🏺🏛️Fullery of Stephanus (laundry)

 🏺🏛️Fullery of Stephanus (laundry) at Pompeii. He was a Greek freedman who made his fortune cleaning clothes , who died during the eruption in 79 AD while trying to escape with the latest collections🧔‍♂️🧥

🏺The Follonica of Stephanus (also called Fullery of Stephanus) is one of the most important and complete laundries found in Pompeii where manufactured cloth was washed and stain removed. 

🏺Stephanus' laundry was built just after the earthquake of 62 AD, transforming a private house into a modern factory. At the centre of the atrium of the ancient domus, the impluvium was converted into a tub for washing.

🏺This production facility, designed for the washing of dirty laundry and degreasing fabric that had just been threaded, was built in the last stage of the life of the city, transforming the structure from an original house to an atrium. 

🏺A large bath was placed at the centre of the atrium, instead of the impluvium, and a skylight was placed instead of the previous compluvium so as to use the upper part as a terrace to dry the laundry and other baths were placed in the garden, at the back of the house. When the excavators exposed the fullery (laundry) a skeleton was found near the entrance, which bore a hoard of coins. 

🏺Based on electoral inscriptions it is supposed that Stephanus was the owner of the fullery, who died during the eruption in 79 AD while trying to escape with the latest collections.

🏺The collaborators of Stephanus, almost all slaves, had to tread on fabrics and clothes for hours, placed under a liquid containing human and animal urine, collected in pots placed along the streets, which were meant to treat the fabrics.

Date of excavation: 1912-1913

💰The Tax Connection: Pecunia non olet 

The demand for urine was so high that it became a publicly collected resource. Emperor Vespasian (reigned 69–79 CE) famously instituted a tax on the collection and distribution of this urine. When his son Titus complained about the vulgar nature of the tax, Vespasian reportedly held up a coin and said, "Pecunia non olet" (Money doesn't smell), a phrase still used today. This official taxation confirms the fullers' industry was a major, government-regulated sector of the economy.

🦉The Fullers' Guild Power 

The fullones (fullers) were a powerful professional guild. The best evidence for this in Pompeii is the Eumachia Building in the Forum, one of the most magnificent structures in the city. It was built by the priestess Eumachia and dedicated to Concordia and Pietas, but the dedication inscription was made in her name and that of the fullers' guild. This suggests the fullers either funded the building's dedication or were important enough to be publicly associated with a wealthy elite patron. This shows their collective political and social influence.

✅ Location: Fullery of Stephanus  is located in Pompeii, specifically along the Via dell'Abbondanza.

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