Were Roman vomitoria rooms for vomiting during feasts?

Vomitoria were real, but they were not dining-room annexes for purging. A vomitorium was a passage below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre or stadium, through which large crowds could exit rapidly. The Latin word comes from the verb vomere, meaning to spew forth, which describes how such passages released people. Some Romans did vomit after meals, but the word for that place is a later invention. [1] [2]

The Straight Dope describes vomitoria as passageways that opened into a tier of seats from below or behind. It says the Colosseum, which seated at least 50,000, could reportedly fill in about 15 minutes, with 80 ground-level entrances: 76 for ordinary spectators and 4 for the imperial family. Archaeologists still use vomitorium as an architectural term. [3] [4]

According to Caillan Davenport and Shushma Malik, no ancient source uses the word for a place to vomit after eating. It first appears in the Saturnalia of Macrobius in the 5th century AD, where the plural vomitoria refers to the passages through which spectators spilled into their seats at public entertainments. [4]

Ancient writers did describe it. Suetonius says the emperor Claudius ended meals bloated and had a feather put down his throat to make him disgorge. Vitellius is said to have vomited between meals to make room for the next banquet. Seneca complained of people who vomit so that they can eat and eat so that they can vomit. Davenport and Malik argue that such stories were moral criticism of rulers and elites and do not show that ordinary Romans did this or that special rooms existed. They add that vomiting was also commonplace as medical treatment, with Celsus advising against making it a daily habit. [4]

The Straight Dope goes further and says vomiting seems to have been a standard part of fine dining, citing Cicero's remark that Julius Caesar said he wished to vomit after dinner. Even there, Cicero does not mention a vomitorium. The two sources differ in emphasis on how common the practice was, but agree there was no dedicated room. [3]

Aldous Huxley is often credited with the error. The Washington Post notes he is generally blamed, and The Straight Dope says the Oxford English Dictionary cites his misuse and marks it erroneous, giving the date as 1923. Davenport and Malik give 1929 for Antic Hay and say newspapers and journals show the confusion going back to the 19th century. The sources therefore disagree on the Huxley date, and he was probably not the first. Historian Lewis Mumford repeated the mistake in 1961. [5] [3] [4]

Davenport and Malik suggest the myth lasted because an architectural term that sounds like vomiting met vivid ancient tales of imperial gluttony, and because later readers liked to see Romans as decadent. [4]