Roman vomitoriums

I was chatting to a friend of mine from work the other day and somehow it came up in conversation that the ancient Romans used to have special areas or rooms, called vomitoriums, that they could visit during a meal in order to void their stomachs, to enable them to continue feasting. I must admit that I was sceptical when I heard this, mainly because I have actually been to Rome and visited many Roman ruins around the world and have never heard of this practice or seen any evidence of these rooms in any ruins. I have also never heard any mention of the practice in books that I have read about Rome or in any of the novels that I have read that were set in ancient Rome. The lack of reference to this practice made me decide to try and verify this fact via Google.

It turns out that vomitoriums, as described above, are a myth. The Romans never practised vomiting to make room for more feasting nor did they preserve spaces in their homes for the practice. The word vomitorium, is a Latin word which means 'to spew forth', and it actually refers to the passageways that lead in and out of auditoriums. The design of these vomitoriums enabled many people to enter and exit from venues in a very short amount of time. The vomitoriums in the Roman Colosseum were so well designed, that it is said that the 50,000 seat venue could be filled in around fifteen minutes. This efficiency makes me think that perhaps we need to look at adding a few vomitoriums to our sports stadiums. Overall, sorry to all of you believers out there that thought that ancient Romans loved their food so much that they would vomit up earlier courses in order to enjoy more, it is just not true!