Public Lavatories, Mosquito Nets and Agathias' Cat: The Sixth-Century Epigram in its Justinianic Context

"Down gleaming walls of porcelain flows the sluice That out of sight decants the kidney juice, Thus pleasuring those gents for miles around Who, crying for relief, once piped the sound Of wind in alleyways..." Despite its place at the head of this paper, this is not one of Agathias' much-deplored poems on the public lavatory at Smyrna, but Josiah Feable's celebratory ode written in 1855 to mark the opening of the first public flush toilets in London, which stood outside the Royal Exchange. Whatever the perception of Agathias of Myrina's abilities as a poet - and he was not a "writer of the first rank" in the judgement of Averil Cameron - he was assuredly a finer poet in every respect than the Victorian exponent of the divine art, whose name so aptly reflected his abilities. Yet both poets present fascinating vignettes reflecting the society of their own times and this paper will argue that Agathias, along with the other sixth-century epigrammatists, is a veritable mine of information not only about attitudes and tastes in the mid-sixth century, but about the realia of life in the Byzantine capital at the end of the reign of Justinian and in the years following under Justin II.