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"Bibo Ergo Sum": Drinking in Ancient Rome

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Alexander Meddings
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The Original Rome Tipsy Tour

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Since the history of alcohol is as old as human civilization, it should come as no surprise the Romans were pretty big boozers. The fermented grapes that were native to their territory fuelled heavy, continuous consumption and facilitated many cultural developments still recognisable in our drinking traditions today.

How much did the ancient Romans drink? Did Rome’s drinking culture share any similarities with ours? And did Julius Caesar's contemporaries consume more than Roman citizens today?

Ancient Roman Drinking Culture

The Romans inherited aspects of their drinking culture from the Greeks and Phoenicians, such as the Symposium, a drinking banquet in which participants would recline on couches. These banquets were reserved exclusively for the Roman elite, who would engage in debates, poetry recitals and philosophical conversations — all while drinking their body's weight in wine.

We know less about lower-class drinking events, mostly because those who attended them didn't tend to be literate enough to document them. But we know that taverns, inns and drinking holes were diffuse across the Roman Empire, and consumption was not dissimilar to today.

Alcohol consumption in ancient Rome majorly took off after Rome’s conquest of the Mediterranean in the second century BCE. During the first two centuries, the Romans exported their wine to the provinces, especially Gaul (modern France) in exchange for slaves whose labour was needed in the vineyards of wealthy villas and estates. After 146 BCE, when the Romans vanquished the North African superpower of Carthage and the Greek capital of Corinth, Rome was flooded with riches, a decent portion of which was used to fuel the consumption of food and wine and support a lifestyle of decadence.

The Religious Significance of Wine

While the Romans recognised the virtue of wine for human consumption, the good grape also held religious significance. The Romans worshipped Liber, a god of viticulture and male fertility, who received wine offerings or ‘libations’ from Romans in search of favour or fortune. The Romans poured libations to many of their gods during religious ceremonies, and private rituals involving wine were commonplace.

Perhaps the most famous was the Bacchanalia, a ceremony dedicated to the god Bacchus (Dionysus in Greek mythology), which involved ecstatic wine-fueled ecstatic celebrations that regularly descended into orgies. So regularly, in fact, that the Senate had to pass measures to curb the Bacchanalia not 20 years after it was introduced to Rome, as the drinking and sex-fuelled parties soon snowballed into full-blown conspiracies against the state.

Stone relief carving from the Via Appia (Appian Way) in Rome

Tomb of the Rabirii on the Appian Way. Beside the figure of Usia, the priestess of Isis on the right, is a patera (sacrificial bowl) used to pour libations of wine or milk to the deities they worshipped.

There were other alcohol-fuelled festivities too, including the Saturnalia — a public holiday held in honor of the god Saturn each December and in many ways a pagan precursor to Christmas. The Saturnalia was a time of revelry, feasting, and social inversion, where roles were temporarily reversed. Slaves dined like their masters, gifts were exchanged, and formal societal norms were cast aside in favor of merriment.

Drinking Parties

When we think of Roman dinner parties, what usually comes to mind is the convivium. Attended by the Roman aristocracy, these dinner parties were long-lasting, lavish events, intended to showcase the wealth of the host and cement his social status. 

The less refined after-dinner drinking bout was the comissatio, which fell under the direction of the magister bibendi — literally the ‘drinking master’.

Painting depicting a Roman banquet or gathering

Roberto Bompiani, A Roman Feast, late 19th century.

Think of him as your modern-day drinks party host. Only speaking in Latin, and probably a slave. The drinking master would decide on the volume and vintage of the wine and lead the guests in toasts and other forms of entertainment. And there was no shortage of entertainment, ranging from organized games with bets and forfeits to recitations and practical jokes. 

What did the ancient Romans drink?

Wine was the alcoholic drink of choice in ancient Rome, mainly owing to Italy’s abundance of vineyards. Already by the 2nd century BC, the Romans had cultivated a strong knowledge of viticulture, as testified by Cato the Elder’s work De Agricultura (On Agriculture) which lists several varieties of wine landowners could cultivate on their estates. 

The Romans have left us plenty of information about the types of wine they drank:

  • Albanum: Native to the Alban Hills southeast of Rome, this wine came in two variations: dry or sweet. 
  • Calenum: A favourite of Rome’s aristocracy, this white wine was renowned for its light taste.
  • Conditum: If you turned up at a banquet to find honey, pepper, and seawater infused in your wine, you’d be drinking conditum. Good luck. 
  • Falernum: The drink of choice for Rome’s moneyed classes, this white wine was among the priciest available and best left to mature (though for no longer than 20 years). 
  • Lora: If you were drinking this wine, the chances are you were a slave. Lora was little more than fermented grape pulp, mixed with water and pressed for a second or third time.
  • Momentanum: The most pointless of ancient Roman wines, momentanum took 15 years to mature and even then was nothing to write home about (that’s at least according to the poet Martial, who quite literally wrote home about it). 

However, there were many famous wines from all over the Mediterranean, such as the delicious Coan wine native to the Greek island of Kos. In fact, at the beginning of the 3rd century BC the Romans introduced sumptuary laws to protect local producers by imposing limits on the costs of foreign wines.

There’s evidence that Romans also drank sparkling wine or champagne. The first-century poet Lucan, who was put to death by the emperor Nero, wrote of a bullulae (sparkling wine) served at a luxurious banquet held in Campania in honour of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

Did the Romans drink beer?

We have good evidence that the Romans were familiar with beer. Tacitus wrote in the 2nd century CE of a beer made from barley or grain (ex hordeo aut frumento) which the Germans drank. But beer was seen as a barbaric drink, unbecoming of a real Roman. There was no sense of beer being a more masculine drink and wine more feminine. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Not only were some of the most militaristically macho characters in Roman history, like Cleopatra’s lover Mark Antony, devoted wine drinkers (or raving alcoholics by today’s standards) but Liber, the god of viticulture, was also the divinity of male virility and fertility. 

Everyday Drinking in Ancient Rome

Before diving into the consumption of alcohol in ancient Rome, a quick word on water. 

By the 1st century CE, Rome’s aqueducts channelled 992 million litres (262 million galleons) of water into the city each day, much of which was drinkable. This was in addition to the plentiful supply from wells, springs and cisterns. But while the Romans had measures in place to ensure the purity of their water, there was no way of making sure that it was free from bacteria. 

The absence of bacteria and other pathogens in alcohol explains, in large part, why the Romans consumed such vast volumes of watered-down wine. Or to put it simply — as long as it was consumed in moderation, wine was safer than water.

How much did Romans drink?

In terms of volume, an inscription found on Rome’s Via Appia Antica reveals that the average Roman consumed two sextarii (1 litre) of wine per day or 104 gallons per year. 

Compare this with today’s Italian male, who consumes between 25-30 galleons every year, and the ancients seem excessive. But we should always remember that all but the most hardened of Roman drinkers watered down their wine from 1 part to 3 or even 8 parts water.

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The Original Rome Tipsy Tour

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Alexander Meddings Author Image
Alexander Meddings
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Alexander Meddings is a professional copywriter and postgraduate in Roman history from the University of Oxford. After graduating with his MPhil, he moved to Florence and then Rome to carry out his research on the ground and pursue his passion at the source. He now works in travel, as a writer and content consultant, and in education as a university lecturer and translator.
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