed in formal
dinner company. In fact, his wife and guests (and presumably the reader) find his comments
humorous:
'But if any of you has any business that needs attending to, go right ahead; no
reason to feel embarrassed. There's not a man been born yet with solid insides.
And I don't know any anguish on earth like trying to hold it in. Jupiter himself
couldn't stop it from coming. What are you giggling about, Fortunata? You're
the one who keeps me awake all night with your trips to the potty. Well, anyone
at table who wants to go has my permission, and the doctors tell us not to hold it
in. Everything's ready outside -- water and pots and the rest of the stuff. Take
my word for it, friends, the vapors go straight to your brain. Poison your whole
system. I know of some who've died from being too polite and holding it in.'
We thanked him for his kindness and understanding, but we tried to hide our
snickers in repeated swallows of wine. 97
This passage uses general language (allowing the reader to substitute his own scatological
specifics) in key portions describing the excretory procedures, so it is difficult to know what was
allowed within Trimalchio's dining room and what had to be done outside. It is clear that a
chamber-pot, water and other amenities (aqua, lasani et cetera minutalia) are ready outside the
dining room for any guest who has a serious matter to attend to (si quid plus). Scobie reasonably
interprets this serious matter as defecation; less pressing matters (facere quod se iuvet) such as
urination could be handled at table with the help of a slave and a chamber-pot. 98
It is difficult to locate the designated area for chamber pots outside (foras) the dining
room. Mygind believed that free family members always used chamber-pots, brought and
removed by a slave, and that only slaves used fixed domestic latrines; his opinion was based on
Petronius. 99 Scobie disagrees: "...it (the above passage) hardly constitutes proof that high-status
Romans did not use latrines in their own houses. Trimalchio's words omnia foras parata sunt are
97 Petr. 47: 'Itaque si quis vestrum voluerit sua re [causa] facere, non est quod illum pudeatur. Nemo nostrum solide
natus est. Ego nullum puto tam magnum tormentum esse quam continere. Hoc solum vetare ne Iovis potest. Rides,
Fortunata, quae soles me nocte desomnum facere? Nec tamen in triclinio ullum vetuo facere quod se iuvet, et medici
vetant continere. Vel si quid plus venit, omnia foras parata sunt: aqua, lasani et cetera minutalia. Credite mihi,
anathymiasis in cerebrum it et in toto corpore fluctum facit. Multos scio sic periisse, dum nolunt sibi verum dicere.'
Gratias agimus liberalitali indulgentiaeque eius, et subinde castigamus crebris potiunculis risum (Loeb text, W.
Arrowsmith translation).
98 Scobie 1986, 410 (see also D'Arms 1991, 174, n.23, referring to Sen. Ben. 3.26). 'facere quod se iuvet' may also
include belching and flatulation as acceptable responses to food in the liberal dining room of Trimalchio.
99 Mygind 1921, 318-324, courtesy of Scobie 1986, 409-410; see Petr. 41, wherein a slave brings a silver
chamber-pot to Trimalchio as he is playing a ball-game outside. The silver chamberpot is meant to be a
humorous oxymoron.
25