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

small ovens preceding large ones. 130 Different foods were probably cooked in small versus large
ovens. In bakeries, small ovens are thought to have been used for pastries; the same ovens in
houses however must have had a more diverse role that included baking bread and pastries,
roasting meat, and cooking vegetables. 131
One bakery and three houses of the study sample have small ovens. 132 In two houses
(VII.14. 5+17-19 (20); VII.14.9 (21)), hand mills for grinding grain are associated with the oven
(Figs. 2.32-2.33). In the latter house, the oven is located on the side of the house opposite the
main kitchen with its stove. There is no Latin term that unequivocally applies to small ovens.
Furnus or fornax, the general terms for ovens, may have been used. The tempting diminutive
fornacula, as we saw above (p. 68), is never used in the context of cooking food.
Terminology and typology: dining areas
There is no one-to-one correspondence between the Latin terminology and the
archaeological evidence for dining areas. Literary sources do not precisely and consistently
characterize the architecture, decoration, and furnishings of dining areas. The archaeological
evidence does fit into categories definable by specific architectural or decorative characteristics,
but these categories do not correlate easily or precisely with the literary terms. Each will be
discussed separately; Latin terms that reasonably relate to specific archaeological types will be
suggested in the discussion of those types.
Literary sources for dining rooms
Several different words in Latin describe an area in which dining is carried out. A
summary definition for each of those words is listed below; a fuller explanation follows. 133
130 Frayn 1978, 30.
131 Maiuri 1958, 278, followed by Mayeske 1979, 41. The roasting of meat and vegetables in a furnus is
attested by Apicius (see above, p. 67-68, n. 54).
132 Small ovens in the bakery I.4.13-16 and houses I.4.5+25 (42); VII.14.5+17-19 (20); VII.14.9 (21).
133 The term exedra has been taken by some scholars as another place where dining was done (e.g. Salza
Prina Ricotti 1987, 125), due to Vitruvius' use of the word in the context of his discussion of triclinia and oeci
(Vitruvius VI.3.8). Nevertheless, a search through Ibycus and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae revealed not a
single example in the literature of either eating or dining in an exedra. Rather, these rooms appear to have
been used for siestas, conversation, or simple relaxation, and they have no precise position or form in the
house, as P. Paris has noted: "le mot exedra avait à peu près perdu pour les Latins toute signification bien
précise; il signifiait simplement ue chambre avec des sièges." (Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. "Exedra"). Schmidt-
Colinet 1991 argues that dining took place in the majestic exedrae of Hellenistic palaces. When he extends his
discussion of the exedra duplex (facing, pendant exedrae) to the Roman house, he suggests that the alae that
appear on either side of the atrium in front of the tablinum essentially form an exedra duplex, but does not
proceed to imply that dining went on in those alae. The term exedra is therefore not used in this typology.
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