12. Ancient Romans Washed Their Mouths With Pee
The Roman poet Catullus (circa 84 – circa 54 BC) once directed an insult at a man named Egnatius, whose smile the poet disliked. It illustrates an odd fact 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 about an abnormal practice was that Egnatius smiled too much, which was bad because smiles were presumably worthless. The diss was not that he washed his mouth with urine: that part was perfectly normal in Ancient Rome. Urine’s active ingredient is ammonia, which the body secretes in the form of urea. Today, we use ammonia in many things, from explosives to cleaning products to agricultural fertilizers. Not only will ammonia remove stubborn stains from your bathtub and oven, it will also give your dishes and glasses an impressive twinkle.