Pompeii began as a settlement of small fishing and agricultural communities. In 80 BCE, it was incorporated into the Roman Empire when the Roman emperor Sulla settled about 5,000 Roman veterans and their families in the city. Local inhabitants were displaced, and the city was renamed Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum, indicating its status as a colony.
While Pompeii was not a particularly important town within the Roman empire, it had a population of 10-12,000 and many wealthy Romans built houses there. With easy access to the Mediterranean and proximity to Rome, Pompeii was a hub for trade throughout the empire.
For wealthy Romans, the house was a domus (from which the English word domestic is derived) which featured a one- or two-story building set around an atrium which was open to the sky. The public rooms in the domus were used for social and political occasions.
On August 24, 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius, a volcanoin Italy, erupted. By the end of the day, the Roman port city of Pompeii wascovered by 20 feet of ash and rock. The city lay forgotten until the eighteenth century. Archaeological excavations began in 1748 and are still being done. Almost three quarters of the city has been uncovered and a number of buildings restored. Much of what we know today about the architecture of Roman town houses comes from the excavations at Pompeii
In a recent article in Current World Archaeology, Neil Faulkner reminds us:
“Archaeology has revealed that the Pompeii we see today is an artefact of the last two centuries of the town’s existence. Dig below the Vesuvian level to the relics of the 2nd century BC and you will discover a very different place: a world of small, scruffy, undistinguished houses.”
In her entry on Pompeii in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology,Barbara Ann Kipfer writes:
“Of all the numerous surviving buildings, Pompeii is perhaps most celebrated for its atrium-style private houses, often having fine gardens and decorated inside with elaborate mosaics and mural panels.”
In his section on Rome in The Grammar of the Ancient World, Peter Chrisp reports:
“Houses were inward-facing with blank outer walls, and the light was admitted through roof openings and courtyards. The homes of the wealthy were large and divided between public spaces, where visitors were received, and private living quarters.”
In her book The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, Mary Beard writes:
“Houses built around an atrium, sometimes with the additional peristyle, make up almost half of the housing stock surviving in Pompeii—originally (including a rough estimate about what remains unexcavated) perhaps 500 or so properties out of a total of 1200-1300 ‘habitable units’ in the town.”
The Oregon Museum of Science and Technology(OMSI) in Portland had a special exhibit on Pompeii which included more than200 items on loan from the Naples National Archaeological Museum.
According to the Museum display:
“The majority of Pompeii residents were poor and lived in modest apartments. But homes of the city’s small elite were grand, built around a central inner courtyard and garden.”
An entry hallway (vestibulum) let into an ATRIUM where the owner received guests during the day. Bedrooms were arranged around the atrium. The house combined private family spaces and public areas where the owner met with business associates and other guests. Some houses included a tablinum, a study or library, that doubled as a business reception room.
Romans liked to display their wealth—elegant frescos were painted on the atrium walls to impress guests.”
According to the Museum display:
“Studs, or decorative medallions, were common decorative elements on Roman furniture. It is likely that this stud was originally part of a safe, which would have been kept in the atrium. The bull, an animal-form of the god Jupiter, would have offered protection and scared away potential intruders.”
With regard to furniture, it should be kept in mind that the ash and pumice that destroyed Pompeii also destroyed all wooden items. What remains of the wooden furniture that would have been in the home are the metal parts.
According to the Museum display:
“Roman engineers modernized the Egyptian pin lock invention, providing safety and security for the wealthy citizens of Pompeii. Despite the advancement, Roman locks could only be opened from one side of the door.”
According to the Museum display:
“Roman homes contained few pieces of furniture, but in wealthy homes, most were exquisite. This bronze footrest is intricately carved with spirals and leaves.”
In his book Roman Empire, Nigel Rodgers writes:
“Roman furniture was rather sparse but also surprisingly elegant and comfortable. It certainly surpassed anything Western Europe was to know again for the next thousand years.”
According to the Museum display:
“Romans ate one dish at a time, often served on small three-legged tables that were placed alongside couches. These were often decorated with animal heads or Dionysian themes. This handle of the gorgon Medusa would have made the furniture more mobile.”
For Romans, the main meal of the day was dinner. This was a social event that lasted for hours. The triclinium was the dining room where the rich reclined on couches and were waited on by slaves.
According to the Museum display:
“There were three couches in the dining room, each one big enough to hold three people. Social convention demanded that there were never fewer than three diners, the number of the Graces, the goddesses of charms, beauty, and creativity, or more than nine, the total number of Muses, the goddesses of knowledge and the arts.”
Mary Beard writes:
“The Latin word for dining room, triclinium means literally ‘three couches’, reflecting the common pattern of formal dinners in the Roman world, which involved the participants reclining, three to a couch on separate couches.”
Mary Beard goes on to say:
“The truth is that the majority of the inhabitants of Pompeii only rarely, if ever, dined formally on couches; most houses did not have a triclinium. Even for the richest, with not just one but a choice of triclinia at home, it still might have been an unusual event.”
Lamps
Mary Beard writes:
“And there were literally thousands of lamps, in pottery or bronze, plain and ornate, with single or multiple flames, hanging, on tall stands, or simply made to rest on the floor or table. In general, they ran on oil; though recent chemical analysis has pointed to an unexpected refinement. Oil mixed with tallow was regularly burned in bronze lamps, pure oil in unglazed pottery.”
In their book The British Museum Concise Introduction to Ancient Rome, Nancy Ramage and Andrew Ramage report:
“Every lamp has to have at least two holes: one for the wick and one for filling the lamp with oil as well as allowing the air to flow through. Most lamps have two holes for air, and some have more than one wick.”
More about Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome: Death in Pompeii
Ancient Rome: Food in Pompeii
Ancient Rome: Theater in Pompeii
Ancient Rome: Glass Bottles (Photo Diary)