KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

friends come for business. Elsewhere, Varro places the kitchen at the front of a country villa (see
above, p. 70). The apparent contradiction may indicate the variety of locations allowed a kitchen,
depending on the season, the location (town or country), or size of the house. The culina is
understood not as a fixed area in the house, but merely wherever the cooking is done (quod ibi
colebant ignem).
The association of the kitchen with other service areas of the house is a better indication
of where cooking is done. Lucilius states: "Situated nearby is a mill, a posticum, a storeroom and
a kitchen". 75 In this fragmentary context, posticum may mean the 'back part of a house', the 'back
door' or the 'back-house' (latrine). Varro implies that the kitchen is proximate to the latrine when
he mentions the gutter that drains kitchen water into the privy. 76 Writers who describe country
steadings (villae rusticae) explain the location of the kitchen relevant to other parts of the farm
such as stables, chicken coops, storage cellars, oil-presses and baths. 77
Sources mention both cooking and eating in the atrium or vestibulum, but rarely associate
eating with kitchens at the back of the house. 78 Columella suggests, however, that a kitchen in a
villa rustica should be spacious, in order that it "may offer a convenient stopping-place for the
slave household at every season of the year". 79 One reason for slaves to gather in the kitchen
may have been eating. So Plautus implies when he has a slave dryly describe a kitchen as a good
place to get tasty treats. In the Persa, a pimp questions a young woman whom he is intent on
purchasing for prostitution:
DORDALUS the pimp: Where were you born?
VIRGO, the maiden: As my mother told me, in the kitchen, the left-hand corner.
TOXILUS, the slave: (to the pimp) She will be a lucky harlot for you; she was
born in a warm place, where there are usually plenty of all good things (to eat)! 80
75 Lucil. 8.326 (Non. p. 217M): pistrinum adpositum, posticum, cella, culina (Loeb text, author's translation).
76 Var. L. 5.118. See below, p. 74, n. 89.
77 Var. R. 1.13.6: "In those days, a steading was praised if it had a good kitchen, roomy stables, and cellars
for wine and oil in proportion to the size of the farm"; Illic laudabatur villa, si habebat culinam rusticam bonam,
praesepis laxas, cellam vinariam et oleariam ad modum agri aptam (Loeb text and translation). Col. 8.3.1-2 and
Vitr. 6.6.1-2, 6.6.4 explain the beneficial or detrimental effects of kitchen heat and smoke on cattle, horses
and chickens.
78 The archaeological evidence offers examples of cooking and dining in a back garden or court of a house,
particularly around a set of outdoor dining couches. See I.10.7 in the study sample. See also the houses
I.13.2 (CTP IIIA, 24-25, Fröhlich 1991, 261, with refs.); I.14.2 (CTP IIIA, 26-27, Jashemski 1979, 94-97).
79 Col. 1.6.3: At in rustica parte magna et alta culina ponetur, ut et contignatio careat incendii periculo et in ea
commode familiares omni tempore anni morari queant (Loeb text and translation).
80 Pl. Per. 630-635: DO. Ubi ubi tu nata es? VI. Ut mihi mater dixit, in culina, in angulo ad laevam manum. TO.
Haec erit tibi fausta meretrix: natast in calido loco, ubi rerum omnium bonarum copiast saepissuma (OCT text,
author's translation). Var. Men. frg. 260 (Non. 237M) describes someone eating in a kitchen, but the context
is unclear: "having nourishment set before him/her, sitting high at another's expense, neither looking
behind nor looking forward, but [looking] sidelong within the limits of the kitchen"; habens antepositam
alimoniam, sedens altus alieno sumptu, neque post respiciens neque ante prospiciens, sed limus intra limites culinae
(Ibycus text, author's translation).
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