Objective: to investigate the eating habits of Romans during the first two centuries A. D. and their attitudes towards these eating habits in the light of contemporary Latin literary and historical sources and influential Greek medical sources. Method: An extensive search of sources on the Roman Empire and emperors in the first two centuries A. D. was carried out. Two historical cases of binging and self-induced vomiting, namely the Emperors Claudius and Vitellius, were identified and described in translated extracts from the original Latin source. Discussion: it is noted that cultural and social factors are important influences on eating habits which would now be considered pathological. 0 7996 by)ohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Although bulimia nervosa was not scientifically investigated and comprehensively described until the classic paper by Russell in 1979, and is often regarded as a relatively modern phenomenon, cases of pathological voracity are documented as far back as the 17th century (Parry-Jones & Parry-Jones, 1991). povhipia ( = boulimia) is an ancient Greek word, used by Aristotle, among others, and translated by in their Greek-English Lexicon as "ravenous hunger," probably the hunger (Xip6s = limos) needed to eat an ox, bull, or cow (poixs = bous). The essential difference between pathological voracity with or without vomiting and bulimia nervosa is the psychopathology which is a feature of both bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa, namely a morbid fear of fatness. It was for this reason that Russell (1979) called the condition "bulimia nervosa" as opposed to simply "bulimia."
Because binging and self-induced vomiting are known to have been practised by some Romans in the early Roman Empire, a methodical examination of the original sources for this period was carried out in the hope of identifying cases that might have something in common with bulimia nervosa.