The Oldest Sewer in the World, Part 1

“You have made a very big mistake!” Here I was being chewed out, in English no less, by a homeless Gypsy fisherman with a neatly trimmed mustache on the east bank of the Tiber River. My crime? Trying to visit the Cloaca Maxima - the world’s oldest sewer.

Ancient Rome had a problem - a lot of people, even more animals, and no way to get rid of all their poop. To cope with this problem, a rudimentary sewage system was dug around 600 BC, flowing through town out to the Tiber River. True to Roman form, it even came complete with its own goddess, Cloacina, a statue of whom was placed above the part of the Cloaca that now runs underneath the ancient Roman forum. The Cloaca is so old, nobody really knows if it started as a tunnel, or a ditch, or even a natural river. It’s been in use in some form or another ever since, although in modern times its remaining passages were consolidated with the rest of the sewer system of Rome.

I wasn’t quite sure of the big mistake I had made. A little research had led us to the approximate location of the outflow of the Cloaca Maxima. I decided to head over there and see if we could get in. One possible entrance had a couple of guys camped out in front of it, obviously making it their home. One was digging in the mud in front of the entrance with a shovel, so I asked him (as best I could), if it was the Cloaca Maxima. He seemed friendly enough when he gestured to keep walking down the path by the river. But as I turned to walk away, I heard some very rapid, very angry Italian being hurled at me. After repeated “no parlo Italianos,” he said “OK you speak English? - you have made a very big mistake!”

Apparently I had in some way gravely offended some sensibility of his in our brief exchange. I had no idea what to do, or what he would do. Luckily, after a good deal of further berating, he took my apologies enough that I could walk away without fear of further offense. Still, I glanced over my shoulder more than once. He was so mad, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him running after me, shovel in hand.

Well, here was another obstacle I’d put in our way. Instead of manholes and fences, now we had angry Gypsies to contend with. The next morning Steve and I, armed with our peace offerings of cigarettes and beer, went down to try and talk our way in.

We had determined earlier that day that the tunnel by the Gypsy campsite was almost certainly the actual outflow of the Cloaca. The guy who had yelled at me wasn’t there, but his friend was. He only spoke Italian, Romany, and Russian fluently (got to love Europe, with a trilingual homeless population), but we somehow ended up managing a mangled conversation with him in French. 10 minutes and a couple beers late we were in. Imagine our disappointment when the tunnel ended in a brick wall after 10 feet.

Undaunted, we decided to explore a little further down the river to see if there were any other possible entrances. We were in luck: only a few dozen feet down the river was a sewer entrance, close enough that it might lead to the Cloaca. This time the obstacles were different. There was a heavy gate in front of the entrance, although luckily it wasn’t locked. And there was another obstacle one might associate with sewers: namely sewage. While the other entrance had been kept fairly clean by the Gypsies camped out there, this one had no such caretakers. Flies were swarming all over us as we were up to our ankles in the muck of whatever Romans flush down their toilets trying to pry open the gate. This time it took a little elbow grease and a heck of a strong stomach instead of two beers and decent French to make it in.

Once we were in it got a little better - most of the sewage had caught on the gate at the entrance, and there was only a trickle down the middle of the tunnel. The tunnel itself was big, and looked relatively new. It began to curve toward the direction of the entrance to the Cloaca, giving us hope that it would eventually connect with it, but stopped at a flood gate before very long.

With the Cloaca this close, we had to go on. Luckily for us, there was a ladder. Up the ladder, into the gatehouse, across a catwalk, and down another, much rustier, ladder and we found ourselves in the sewers beneath the Capolitine hill. On we went.

Photos by Steve Duncan - www.undercity.org

Story continues in Part 2...