What did it mean to be Roman? Among other things, it meant to be hard working, brave, charitable, reliable, self-controlled, frugal, loyal, and pious.[1] Rome was founded as an agrarian society that valued a simple life of self-sufficiency, becoming more urban and trade reliant as the city grew in proportion.[2] Yet in these modern times, most depictions of Roman society show us a culture that was decadent, hedonistic, and gluttonous. Thanks to movies like Caligula, mentions of eating and food in Ancient Roman bring to mind vomitoriums and orgies of sex and food. It is only natural to imagine Romans reclining on a couch, surrounded by slaves, eating fine and exotic foods until they are so gorged that they have to throw up just to eat more. However, gluttony is in difference with the virtues of Roman society, so it is hard to believe that Roman’s would accept gluttony but in turn value self-control and frugality. Gluttony was neither prevalent nor was it widely accepted in Ancient Rome. This topic is important because at stake is the social reputation of the Roman people. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much investigation into the matter specifically, just mentions inside of the larger scope of social analysis. Through an examination of the Roman diet, the Roman class structure, Roman banquets, Roman charity, Roman law, Roman morals and medicine, Roman biographies, and Roman satires, evidence pointing to gluttony as an anomalous vice in Roman society is evident.


The diet of the Romans, like that of every Mediterranean culture, centered on the basic three: grain, oil, and wine. Meat was eaten, too, usually as part of a sacrifice or purchased from an urban market. Romans were also fond of various fruits and vegetables, legumes, eggs, cheese, and fish. The Roman diet was all together fairly simple, and the tendency towards the more exotic later on in the first century of the Roman Empire was severely criticized by many Roman writers, their distaste for gluttony explicit.[3] If it was part of normal and acceptable Roman society to be a glutton, there would have been no criticism aimed at the men who indulged in excess. True to the ideal of self-sufficiency, early Romans wanted their own home gardens and many took pride in being able to feed themselves off of what they grew at home. The home garden was a symbol of the less decadent and corrupt age of the Roman Republic, an age out of which some in Imperial Rome made corrupt by overindulgence and gluttony.[4] Unless a Roman had a large piece of land and lots of slaves to work it, he couldn’t partake in much gluttony solely living off of the goods of his land. So, if Roman’s valued some measure of self-sufficiency, they couldn’t have also valued gluttony.


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Works Cited

Davies, R. W. “The Roman Military Diet.” Britannia 2 (1971): 122-142.

Eichholz, D. E. “Galen and His Environment.” Greece & Rome 20, no. 59 (June 1951): 60-71.

Galen. On the Passions and Errors of the Soul. Translated by Paul W. Harkins. Ohio State University Press, 1963.

Gellius, Aulus. The Attic nights of Aulus Gellius. Translated by John C. Rolfe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Haight, Elizabeth Hazelton. “Reconstruction in the Augustan Age.” The Classical Journal, 17, no. 7 (April 1992): 355-376.

Horace. The Complete Works of Horace. Translated by Charles E. Passage. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983.

Jasny, Naum. “The Daily Bread of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.” Osiris 9 (1950): 227-253.

Juvenal. The Sixteen Satires. Translated by Peter Green. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

Lawson, James. “The Roman Garden.” Greece & Rome 19, no. 54 (October 1950): 97- 105.

Leyburn, Ellen Douglass. “Notes on Satire and Allegory.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 6, no. 4 (June 1948): 323-331.

Meinecke, Bruno. “The Medical Conceptions of a Roman Layman.” The Classical Journal 41, no. 3 (December 1945): 113-118.

Petronius. The Satyricon. Translated by William Arrowsmith. Ontario: Plume, 1987.

Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny. Translated by Betty Radice. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Classics, 1963.

Smith, E. Marion. “Some Roman Dinner Tables.” Classical Journal 50, no. 6 (March 1955): 255-260+270.

Suetonius. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Translated by Joseph Gavorse. New York: Random House, 1931.

Wilkins, John. “Land and Sea: Italy and the Mediterranean in the Roman Discourse of Dining.” American Journal of Philology 124, no. 3 (2003): 359-375.

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Endnotes

1 For more information on Roman virtues and morality see L.R. Lind, “Concept, Action, and Character: The Reasons for Rome's Greatness,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 103 (1972): 235-283.

2 John Wilkins, “Land and Sea: Italy and the Mediterranean in the Roman Discourse of Dining,” American Journal of Philology 124, no. 3 (2003): 360.

3 E. Marion Smith, “Some Roman Dinner Tables,” Classical Journal 50, no. 6 (March 1955): 255.

4 James Lawson, “The Roman Garden,” Greece & Rome 19, no. 54 (October 1950): 97.

5 Wilkins, “Land and Sea,” 361.

6 Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, trans. Joseph Gavorse (New York: Random House, 1931), 78.

7 Elizabeth Hazelton Haight, “Reconstruction in the Augustan Age,” The Classical Journal 17, no. 7 (April 1992): 366-367.

8 Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 220.

9 Ibid., 79.

10 R. W. Davies, “The Roman Military Diet,” Britannia 2 (1971): 140.

11 Smith, “Dinner Tables,” 255.

12 Ibid.

13 Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 258.

14 Ibid., 97-98.

15 Smith, “Dinner Tables,” 257.

16 Naum Jasny, “The Daily Bread of the Ancient Greeks and Romans,” Osiris 9 (1950): 228.

17 Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 97-98.

18 Pliny the Younger, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, trans. Betty Radice (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Classics, 1963), 63.

19 Ibid., 64.

20 Aulus Gellius, The Attic nights of Aulus Gellius, trans. John C. Rolfe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970): 203.

21 Ibid.

22 Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 26.

23 Haight, “Reconstruction,” 370.

24 Bruno Meinecke, “The Medical Conceptions of a Roman Layman,” The Classical Journal 41, no. 3 (December 1945): 113-114.

25 A frequent and heavy urge to urinate.

26 Meinecke, “Medical Conceptions,” 114.

27 D. E. Eichholz, “Galen and His Environment,” Greece & Rome 20, no. 59 (June 1951): 70.

28 Galen, On the Passions and Errors of the Soul, trans. Paul W. Harkins (Ohio State University Press, 1963): 50.

29 Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 18.

30 Ibid., 31.

31 Ibid., 99.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 141.

35 Ibid., 189.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., 230.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., 313.

40 Ibid., 313.

41 Ellen Douglass Leyburn, “Notes on Satire and Allegory,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 6, no. 4 (June 1948): 323.

42 Petronius, The Satyricon, trans. William Arrowsmith (Ontario: Plume, 1987): 43-58.

43 Horace, The Complete Works of Horace, trans. Charles E. Passage (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983): 60.

44 Ibid., 61

45 Ibid., 75-77.

46 Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires, trans. Peter Green (New York: Penguin Books, 1998): 7.

47 Ibid., 87.