![]() ![]() Scott Fitzgerald alludes to Vespasian's jest in The Great Gatsby with the phrase "non-olfactory money". The proverb receives some attention in Roland Barthes's detailed analysis of the Balzac story in his critical study S/Z. "Vespasian's axiom" is also referred to in passing in the Balzac short story Sarrasine in connection with the mysterious origins of the wealth of a Parisian family. Vespasian's name still attaches to public urinals in Italy ( vespasiano) and France ( vespasienne). ![]() ![]() The phrase pecunia non olet is still used today to say that the value of money is not tainted by its origins. When Titus said "No", Vespasian replied, "Yet it comes from urine" ( Atqui ex lotio est). The Roman historian Suetonius reports that when Vespasian's son Titus complained about the disgusting nature of the tax, his father held up a gold coin and asked whether he felt offended by its smell ( sciscitans num odore offenderetur). It was used in tanning, wool production, and also by launderers as a source of ammonia to clean and whiten woollen togas. The urine collected from these public urinals was sold as an ingredient for several chemical processes. Vespasian imposed a urine tax on the distribution of urine from Rome's public urinals (the Roman lower classes urinated into pots, which were later emptied into cesspools). The tax was removed after a while, but it was re-enacted by Vespasian around 70 AD in order to fill the treasury. History " Vespasienne" in Montreal, Canada, 1930Ī tax on the disposal of urine was first imposed by Emperor Nero under the name of vectigal urinae in the 1st century AD. The phrase is ascribed to the Roman emperor Vespasian (ruled AD 69–79). This section of the work is the basis for the famous expression "Money has no odor" ( Pecunia non olet) according to Suetonius, Vespasian's son (and the next Emperor), Titus, criticized Vespasian for levying a fee for the use of public toilets in the streets of Rome.Pecunia non olet is a Latin saying that means "money does not stink". " Pecunia non olet" - "Money doesn't smell" - the Emperor Vespasian said in the first century AD, as he gleefully collected the proceeds of a tax on urine, used for laundering and tanning in ancient Rome. The Latin saying Pecunia non olet (money doesn't smell) is attributed to Vespasian - said to have been his reply to a complaint from his son about the unpleasant nature of the tax.Ĭhapter 8 THE PERMIAN BASIN GANG, 1948-59 Pecunia non olet. In London Fields by Martin Amis, while smelling a wad of used fifties, foil Guy Clinch observes, " Pecunia non olet was dead wrong." The Latin proverb " Pecunia non olet" ("Money does not smell") may have been created when he had introduced a urine tax on public toilets. The shield of the company is blazoned: Pecunia non olet - Let's make Money.Īsterix unraveling of the plot is a reference to the Roman proverb Pecunia non olet ("money does not stink"). The phrase Pecunia non olet is still used today to say that the value of money is not tainted by its origins. Pecunia non olet, Latin for "money does not smell" It smelt of oil and if it did not smell of dollars, that was because we have known since ancient times that money has no smell. Peterecz, Zoltán, " Money Has No Smell: Anti-Semitism in Hungary and the Anglo-Saxon World, and the Launching of the International Reconstruction Loan for Hungary in 1924," Eger Journal of American Studies (Eger), 13 (2012), pp 273-90. The illusion that money has no smell vanishes when the origin is crime and violence, meaning illegal funds, and when illegal money clearly disrupts a market economy and prevents financial markets and banks from operating in an orderly fashion. ![]() " Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City," Chicago: University of Chicago Press (ISBN 978-9-6). "I think that nobody has the right, in the given situation, to claim that money has no smell," he added. Then again, as the Chinese say, money has no smell. ![]()
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