Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Any long lasting civilisation had people that were relatively clean and well fed - that's a very fundamental requirement for the civilisation to last long, after all!

You will find that even older civilisations, such as Egyptians, ancient Indians, Mesopotamians, etc. all had a relatively good nutrition.

Cleanliness here is extremely relative, though, as modern standards of cleanliness were revolutionised by fresh water supply and sewage systems. If any modern person visited an ancient city, they would have some trouble dealing with the stench.




The Romans are famous for their plumbing...


It's hard to tell how ubiquitous using a sewer for waste disposal rather than simply throwing it outside was, since a lot of accounts come from those with a vested interested in making Rome look good/bad. However, there were laws ordering compensation of those who the throwing of waste injured, so it was unlikely to be as sanitary as a modern city.


I an supprised that there could be much controversy over Roman sewers. There are preserved Roman streets across Europe and the sewers still exist today for us to inspect. The physical evidence is there in hundreds of sites. Of course their standards of cleanliness were different than ours. They had a system of collecting urine from each home so laundry services could wash clothes in pee! (It was a good source of ammonia.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: