Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

• When we talk about housing in Roman culture, we are necessarily talking about a topic as complex as housing in modern, western culture. The 'Roman House' changed significantly over time, across economic classifications, and between urban and rural areas.
  
  
• We are aided immeasurably in our study of Roman housing by a tragedy of immense proportion. In the year 79 of the common era, Mt. Vesusivius erupted and its ashes literarly drowned the inhabitans of the city of Pompeii and the town of Herculaneum (near modern Naples). One bizarre effect of the eruption was the preservation of the sites in the condition they existed at the time of the eruption. The ashes hardened to a form of tufa stone and the towns were abandoned until the 18th and 19th centuries when 'gentlemen' scholars, grave robbers and art thieves began to tunnel through the tufa to the original site. Pliny the Younger, whose uncle and adoptive father, Pliny the Elder, died assisting in rescue efforts during the eruption, was an eyewitness (from a safe distance) and wrote an extraordinary description of the event in two letters (#1, #2) to his friend Tacitus.
  
  
• Because the volcanic ash preserved the ruins of the towns so well, archeologists and scholars have been able to learn an extraordinary amount of information about the nature of life in wealthy, Roman provincial towns and cities. There is some risk in taking Herculaneum and Pompeii as emblematic of Roman life, however. Herculanum was, culturally speaking, a Greek town; Pompeii, a Samnite. Although Roman had exercised political control of the region since the fourth century, B.C.E., both Herculaneum and Pompeii joined the Social Wars on the side of the rebels. It was not, for example, until Rome's victory in the Social Wars that Herculaneum adopted the typical Roman municipal style of government and Pompeii began to adopt Latin as its daily language. Thus, more than offering us a vision of 'typical Roman life,' these towns offer us the best vision we have of the process of 'Romanization' on the Italian peninsula.
  
  
• With this cautionary note in mind, however, let us begin to generalize about Roman houses. First, the general layout or floor plan of the house: The Romans, and modern scholars, believe that the most important influence on their residential architecture was Etruscan. We happen to know a lot about Etruscan houses because the Etruscan's built their tombs to mimic the design of their homes. Etruscan houses often were laid out as a set of rooms around a courtyard. Romans adopted this layout, but roofed the courtyard, except for an area at the center of the roof which they left open (think of skylights) for air and sunshine. The rectangual hole in the roof was called the compluvium ('rain hole'). Around the 2nd century B.C.E., the Romans began building basins (called the impluvium - 'where the rain goes'), some quite elaborate (with mosaic flooring and sculpture in the center) directly beneath the compluvium. The room which had originally been a courtyard was called the atrium.
  
  
• The atrium, in the homes of the elite, was one of the most important, if not the most important room in the house. It was usually the largest room as well. To understand the atrium, however, you also have to understand what archeologists call the "axial" layout of the house. The rooms in the houses were place along an imaginary axis or line. Rooms led into each other along this line. The rooms themselves were often flanked by other rooms that ringed the atrium and other household centers.What is most striking about this layout, however, is that the sight line from the street through the house was open, and thus visable to the street. So, if you entered a Roman house, you would follow the following progression of rooms:
  
  
  • entrance at street - a gate, usually open during daylight hours. The entrance was narrow, and the outside of the house usually was let out as retail space (tabernae).
    
  • the door - again, usually open during daylight hours and attended by a ianitor. (There might also be a narrow covered passage, called a fauces (immediately after the door), leading into
    
  • the vestibulum - which functioned as our vestibules (places to be greeted and take your overcoat or cloak off)
    
  • the vestibulum led directly into the atrium, centered around the compluvium, which usually contained the family Larium (shrine to the family Lares). The back of the atrium, often up a few stairs, opened out into 3 rooms. Those on the right and left, called the alae (wings), served as reception rooms which opened directly into the atrium and flanked the
    
  • tablinum in which were kept family records and imagines (wax busts of famous ancestors dragged out for family funerals). The tablinum may have begun life as the 'master bedroom' of the Roman house in simpler days. By the second century BCE it was the 'official' owner's office. Thus, any passerby had a direct sight line from the street to and through the atrium to the owner's office. The tablinum, moreover, typically opened on its rear wall into the back half of the house as well. One price members of the Roman elite paid, gladly, was constant public scrutiny.
    
    
  • To the right of the right hand ala was another passage way (again, called a fauces) which led to the back half of the house. The centerpiece of this part of the house was the
    
    
  • oeci - or (peristyle) garden. The garden was ringed by a covered colonnade. Sometimes the center of the peristyle might include a fishpond or swimming pool instead of a garden. The peristyle itself was surrounded by rooms (bedrooms and dining rooms). Behind these rooms would lie servants quarters, kitchens, etc. Depending on the size of the lot, the floorplan could continue indefinitely, with gardens leading to rooms leading to other gardens.

Single family housing in Rome and Pompeii

Monuments of Rome (including pix from houses)

Collection of pix from houses of Pompeii /(images of houses at Pompeii; another collection)

Pictures of rooms, furniture and interior decorations of famous Roman houses