Popular history is a machine for producing confident errors, and Rome is one of its most productive subjects. The combination of genuine drama, distant evidence, and centuries of embellishment has generated a set of myths about Rome that persist through repetition long after the historical record has corrected them. Some are harmless. Some distort the actual history in ways that matter.

The vomitorium was not a room for vomiting. It was a technical term for the exit passages of an amphitheater or theater — the tunnels through which large crowds could rapidly exit a stadium after an event. The word derives from the Latin vomere, meaning to spew out, which is an entirely accurate description of crowds disgorging from a building. The association with Roman dining excess came later and has no serious ancient support. Romans did occasionally induce vomiting for medical or digestive reasons, but the image of systematic purging between banquet courses is a fantasy.