Were vomitoriums really used in ancient Roman times so that people could throw up between courses in order to eat more? –Christine
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Well, neither did the Romans. While there was something called a vomitorium (from the Latin vomitus, past participle of vomere, to vomit), it wasn’t a room set aside to vomit in. Rather a vomitorium was a passageway in an amphitheater or theater that opened into a tier of seats from below or behind. The vomitoria of the Colosseum in Rome were so well designed that it’s said the immense venue, which seated at least 50,000, could fill in 15 minutes. (There were 80 entrances at ground level, 76 for ordinary spectators and 4 for the imperial family.) The vomitoria deposited mobs of people into their seats and afterward disgorged them with equal abruptness into the streets–whence, presumably, the name.
You get the picture. The Romans weren’t shy about vomiting, and they had vomitoria–but they didn’t do the former in the latter. The conflation of the two appears to be a recent error. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Aldous Huxley using the term incorrectly in 1923, with the stern comment “erron.” Urban historian Lewis Mumford makes a similar screwup in The City in History (1961), claiming that the vomitoria of the amphitheaters were named after the mythical dining room appurtenances. So you’re in distinguished company, Christine, but still misinformed.
