Just doing my duty, ma'am, no need to thank me Classical Antiquity (~100 BCE) (media.piefed.social)
 

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[–] 94 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Ok. You give context to every other history post, but not this one?!

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  • [–] [S] 125 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    lmao, the joke was more about infodumping about one's obscure interests, but as for urine taxation:

    Explanation: The Roman Emperor Vespasian decided he needed more income, but didn’t feel raising the proportions of existing taxes was appropriate. So he instituted a new tax - on urine. Urine was used in bleaching, cleaning, and tanning (it’s the ammonia), so it was actually a valuable commodity. Terracotta amphorae were placed around the city of Rome where citizens could relieve themselves like CIVILIZED people, and Vespasian implemented a tax on those who collected those pisspots.

    Vespasian’s son, Titus, expressed disgust at the tax, but Vespasian is said to have waved a gold coin under his nose, and told him that the coin came from urine, yet it didn’t smell. From which we get the modern Latin phrase ‘Pecunia non olet’ - ‘Money doesn’t smell’

    Also, for this reason, some Romance languages still use words derived from Vespasian’s name for urinals.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago

    Omg it’s mad how many people don’t even know about this.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    But does she know that they also used to swish urine to whiten their teeth?

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