a few questions about basic roman life

[Woadwarrior]

did they have undwear under those tunics?

did they use soap, if they used oil what kind?

a sponge on a stick was there toilet paper?

how did roman heat there homes? wouldnt it be terribly cold in winter?

and bug infested in summer?

[Jona Lendering]

did they use soap, if they used oil what kind?

The elder Pliny mentionas soap as something rare, but useful (NH 28.191). Oil will have been more common.

a sponge on a stick was there toilet paper?

They say so, but I do not know the evidence.

how did roman heat there homes? wouldnt it be terribly cold in winter?

They lived in Italy, which is not that cold. :wink:

[Narukami]

From my readings I understand that the Romans used olive oil in the bath, and uric acid for the cleaning of clothes. (See M Parenti "The Assassination Of Julius Caesar page 29).

In Connolly's book, The Ancient City, he has several illustrations of the public toilets in Rome and how they worked to include the sponge on a stick.

The Ancient City: Life In Classical Athens And Rome
by Peter Connolly & Hazel Dodge ISBN: 0195215826

This book is now out of print, but you should be able to find a good used copy without too much trouble. It is worth the effort to find.

Narukami

[hoplite14gr]

did they have undwear under those tunics?

did they use soap, if they used oil what kind?

a sponge on a stick was there toilet paper?

how did roman heat there homes? wouldnt it be terribly cold in winter?

and bug infested in summer?

Francis,
The Mediternean home built with stone and insulated by asbestus and other traditional methods was and still is cool in summer and warm in winter. Similar methods would be applied to permanent baracks.
Classic Art does not show the true extend of clothing especialy winter clothing. Permantly "sunny" Mediteraenean exist only on the tourist guides.
Plese ask if you want me to point you to more details on these subjects.
Kind regards

[Marius_Ursus]

did they have undwear under those tunics?

did they use soap, if they used oil what kind?

a sponge on a stick was there toilet paper?

how did roman heat there homes? wouldnt it be terribly cold in winter?

and bug infested in summer?

Regarding Roman bathing, I still wash in a similar manner sometimes. What they did was rub themselves down with olive oil, sit in a steam room to sweat out the impurities, scrape the oil off with something resembling a long tongue depresser, and rinse off in cool water.

I usually add salt or brown sugar to my olive oil. I turn the shower on very hot and rub myself down with the olive oil scrub while I'm sweating. Then I continue to sweat while the oil rests on my skin. I turn the water to a much cooler setting next. Finally I rinse off.

Leaves my skin very soft and very clean and supple. I do that at least once per week (with olive oil soap if I don't feel like making the mixture), sometimes twice.

[tlclark]

did they have undwear under those tunics?

Subglicanum (spelling?) in all materials, some rather scratchy. Going 'commando' was also very common.

did they use soap, if they used oil what kind?

There are byzantine mentions of recipes for soap. Very heavy on lye, which probably took the skin with the dirt. More common was sweating out the dirt and scraping with oil and strigil.

a sponge on a stick was there toilet paper?

Yep. Some brought their own stick, but there were also communal ones and little troughs of water to rinse them off. Remember, the germ theory of medicine is 1800 years away. A properly rinsed sponge looked clean...so...

how did roman heat there homes? wouldnt it be terribly cold in winter?

and bug infested in summer?

Wealthy homes had hypocausts, raised floors with furnaces to push hot air underneath, not terribly common though. The Aula Palatina in Trier supposedly had one though. Most homes used movable braziers or open fires.

Rome is a lot colder than you think and Tuscany and Umbria are downright miserable in winter. When St. Francis praised the snow and brother fire, he wasn't kidding. Last year was horrible. I got snowed on in Assisi last March.

Most homes have an impluvium or rain basin in the front part or atrium of the house. It was open to the sky. Open windows and the hot air passes over the impluvium and carries it upward. Evaporative cooling! Roman houses have almost no exterior windows to minimize heat. Still, there is only so much you can do and lots of Roman writers complain about bugs, cold, rotting food. You probably had to grow used to it.

Travis

[Marius_Ursus]

a sponge on a stick was there toilet paper?

Yep. Some brought their own stick, but there were also communal ones and little troughs of water to rinse them off. Remember, the germ theory of medicine is 1800 years away. A properly rinsed sponge looked clean...so...

The sponges were soaked in vinegar, recall, and vinegar is a powerful antiseptic/antibacterial wash.

[Peroni]

Indeed, when a small village near to where I live had plague in the middle ages, it was documented that coins to pay for bread etc were left in a bowl of vinegar at the ouskirts of the village where the food was left for the inhabitants.

My wife, who demonstrates Roman cookery, always cleans down work surfaces and utensils with the stuff.

Regards,