It is a commonly held myth that the ancient Romans had rooms called vomitoria for the purpose of, well vomiting. The myth holds that the Romans would have lavish banquets and the guests would indulge in excessive amounts of food and drink and once full they would slip away to the vomitorium to purge enabeling them to continue the eating binge.
Barbara Kay recently wrote a piece for Canada’s National Post, “Chewing: A brief history.” I have to take issue with Kay’s perpetuation of the vomitorium myth. This causes one to doubt the historical veracity of the rest of the piece given this glaring error.
Rome was a custom-borrowing society, and elite Romans happily scooped up Greek food culture. But what we remember most about Rome, food-wise, is the period of its decadence, symbolized by disgustingly overwrought banquets and the vomitorium. We haven’t gone so far as to install vomitoria in the bathrooms of fast food restaurants (perhaps an idea whose time has come back?), but in many respects our society’s enslavement to the hyperpalatibility of junk food recalls the excesses of Rome in its self-destructive decline.
Rome’s decline was a bit more complicated than that. Now, the Romans were not above purging after a meal. Romans were known for their orgies which were lavish feasts lasting hours and purging did happen to keep the party going, but they didn’t go away to special room. They did it is style, right at the table. Describing such a feast, Seneca writes,
Cum ad cenandum discubuimus, alius sputa deterget, alius reliquias temulentorum subditus colligit.When we recline at a banquet, one (slave) wipes up the spittle; another, situated beneath (the table), collects the leavings of the drunks.
Sounds pretty gross. The mythological vomitorium sounds like a better idea, but why get up from the table if you have a slave to mop up the floor.
Now for the real vomitorium. The word does derive from vomitare, to vomit, but it was used in a different sense. In ancient Rome, the vomitorium was a passageway under the seats in an amphitheater that allowed spectators to access their seats. The Romans called them vomitoria because the people were”spewed out” to their seats. Our modern stadium ramps are architectural descendants of Roman vomitoria.
So there you go. The Romans did indeed purge and they had vomitoria but they didn’t do the former in the latter.