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The proverb Money has no smell is ascribed to Vespasian, an emperor of Rome. Suetonius, a Roman historian, writes that the words were used by Vespasian on the following occasion. When the emperor's son Titus reproached his father for having introduсed a tax on public lavatories, Vespasian told him to smell the money he was holding in his palm, and to see if the smell was foul. On being told that it was not, Vespasian remarked that the money was of the urine for it had been just paid as the tax on lavatories.