The Roman Household and House The Elite

The Roman Household and House

The Elite Domus • Typical elite houses evolved from Etruscan atrium-style houses, with the addition of Greek style peristyle (colonnaded) gardens. • Usually were one floor, with a main reception room (atrium) surrounded by bedrooms (cubicula), dining room (triclinium), record room/office (tablinum).

Palatine Hill, 6 th c. BCE House

Articulation of Space

Pompeii, House Entrance

Entrance, House of Menander

House of Menander, View from Fauces to Peristyle Garden

The Atrium • Reception room, often with an opening in the ceiling with an impluvium below. • Contained the family gods (Lares and Penates), imagines (masks of the ancestors), symbolic marriage bed. • Women of the house (or their slaves) may have wool-worked there.

Atrium, House of the Silver Wedding, Pompeii

Bronze Lar, found in a SW corner of an atrium, Pompeii

Lararium

Herculaneum Lararium

Loom Reconstruction

Casa del Principe di Napoli

Atrium, Tablinum

Tablinum Wall-painting, Pompeii

Roman Kitchen, Reconstruction

Atrium House Sight Lines

Cubicula (Bedrooms)

Roman Beds

Bed Frame

Pompeii, House of the Centaur, Cubiculum Reconstruction

Pompeii, Silver Mirror

Triclinium (Dining Room)

Pompeii, Triclinium

Dining Room - Summer

Pompeii, Candelabrum

Roman Seating

Roman Marble Table

Pompeii, Bronze Table

Pompeii, Roman Glass

Roman Lamps

Roman Couches

Peristyle Court

Shrine off Peristyle Court

Tintinnabulum, Pompeii

Villa at Boscoreale, Reconstruction

Cubiculum, Boscoreale

Boscoreale Wall-painting Scheme

Woman Playing Cithara

Wall-painting, Pompeii

Views of Elite Houses

Elite Houses, Inside and Out

The Gender of Space? • Greek elite houses were built to hide the women of the family from contact with men outside the family. • Sight lines were constructed so that no one could see the inner quarters of the house from the front door/front room.

Roman Service Areas

Roman Work Areas

Subtle Control of Women?

Domestic Sculpture in situ: Cupid and Psyche

Herculaneum 3 Storey House

Pompeii Street Plan

Pompeii Houses with Vesuvius View

Villa at Settefinestre

Settefinestre House Plan

Houses of the Poorer working people lived in rooms behind or above their places of work. The elite often rented out the front rooms of their houses, on either side of the entrances, for use as shops, workrooms, or restaurants, often with living space included. The lower classes also lived in apartment buildings (insulae).

Insulae