Forsch!-Podcast: Dirty Baths in Rome – Social Distancing in Athens

In the third episode of “Forsch! – Science in Interview,” BZ reporters Andreas Eberhard and Laura Franz (ForschungRegion Braunschweig) speak with ancient historian Dr. Bernadette Descharmes from the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The researcher reports on cleanliness in the famous Roman baths, which sexual practices were considered dirty in antiquity, and how people in ancient Greece dealt with epidemics.

Purity and Impurity in Antiquity

How did people in ancient Rome feel and think, especially with regard to impurity? Purity and impurity are topics that affect many people. It is a human and personal aspect. “The people of the past, that is a personal love that has developed over many, many years in my life,” says 43-year-old historian Descharmes. She came to the topic of impurity via the emotional history of disgust and the question of what function disgust has in society.

Three Levels of Impurity

Three levels can be distinguished in the case of impurity: material, moral and social impurity. These levels serve primarily as a methodological tool. However, the boundaries are often fluid. Material impurity refers to the actual substances, the objective dirt that was e.g. in the bath water. The Romans rubbed themselves with oils and ointments before bathing, leaving behind a thick film of dirt and grease. However, that was not a problem at the time, because: “Water was regarded as a substance that always cleans, no matter how dirty it actually was.”

Unlike objective dirt, moral impurity refers to moral misconduct and which actions and behaviors were labeled as immoral. This was e.g. oral sex. The mouth of a Roman who indulged in this sexual practice was considered unclean and his kisses were avoided.

Social impurity, on the other hand, is primarily about identifying social groups that are particularly affected by the insult “unclean.” In ancient Rome, these were primarily the freedmen, i.e. former slaves, the poor, the mass of ordinary citizens or prostitutes.

Then and Now

The sense of cleanliness today is of course different than in ancient Rome. But even today, the idea of impurity plays a role. Like the Romans, we use words like “dirt” or “filth” to devalue something or to label it as morally wrong, e.g. in the context of political agitation. For example, during a television duel, Donald Trump used his opponent Hillary Clinton’s toilet break as an emotional means of devaluation by repeatedly referring to her as “disgusting.”

Social Distancing in Athens

From the topics of impurity and hygiene, it is only a small step to the current topics of infection control and pandemic. Descharmes took the Corona pandemic as an opportunity to deal with the plagues of antiquity in her courses at the TU Braunschweig. It is not surprising that her offer met with great interest among the students. Together they found out that there was already a certain understanding of the risks of infection in antiquity. Therefore, forms of social distancing were already known and there was also knowledge about immunity after surviving the disease.

You can find out what else the Romans considered “dirty,” how the ancient poets and historians interpreted plagues, and how Dr. Bernadette Descharmes deals with digital teaching in times of Corona in this third episode of “Forsch.”

The podcast “Forsch! – Science in an Interview” is a cooperation between the ForschungRegion Braunschweig and the Braunschweiger Zeitung. The moderators Laura Franz (ForschungRegion Braunschweig) and Andreas Eberhard (Braunschweiger Zeitung) talk to actors in the region about their research, their person – and about current social, political and ethical questions and debates.

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