Fullo

A fullo was a Roman fuller or laundry worker (plural: fullones), known from many inscriptions from Italy and the western half of the Roman Empire and references in Latin literature, e.g. by Plautus, Martialis and Pliny the Elder.

There is also evidence that fullones dealt with cloth straight from the loom, though this has been doubted by some modern scholars.

Clothes were treated in small tubs standing in niches surrounded by low walls.

The fuller stood with his feet in the tub filled with water and a mixture of alkaline chemicals (sometimes including ammonia derived from urine) and trampled the cloth, scrubbed it, and wrung it out.

The aim of this treatment was to apply the chemical agents to the cloth so that they could do their work - which was the resolving of greases and fats.

C. Flaminius and L. Aemilius wrote the proper method for fullones to practice in the Metilian Law.

On the other hand, the law stated that the mineral saxum was useful for white clothing but harmful to colors.

Recent fieldwork by the Radboud University Nijmegen has resulted in the definitive identification of three previously unknown fulling workshops [12] At Ostia, three extremely large fullonicae have been excavated along with two smaller ones.

[13] An important recent development is the excavation of an exceptionally large fulling workshop in Casal Bertone, in Rome.