The Romans used a sponge on a stick (xylospongium) to wipe their asses. For you Christians, recall when Jesus hung on the cross and said “I thirst,” and he was offered sour wine mixed will gall. They used a xylospongium to administer the wine.

One final act of mockery before Jesus Christ died on the cross.

That picture is probably wrong. Most evidence points to the ancients using them as squat toilets, even if they look like this.

The Army still has that style of latrine

This one is my favorite on that webpage

Q is for Queen: If the 17th-century antiquarian John Aubrey is to be believed, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, may well have regretted not paying a precautionary visit to the privy before being presented to Queen Elizabeth I. In his Brief Lives, a splendidly scandalous collection of anecdotes about the great figures of Tudor and Stuart England, Aubrey writes: “This Earl of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to fart, at which he was so abashed that he went to travel for seven years. On his return, the Queen welcomed him home and said ‘My lord, I had forgotten the fart’.”