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Oysters in Old Rome

About This Item

  • Title: Oysters in Old Rome
  • Date: 23 February 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01078
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 23 February 1859: 4. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Francesca Boston Jason Stacy Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Oysters in Old Rome." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01078.xml (TEI)
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OYSTERS IN OLD ROME—

The Roman ladies were so enamored with oysters, that they were in the habit of gorging themselves to the root of their tongues, and used to apply the feathers of the peacock to make themselves disgorge the load that they might again enjoy the pleasures of a new feast on the same dish. We find it mentioned in the annals of Roman gastronomy, that some of the most noted philosophers and orators could consume a single meal several hundreds of oysters. Seneca1 tells us he ate some hundreds of them weekly. "Oyster! dear to gourmand," says he, "which excites instead of satiating the appetite; which never causes illness, even when eaten to excess, so easy art thou of digestion."

Notes:

1. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman stoic philosopher, orator, and tragedian who inspired the "Senecan Tragedy" as a category of drama. [back]

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