Today, the Roman emperor Vespasian, 69-79 CE, is best known for the construction of the Flavian Amphitheatre. (Americans know it as the Colosseum.) But he was a creative thinker. In 74 he came up with a novel idea. Until then, Romans urinated into pots which they emptied into the city’s cesspool. The rich did, anyway. The poor, well, they ‘didn’t have a pot to piss in,’ an expression we still use today. Vespasian created pay toilets. Like this one. The urine was then centralized and could be sold to tanneries and laundries. When his son, Titus, the next Emperor, complained of the unpleasant ‘smell’ of the urine tax, Vespasian waved a coin under his son’s nose and said, Pecunia non olet. Translated, it is “Money does not smell.” There are still a few public urinals in Italy and for centuries they were known as Vespasiani, in memory of the Emperor who conceived them.