The domus was more than a residence, it was also a statement of social and political power.
In the classic layout of the Roman domus, the atrium served as the focus of the entire house plan. As the main room in the public part of the house (pars urbana), the atrium was the center of the house’s social and political life. The male head-of-household (paterfamilias) would receive his clients on business days in the atrium, in which case it functioned as a sort of waiting room for business appointments. Those clients would enter the atrium from the fauces (no. 1 in the diagram above), a narrow entry passageway that communicated with the street. That doorway would be watched, in wealthier houses, by a doorman (ianitor). Given that the atrium was a room where invited guests and clients would wait and spend time, it was also the room on which the house owner would lavish attention and funds in order to make sure the room was well appointed with decorations. The corner of the room might sport the household shrine (lararium) and the funeral masks of the family’s dead ancestors might be kept in small cabinets in the atrium. Communicating with the atrium might be bed chambers (cubicula—no. 8 in the diagram above), side rooms or wings (alae—no. 7 in the diagram above), and the office of the paterfamilias, known as the tablinum (no. 5 in the diagram above). The tablinum, often at the rear of the atrium, is usually a square chamber that would have been furnished with the paraphernalia of the paterfamilias and his business interests. This could include a writing table as well as examples of strong boxes as are evident in some contexts in Pompeii.
Beyond the atrium and tablinum lay the more private part (pars rustica) of the house that was often centered around an open-air courtyard known as the peristyle (no. 11 in the diagram above). The pars rustica would generally be off limits to business clients and served as the focus of the family life of the house. The central portion of the peristyle would be open to the sky and could be the site of a decorative garden, fountains, artwork, or a functional kitchen garden (or a combination of these elements). The size and arrangement of the peristyle varies quite a bit depending on the size of the house itself.
Communicating with the peristyle would be functional rooms like the kitchen (culina—no. 9 in the diagram above), bedrooms (cubicula—no. 8 in the diagram above), slave quarters, latrines and baths in some cases, and the all important dining room (triclinium—no. 6 in the diagram above). The triclinium would be the room used for elaborate dinner parties to which guests would be invited. The dinner party involved much more than drinking and eating, however, as entertainment, discussion, and philosophical dialogues were frequently on the menu for the evening. Those invited to the dinner party would be the close friends, family, and associates of the paterfamilias. The triclinium would often be elaborately decorated with wall paintings and portable artworks. The guests at the dinner party were arranged according to a specific formula that gave privileged places to those of higher rank.
Additional resources:
Jean-Pierre Adam, Roman Building: Materials and Techniques, trans. Anthony Mathews (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Penelope M. Allison, “The Relationship between Wall-decoration and Room-type in Pompeian Houses: A Case Study of the Casa della Caccia Antica,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 5 (1992), pp. 235-49.
Penelope M. Allison, Pompeian Households. An Analysis of the Material Culture (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2004). (online companion)
Bettina Bergmann, “The Roman House as Memory Theater: The House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii,” The Art Bulletin 76.2 (1994) 225-256.
C. F. M. Bruun, “Missing Houses: Some Neglected domus and Other Abodes in Rome,” Arctos 32 (1998), pp. 87-108.
John R. Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250: ritual, space, and decoration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
A. E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: a sourcebook, second ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2014).
Peter Connolly, Pompeii (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Kate Cooper, “Closely Watched Households: Visibility, Exposure and Private Power in the Roman Domus,” Past & Present 197 (2007), pp. 3-33.
Eugene Dwyer, “The Pompeian Atrium House in Theory and Practice,” in E.K. Gazda, ed., Roman Art in the Private Sphere: New Perspectives on the Architecture and Decor of the Domus, Villa, and Insula (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), pp. 25-48.
Carol Mattusch, Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2008.)
August Mau, Pompeii: its life and art (Washington D.C.: McGrath, 1973).
D. Mazzoleni, U. Pappalardo, and L. Romano, Domus: Wall Painting in the Roman House (Los Angeles: J Paul Getty Museum, 2005).
Alexander G. McKay, Houses, Villas, and Palaces in the Roman World (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press,1975).
G.P.R. Métraux, “Ancient Housing: Oikos and Domus in Greece and Rome,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58 (1999), pp. 392-405.
Salvatore Nappo, Pompeii: a guide to the ancient city (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1998).
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “The development of the Campanian house,” in J.J. Dobbins and P.W. Foss, eds., The World of Pompeii (London and New York: Routledge, 2007) 279-91.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Rethinking the Roman Atrium House,” in R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997).
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “The Social Structure of the Roman House,” Papers of the British School at Rome 56 (1988), pp. 43–97.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Herculaneum: Past and Future (London : Frances Lincoln Limited, 2011).
Timothy Peter Wiseman, “Conspicui postes tectaque digna deo: The Public Image of Aristocratic Houses in the Late Republic and Early Empire,” in L’Urbs: Espace urbain et histoire (1er siècle av. J.C.-IIIe siècle ap. J.C.) (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 1987) 393-413.
Paul Zanker, Pompeii: Public and Private Life, trans. D. L. Schneider (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).
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