Roman Sewage
There was a marvelous movie-event at the local cinema earlier this night—a documentary about Pompeii sponsored by the British Museum and in support of one of their current exhibits. Please ma’am, just take my money and hand me a ticket now, thank you! I want to see the sweeping silver screen present Roman history, artifacts, ancestors, deities, and polytheism.
Pompeii and Herculaneum were the two small Roman towns devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August of the year 79. The documentary had a team of experts covering different parts of Roman culture: a chef and scholar of Roman cuisine shared his knowledge of Roman diet and cooking while the viewers got a look at cookware and carbonized remains of food and artifacts. A botany and gardens expert led us through the flora and fauna of a lush fresco and what was available in Roman courtyards, and so on. For the most part, I enjoyed the documentary and I enjoyed listening to what the experts had to say. But there was one glaring part that soured the experience. One part that I found wounding to the core: disrespect for the deities.
One of the hosts of the documentary asked if the Romans “actually” believed in these many deities, or if the ancient Romans were “just superstitious.” At a different point in the documentary, they make reference to Bacchus being little more than an amusing “character.” They also showed a household shrine for just a few seconds, only to point out the painting of it and the flat area where offerings went, before swiftly moving on to an extensive discussion about sewage and drains.
They were more fascinated, respectful, and interested in the shit in the drains than they were about discussing and being respectful of the deities. I’m not exaggerating about the contents of the drains: I’m speaking of fecal matter, leftover food, and tossed out broken pots. Don’t get me wrong: the stuff found in sewage drains can yield a wealth of information about daily life, diet, plants, animals, what’s considered trash in a culture, and many, many other things—things that are useful and worthwhile to know, things that are indeed fascinating, and things that require studying. But there is also here evidence of a deep, deep wrong: sewage was met with more dignity than the gods themselves. The documentary didn’t bother to ask the irrational question “Did the Romans actually believe in a sewage system, or were they just germophobes?”
http://polytheist.com/spring-and-stone/2014/12/03/roman-sewage/