It All Comes Out: Vomit as a Source of Comedy in Roman Moralizing Texts

Abstract

Retching is important for Roman cultural history and medicine; in this article I assess vomit's appearances in Latin literature. Humor is created by the detailed revelation of habitual, inappropriate, and excessive behaviors by named targets, such as the emperors Claudius and Vitellius, and Mark Antony, accused by Cicero in Philippics 2, especially. Alcohol abuse and gluttony feature in invective against character types who vomit, such as the stock figures of the drunken hostess and faithful wife at sea in Juvenal 6, Martial's lesbian Philaenis, and the cautionary tale of the patient who relapses and dies to which the hungover Stoic student is subjected in Persius 3. I end with the self-mocking visualizations of (bad) poetry as vomit in several Horatian passages alongside Nero's voice-training purges.