Wealthy Roman town houses and large, sprawling countryside villas were not only designed to impress, but to win friends and influence people. Entertainment – especially in the form of lavish multi-course banquets – played a significant role in this process.
[i] images #1 and #2: trīclīnium, -ī [2/n]: dining room
As the noun itself suggests: “a triclinium generally contained three couches, and as the usual number of persons occupying each couch was three, the triclinium afforded accommodation for a party of nine.” (Thurston Peck)
The quotation below indicates that the term was not confined to a location within a house, nor was the number necessarily restricted to nine diners:
pūblicē sibi convīvia parārī1, sternī trīclīnia, et in forō sternī iubēbat (Cicero) ⃒ he ordered banquets to be prepared and couches to be spread for him at the public expense, and to be spread for him in the forum
Professor Mary Beard considers it doubtful that this part of the house was in regular use. Its function was more likely as a place targeted at the “great and the good”, wealthy friends and acquaintances, as well as business associates. To put it in contemporary terms: you would not invite your boss and his wife to dinner in the kitchen – it would be in the dining room.
It was not a place for a “quick snack”: most Roman dwellings had no kitchen, and the kitchens in the wealthy properties are small. Most working class citizens of Pompeii, for example, would have eaten at the thermopōlia, the fast-food outlets of which there were over 80 in the town.
Where the wealthy ate, when they were not in the trīclīnium, is uncertain since there is no other designated eating area. Maybe the Master of the House took breakfast in his office, or sitting by the impluvium or, if the weather was nice, in the peristȳlium – and is that any different from us when we “grab” a bite to eat sitting at the kitchen table, or in front of the TV, or while we’re working on our laptops?
[ii] exedra, -ae [1/f] < Anc. Gk. ἐξ (ex, “out of”) + ἕδρα (hédra, “seat”): a recessed space or alcove, often semicircular, furnished with seating and commonly opening off a larger room or courtyard; it was a place for conversations, discussions etc. in other words a place where the Master may go with a client for a “private chat”.
Image #3 shows an example from a late Roman villa, the floored section being the exedra. The rest of the floor is missing and reveals the hypocaustum i.e. the underfloor heating system.
[iii] cubiculum, -ī [2/n]: bedroom
Image #4: Archaeologists at Pompeii discovered the skeleton of a man and a woman in a small bedroom of a house where they may have been hiding from the eruption.
[iv] andrōn, -is [3/m]: passage between two walls of a house; hallway; passageway
[v] posticum, -ī [2/n]: back door
[vi] (a) balneum, -ī [2/n]; (b) latrīna, -ae [1/f]
The terms are not interchangeable:
(a) balneum: bath; place for bathing; bathroom
(b) latrīna: toilet; Engl. deriv. latrine
Image #5: latrine with reconstructed wooden seat (Pompeii)
Images #6 and #7: most of the second storeys of the houses in Pompeii were destroyed, but the terracotta downpipe suggests that a toilet was upstairs.
Pompeii had public bathing facilities and public toilets which were accessible to everybody although some facilities would have required a small entrance fee.
[vii] culīna, -ae [1/f]: kitchen
Image #8: kitchen in the house of the Vettii in Pompeii, which leads us back to the beginning of this post. Could a kitchen that size have produced the amount of food required for the lavish banquets held in the triclinium?
It is likely that much of the food was prepared in advance or obtained from outside sources such as vendors, with the domestic kitchen used mainly for finishing and serving dishes. In addition, large households would have had slaves working intensively in confined spaces, and cooking may at times have been supplemented by using portable braziers, temporary outdoor hearths in the courtyard or peristyle, or by preparing dishes in stages rather than all at once.
