Remembering the politician who taxed urinals

Rome celebrated the 2,000th birthday of Emperor Vespasian over the weekend, kicking off 10 months of festivities to highlight the life of the man who help build the Colosseum.

Vespasian came to power amid great chaos in the Roman Empire, the last of four emperors who ruled Rome in a single year, 69 AD.

According to a story in The Independent about the anniversary of Vespasian’s birth, “he took drastic measures to restore sanity to the Roman Empire’s finances, which had been emptied by Nero’s extravagance.”

“He raised taxes steeply … and famously introduced a tax on public urinals, which is why in Italy they are associated with him to this day. When his son Titus remonstrated with him over this measure, the emperor held out a handful of coins for him to sniff. These come from the urinal tax, he said, “Pecunia non olet” (money has no smell).”

He taxed public urinals and did so without a shred of embarrassment. Sounds like someone who’d fit in just fine with our elected leaders today, doesn’t it?

Birthplace of Vespasian said to be found

 

Archaeologists said Thursday they had unearthed the ruins of a villa believed to be the birthplace of the Roman emporer who was noted for imposing a tax on urinals.

Professor Filippo Coarelli, who is leading the dig, said “numerous clues” pointed to the site as the house of Emperor Vespasian, who ruled the Roman Empire from 69 AD to 79 AD, according to news agency Agence France-Presse.

The location of the villa, in the ancient city of Falacrine, 45 miles northeast of Rome, was a strong indicator that the site was where the ruler was born, Coarelli added.

Vespasian was born in the city, which was lost until 2005 when archaelogists located the site and began excavating it, Agence France-Presse added.

Earlier this year, Rome celebrated the 2,000th birthday of Vespasian, who was famed for helping build the Colosseum.

Vespasian came to power amid great chaos in the Roman Empire, the last of four emperors who ruled Rome in a single year, 69 AD.

According to a story earlier this year in The Independent about the anniversary of Vespasian’s birth, “he took drastic measures to restore sanity to the Roman Empire’s finances, which had been emptied by Nero’s extravagance.”

“He raised taxes steeply … and famously introduced a tax on public urinals, which is why in Italy they are associated with him to this day. When his son Titus remonstrated with him over this measure, the emperor held out a handful of coins for him to sniff. These come from the urinal tax, he said, “Pecunia non olet” (money has no smell).”

The first-century villa forms a complex stretching over 150,000 square feet and is lavishly decorated nestling amid the Apennine mountains.