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

Matters of proper hygiene, sexual conduct, language and emotion are all of concern to the owner
of this house. At the other end of the spectrum are meals with gastronomic excess, music,
dancing, gambling, drunkenness, brawling and dubious virtue. 89 For the wise host, some happy
medium between extremes of sober propriety and wanton excess was necessary both in terms of
the actual food and the mood of the gathering. 90 Good guests in turn demonstrated their
cultured wit (urbanitas) by supplying the dinner with appropriate humor; obscene jokes were the
domain of the lower classes (humilies). 91 Pleasant, erudite conversation was an appetizer (but not
a main course); this can be demonstrated generally by food literature, in which there is always a
clever triangle of associations between the food, mealtime conversation, and the literary work
itself. 92 A successful dinner balanced the host and the guests, seriousness and levity, simple food
and rich food, conversation and consumption. It kept a philosophy of the comfortable status quo
'on the table', even as it was a forum for social mobility 'under the table'. 93
So much for the etiquette of physical and social ingestion; what about the digestion and
discharge of a meal? Indigestion, vomiting, urination and defecation are all common after-effects
of dinner. What options for relieving these pressures were available during a meal of several
hours? At elite meals, the more innocuous activities of belching and flatulence were generally
considered to be impolite and even 'barbarian' behavior, although they were reportedly
acceptable to Stoics. 94 Hors d'oeuvres in some of Martial's menus are described as laxatives for
facilitating bowel movements during the course of the meal. 95 Vomiting was induced in some
cases, allowing the guest to continue ingesting more food than was normally possible. 96
89 For example, Petr. 21-24, 30-79. See Balsdon 1974, 45-51, Goddard 1994, 75-76 (Nero's banquets) and
below, pp. 49-50.
90 Gowers 1993, 276: "The smart dinner could be neither completely rustic nor extravagant.", referring to
Plin. Ep. 1.15; see also 161-162 and 269: "A perfect balance is achieved between intellectual pursuits and the
necessary light-heartedness appropriate to the dinner-party (remissus aliquid et dulcius; comoedis; comitate)."
91 Quint. Inst. 6.3.8, 6.3.16, Cic. de Orat. 2.62.252.
92 See Gowers 1993, 29, 40-46, 232. She emphasizes the materialism of Roman dining on p. 136, where she
contrasts the banquet of Hor. S. 2.4 (in which even the conversation boils down to food) with the classic
Platonic symposium: "the convivium, epitome of all social intercourse, now has as its focus food, not
conversation, while even conversation, sermo, is saturated with gastronomy, not philosophy. Rome is now
the centre of a materialist world, and hospitium has become a calculated art."
93 See the section below on 'rank and status' at dinner, p. 50-56.
94 Barbarian belching: Sidon. Carm. 12.14; acceptable behavior to Stoics: Cic. Fam. 9.22.5.
95 Mart. 10.48, 11.52 (Gowers 1993, 254, n. 154, 257-258).
96 Gowers 1993, 19: "Vomiting and emetics, which were actually standard medical treatment in the ancient
world, became distorted and abused in attacks on luxury because they were ways of extending the body's
capacity indefinitely".
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