37. Pee as a Mouthwash
The ancient Roman poet Catullus (circa 84 – circa 54 BC) once directed an insult at a man named Egnatius, whose smile the poet seems to have disliked. It reveals something startling about Romans’ day-to-day lives: they cleaned their mouths with pee. As the poet put it in his put down:
“There’s nothing more foolish than foolishly smiling. Now you’re Spanish – in the country of Spain what each man pisses, he’s used to brushing his teeth and red gums with, every morning, so the fact that your teeth are so polished just shows you’re more full of piss“. The insult regarding an abnormal practice was that of Egnatius smiling too much, which was bad because smiles were presumably worthless. The diss was not about the cleaning-one’s-mouth-with-pee bit: that part was perfectly normal in ancient Rome.
