This Ancient Roman wall painting shows an opulent domicile, and adorned a bedroom of a first-century BCE aristocrat. The plants in the scenery show a love of the natural world common in elite decor. We know that Romans of means took great thought in how they situated their estate homes, considering matters like which way the sun faced various rooms, whether the breezes would ventilate in a desirable way, or how close running water ought to be from a building. From one ancient work advising on such affairs, the most primitive version of germ theory appears.
In _De re rustica_ (_On Agriculture_), the second-century BCE scholar Marcus Terentius Varro described the questions one ought to consider when building an estate. He advises to have the building structured to catch the best breezes, to face east to get the best temperature, and especially warns against building in swampy areas. “As they dry, swamps breed certain _animalculae_ which cannot be seen with the eyes and which we breathe through the nose and mouth into the body where they cause grave maladies,” he writes.
Varro of course didn’t know of bacteria – their existence wasn’t demonstrated until after the microscope was invented many hundreds of years later. Still, later centuries used his terminology to refer to minute organisms.
Source(s): Cited in Winston Black, ed, _Medicine and Healing in the Pre-Modern West: A History in Documents_, Broadview: Ontario, Canada, 2020, p 90. Image Wikimedia commons, “Metropolitain wall painting Roman 1C BC 4.jpg .
