KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

Special foods were commonly linked to the celebration of particular festivals or occasions. Such
celebrations were observed in the civic, religious, family, or personal spheres, and are attested
not infrequently in Roman literary sources. 23 On these occasions, food which was not normally
consumed (usually for financial reasons) on an everyday basis, such as pork, was introduced in
special meals. 24 The opposition of holiday feasts to the mundane daily menu helped define the
passage of time; special meals were looked forward to or fondly recalled, and their occurrence
reassured the participants that they were not condemned to eating the same stuff in perpetuity.
At the same time, periodic celebrations involving special foods served to remind people that they
should be thankful for that everyday food, and remind the gods to keep providing it. The gods
got their portion at these celebrations; the same foods sacrificed before the meal were the foods
eaten during the meal.
In general, Roman concern with particular diets seems to have been based on
maintaining a harmonious balance between the health of the mind and the body; overindulgence
in one led inevitably to the decline of the other. For some, this balance was achieved through
dietary preferences. Dietary regimes were an occupational choice for priests, gladiators or
athletes. 25 Religious, philosophical, or moral beliefs also determined special diets. Martial for
instance taunts the self-imposed poverty of the Stoic character Chaeremon ("Oh, what a great
man you are, who can do without dregs of red vinegar and straw and black bread") and tempts
him with the life he rejects, exemplified by comfortable pillows, fine wine and an attractive
serving-boy. 26 The social tension between those who eat richly and those who eat poorly is
brought out in this one man who has the luxury of choosing his lot, and who ironically chooses
poverty because of his philosophy, not because of his actual social options. The ability to control
one's own appetite (whether for wealth, power, or food) gave an individual a measure of
23 The special food of a festival day could sometimes be as simple as substituting cheese for yeast and
making unleavened bread, as the 2 c. A.D. physician Galen suggests (Per‹ Trof«n Dunãmevw 6 K.486). Several
rustic celebrations reported in the Fasti of Ovid feature special sacrificial foods; see for example: heifers
never subjected to work (1 Jan., Fast. 1.83); cakes of spelt and sow's flesh (Day of Sowing (Sementiva), Fast.
1.672); lamb and a suckling pig (to Terminus, 23 Feb., Fast. 2.656).
24 Gowers 1993, 26-28, 70-73: the greatest special feast was the Saturnalia, and moralists and satirists
exaggerated its temporal extent by remarking that the holiday 'never ended', or 'went on all year round'
(Sen. Ep. 18.1; Petr. 44.4).
25 See Gowers 1993, 14 (the diet of the Flamen Dialis, forbidden to touch flour, yeast, or raw meat);
Friedländer II, 56 & Peck 1923, 732 (the special diet of gladiators, gladiatoria sagina, was designed to increase
their strength); Farb & Armelagos 1980, 112-125; Simoons 1961, 7-12; Harris 1985, 67-87; Grmek 1989, 210-
244; Renfrew 1988.
26 Mart. 11.56: O quam magnus homo es qui faece rubentis aceti et stipula et nigro pane carere potes! (Loeb text and
translation). Consider also the 'plebia prandia' of Persius (Gowers 1993, 184-186).
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