ABSTRACT
In his digression on Persia (23.6) Ammianus Marcellinus relates among other things the following custom of the Persians: ‘one seldom sees a Persian stop to pass water’—I quote from Rolfe’s translation.1 When reading Ammianus’ words in Latin (nec stando mingens nec ad requisita naturae secedens facile visitur Persa, 23.6.79), it will be clear that Rolfe’s rendering of stando mingens is not quite accurate, for where in his translation do we find Ammianus’ stando? In his edition for the Collection des Universités de France, Jacques Fontaine renders stando mingens with ‘uriner debout’ and Walter Hamilton in the Penguin Ammianus translates the words thus: ‘make water standing’.2 That is correct, I think. When Ammianus says stando, he must mean ‘standing’ in its literal sense, as opposed to ‘squatting’ or ‘sitting’, as women normally do-or rather, as women, to the best of my knowledge, do in modern, western countries, for we all know that in Herodotus’ ancient Egypt, for instance, it was the other way around: men passed water sitting down and women did so standing up (Hdt. 2.35.3). Incidentally, some years ago a few radical feminists in Holland, when passing water, imitated the women of ancient Egypt and tried to persuade the other members of their sex to follow this example-in vain, I have been told.
