Liliputin-4731

I really need to get my shit together before I'm old and gray with no accomplishments to my name ... "
Emperor Vespasian

Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101

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get your shit together

get (one's) shit together
slang
1. To organize one's belongings.
Dude, get your shit together—I trip over something of yours at least once a day!
Get your shit together—we have to leave in five minutes and you don't want to forget anything!
2. To work to become stable or to start to make progress in one's life.
A: " Did you hear that Drew plans to go to college in the fall?" B: "Wow, he's really gotten his shit together since being arrested last year!"

See also: get, shit, together
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
get your shit together organize yourself so as to be able to deal with or achieve something.
2003 SEE Magazine (Canada) Take Katie herself, doing just a really piss-poor job of getting her shit together to create a turkey dinner for her family.
See also: get, shit, together
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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A tax on the disposal of urine was first imposed by Emperor Nero under the name of vectigal urinae in the 1st century AD. The tax was removed after a while, but it was re-enacted by Vespasian around 70 AD in order to fill the treasury.

Vespasian imposed a urine tax on the distribution of urine from Rome's public urinals (the Roman lower classes urinated into pots, which were later emptied into cesspools). The urine collected from these public urinals was sold as an ingredient for several chemical processes. It was used in tanning, wool production, and also by launderers as a source of ammonia to clean and whiten woollen togas. The buyers of the urine paid the tax.

The Roman historian Suetonius reports that when Vespasian's son Titus complained about the disgusting nature of the tax, his father held up a gold coin and asked whether he felt offended by its smell (sciscitans num odore offenderetur). When Titus said "No", Vespasian replied, "Yet it comes from urine" (Atqui ex lotio est).

The phrase pecunia non olet is still used today to say that the value of money is not tainted by its origins. Vespasian's name still attaches to public urinals in Italy (vespasiano) and France (vespasienne).

Public latrines
The latrines (public toilets) are the best-preserved feature at Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall. The soldiers sat on wooden boards with holes, which covered one big trench. Water ran in a big ditch at the soldiers' feet.

In general, poorer residents used pots that they were supposed to empty into the sewer, or visited public latrines. Public latrines date back to the 2nd century BC. Whether intentionally or not, they became places to socialise. Long bench-like seats with keyhole-shaped openings cut in rows offered little privacy. Some latrines were free, for others small charges were made.[5]

A stone bench-like construction with two holes in it, in front of a brick wall. There are plants growing around it.

According to Lord Amulree, the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated, the Hall of Curia in the Theatre of Pompey, was turned into a public latrine because of the dishonor it had witnessed. The sewer system, like a little stream or river, ran beneath it, carrying the waste away to the Cloaca Maxima.

The Romans recycled public bath waste water by using it as part of the flow that flushed the latrines. Terra cotta piping was used in the plumbing that carried waste water from homes. The Romans were the first to seal pipes in concrete to resist the high water pressures developed in siphons and elsewhere. Beginning around the 5th century BC, aediles, among their other functions, supervised the sanitary systems. They were also responsible for the efficiency of the drainage and sewage systems, the cleansing of the streets, prevention of foul smells, and general oversight of baths.

In the first century AD, the Roman sewage system was very efficient. In his Natural History, Pliny remarked that of all the things Romans had accomplished, the sewers were "the most noteworthy things of all".

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Sewer systems
History

Alongside the development of the Cloaca Maxima, other sewers were built. Many of them linked to each other. A law was eventually passed to protect innocent bystanders from assault by wastes thrown into the street. The violator was forced to pay damages to whomever his waste hit, if that person sustained an injury. This law was enforced only in the daytime, it is presumed, because one then lacked the excuse of darkness for injuring another by careless waste disposal. During Agrippa's time as Aedile in 33 BC the Cloaca Maxima was largely reconstructed and renovated. Strabo, a Greek author who lived from about 60 BC to AD 24, admired the ingenuity of the Romans in his Geographica, writing:

The sewers, covered with a vault of tightly fitted stones, have room in some places for hay wagons to drive through them. And the quantity of water brought into the city by aqueducts is so great that rivers, as it were, flow through the city and the sewers; almost every house has water tanks, and service pipes, and plentiful streams of water...In short, the ancient Romans gave little thought to the beauty of Rome because they were occupied with other, greater and more necessary matters.
Around AD 100, direct connections of homes to sewers began, and the Romans completed most of the sewer system infrastructure. Sewers were laid throughout the city, serving public and some private latrines, and also served as dumping grounds for homes not directly connected to a sewer. It was mostly the wealthy whose homes were connected to the sewers, through outlets that ran under an extension of the latrine.

Health impacts
Although there were many sewers, public latrines, baths and other sanitation infrastructure, disease was still rampant. Most dwellings were not connected to street drains or sewers. Some apartment buildings (insulae) might have had a latrine and a fountain on the ground floor. This didn't stop the residents on the upper floors from dumping their waste onto the street. There was no street cleaning service in Rome. Thus, the neighborhoods were plagued with disease.

The baths are known to symbolise the "great hygiene of Rome". Doctors commonly prescribed their patients a bath. Consequently, the diseased and healthy sometimes bathed together. The sick generally preferred to visit the baths during the afternoon or night to avoid the healthy, but the baths were not constantly being cleaned. This means the healthy who bathe the next day might catch the disease from the sick who bathed the previous day.

Latrines could be found in many places such as in baths, forts and the colosseum. The Romans wiped themselves after defecating with a sea sponge on a stick named tersorium. This might be shared by all of those using the latrine, or people would bring their own sponge. To clean the sponge, they washed it in a bucket with water and salt or vinegar. This became a breeding ground for bacteria, causing the spread of disease in the latrine. It is commonly believed the Romans used sea sponges on a stick and dipped in vinegar after defecation (for anal hygiene), but the practice is only attested to once.

There was widespread presence of several helminth types (intestinal worms) that caused dysentery.