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

idicules the social system that encourages patrons to act like kings, clients to act like slaves, and
slaves to act like mules. The literary sources may be biased against picturing cooking in the
dining room because cooking in elite households was done by slaves, and slaves were generally
not worth discussing unless they were part of a philosophical, moral, social or political point.
Water, drainage, fires and smoke
Cooking procedures required substantial quantities of water for cooking, cleaning, and
cutting the wine served at table. Water sources for Pompeian houses fall into four categories: 1)
a private well, 2) water gathered from the roof and stored in cisterns underneath the house, 3)
water piped into the house via a public aqueduct, and 4) water carried by hand from a local
public fountain (itself supplied by the aqueduct). 84 Houses with atria and peristyles had a
greater opportunity to gather water from their roofs, while small shop-houses used public
fountains. Private water lines from the city's water-towers were not necessarily restricted to the
richest households, but were usually unavailable to the poorest, unless they were attached
illegally. Frontinus speaks of illegal aqueduct connections to the smallest and poorest of homes:
"We have found irrigated fields, shops, garrets even, and lastly all disorderly houses fitted up
with fixtures through which a constant supply of flowing water might be assured." 85 At
Herculaneum, twelve houses had conduit pipes connected to the aqueduct; these include large
houses like the Casa dell'Atrio a Mosaico (IV.1-2), but no shop-houses or houses smaller than the
Casa Sannitica (V.1-2). 86 The situation at Pompeii is not as well-known because no consistent
excavation and publication of private water lines has been carried out. It is therefore not possible
to draw any firm connections between a private piped water supply and the socio-economic
status of households at Pompeii.
For the disposal of waste water, some kitchens with paved floors were equipped with
holes in the base of a wall that served as drains. Sometimes the floor itself was sloped so as to
channel waste water over the floor to wash it at the end of the day. 87 The drain itself led either
directly to the open street outside or to a small sewer under the sidewalk. 88 Kitchen drains
84 Wells were not common at Pompeii because of the great depth (20-35 m.) of the watertable. Water
collected in cisterns from the roof was the most common method of water retrieval until construction of the
Augustan aqueduct. For water systems at Pompeii, see Laurence 1994, 42-50; Crouch 1993, 176-189; Jansen
1991; Andersson 1990; Scobie 1986, 422-424; Larsen 1982; Eschebach 1979b, c, 1982; Mygind 1917.
85 Fron. Aq. 1.76.2: inriguos agros, tabernas, cenacula etiam, corruptelas denique omnes perpetius salientibus
instructas invenimus (Loeb text and translation).
86 Jansen 1991, 154-155.
87 Salza Prina Ricotti 1978/80, 244-246.
88 The nature and extent of the city-wide drainage and sewer system of Pompeii has not been thoroughly
investigated (Mygind 1921, 270; Scobie 1986, 400 n. 4 with refs.), but see Crouch 1993, 186-188 for a useful
general summary.
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