The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
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Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#2For anyone interested, may I recommend the History or Rome podcast. At over 150 episodes, each running roughly 25 minutes, the listener is taken from the city's founding by Romulus to the end of the empire at the hands of the Germans.
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#3Here's a quote about Mark Antony from "Caesar, Life of a Colossus" by Adrian Goldsworthy. Good book.
"Antony returned to Italy after Pharsalus and was effectively the supreme authority there from January 47 BC until Caesar's return in the autumn. He was a gifted subordinate, but his behaviour became less and less restrained during these months when he was largely left to his own devices. He feasted often, both lavishly and very publicly. His drinking was on a staggering scale — later in life he wrote a book on the subject, which seems to have contained many boasts about his prowess — and he is supposed to have conducted much public business while only partly sober or at the very least suffering from a hangover. On at least one occasion he had to interrupt a meeting in the Forum in order to vomit in sight of all. At times he processed around the country in a great caravan, riding himself in a Gallic — presumably British — chariot, followed by carriages containing a famous actress who was currently his mistress, while another carried his mother. The whole column was incongruously preceded by his lictors. Apart from dressing up as Hercules, some sources even claim that he experimented with a chariot pulled by a team of lions. Apart from this mistress, he had a number of scandalously public affairs with senators' wives. Mark Antony revelled in power, and his conduct was scarcely likely to convince moderate opinion that Caesar's victory would bring anything other than tyranny in the long run."
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#4The Celtic feasts that the Roman banquets displaced were just the same as what's described in the title: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power. Putting on feasts have always been a way for the wealthy to display their wealth and power, to curry favor with their underlings and to give others the opportunity to do so with them. They are also a way for a community to bond together over food, whether hierarchical or communal.
Even industry and consulting groups in the 21st century use the same nonverbal and architectural language to express the same things in the same ways as was done in ancient times.
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#5i thought the vomiting was myth? mostly spread by Christianity
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#6> while servants stream in bearing platters heaped with heavily sauced and delicately spiced foods from all over the world
One of my favorite "audiobooks" (in quotes because it's actually a lecture series) is Food: A cultural culinary history [0]. From what I recall, there was nothing delicate about the spicing of food. The amount of spice that you could put on something signaled your wealth (spices are expensive), so heaping spices on was the thing to do at these banquets. The idea of "delicately spiced" foods came much later from French cuisine.
[0] https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/food-a-cultural-culi...
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#7The Celtic feasts that the Roman banquets displaced were just the same as what's described in the title: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power. Putting on feasts have always been a way for the wealthy to display their wealth and power, to curry favor with their underlings and to give others the opportunity to do so with them. They are also a way for a community to bond together over food, whether hierarchical…
The potlatch was so powerful in the Pacific Northwest that it was banned by the Canadian government.
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#8i thought the vomiting was myth? mostly spread by Christianity
The vomiting was largely the result of folk etymology of the word vomitorium. It had nothing to do with any particular religion, Christian or otherwise.
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#9For anyone interested, may I recommend the History or Rome podcast. At over 150 episodes, each running roughly 25 minutes, the listener is taken from the city's founding by Romulus to the end of the empire at the hands of the Germans. https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com
As a listener to this podcast, I have to say that your characterization of end of the empire "at the hands of the Germans" is a just bit of an oversimplification.
Re: The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power
#10i thought the vomiting was myth? mostly spread by Christianity
The vomiting was largely the result of folk etymology of the word vomitorium . It had nothing to do with any particular religion, Christian or otherwise.
Here's the wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vomitorium), vomitorium meant exit in amphitheaters.
Interestingly, this misconception is perpetuated in Hunger Games, in volume 2 Katniss and Peeta attend a party, clearly modeled after the lavish roman banquets mentioned here, at the Presidential Palace in the decadent Capital, which includes a drink to induce vomiting so people can enjoy more food (https://thehungergames.fandom.com/wiki/Food_and_Drink#cite_r...).