“Instead of using TOILET PAPER, ancient Romans would WIPE themselves with a SHARED SPONGE on a stick.””Instead of using TOILET PAPER, ancient Romans would WIPE themselves with a SHARED SPONGE on a stick.”

National Geographic Kids, 5,000 awesome facts, fact #2 on toilets

According to Google , in 1857, a Joseph Gayetty introduced what he called “Medicated paper for the Water Closet” with his name printed on every sheet. It sold for 500 sheets for 50 cents. That is now modern day toilet paper. 

But back in ancient times, the xylospongium, or the tersorium, which literally means ‘a wiping thing’, was found in ancient Rome latrines. It consisted of a wooden stick with a sea sponge that was soaked in vinegar and brine or salt water. It would be dipped in the gutter where there was flowing water so the sponge could be rinsed off, per the Smithsonian Magazine.

There were communal toilets back then, about 3,000 years ago, that consisted of a bench full of holes next to each other where you sat down, and another hole at the feet to put the sponge tool back where it came from after using it once done with going potty.  

They also used Pessoi (pebbles) or Ostraca, which were broken pieces of ceramic pottery that were smoothed and filed down to wipe and scrape their bum. - https://www.cottonnelle.com and https://daily.jstor.org.

In poor cities there would be only one of these sticks available to the whole community in a communal latrine that made the stick a shared item. 

Wealthier or royalty people had some of these sticks made of wool, and were made for that particular person singularly. 

In ancient times wiping one’s butt was probably not the most sanitary process, so it is good to see that society has come a long way from the “sponge on a stick.” Thank goodness for the invention of the toilet paper, or T.P., as commonly called.