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

which is normally much smaller on average than a cenatio, Pliny must add the qualifications that
the room is large for a cubiculum, and small for a cenatio. 141 In a fourth century A.D. letter,
Sidonius describes a room in his house which is both a living or sitting-room (diaetam), and a
small dining room (cenatiunculam). 142 Like Pliny, Sidonius explains the double function of the
room by using the diminutive for the dining room. The primary role of the room seems to be
dining; it contains the semicircular dining-couch (stibadium) customary in late antiquity.
I suspect that the function of a room is largely determined not by what the room is called,
but by who is in the room and what they are doing there. 143 In the Satyricon, Eumolpos and his
young charge fall asleep in the dining room because they are too tired to retire properly after a
long day. 144 Dining-couches were larger on average than sleeping-couches, and could easily
have served as makeshift beds. 145 In another instance, the Younger Pliny sets his friends down
in chairs in front of dining room couches and presents a literary reading that lasts for two days;
he turns a dining room into a recital hall. 146
141 M. C. Van Binnebeke has calculated the size of rooms she identifies ascubicula from insula V at
Herculaneum; they seem to have been at smallest 5.1 m 2 , at largest 14.4 m 2 , and on average 8.3 m 2 . (Van
Binnebeke 1991, 141). From the study sample at Pompeii, the twenty-two rooms which can securely be
defined as 'dining rooms' (for the archaeological criteria of which see below, pp. 106-115) were at smallest
11.8 m 2 , at largest 33.4 m 2 , and on average 18.5 m 2 . The size ranges of dining rooms and sleeping rooms
barely overlap, and dining rooms are on the average more than twice as spacious as sleeping rooms.
142 Sidon. Ep. 2.2.11: "From this dining room, we pass to a living-room or small dining room, all of which
lies open to the lake and to which almost the whole lake lies open. In this room are a semicircular diningcouch
and a glittering sideboard...Reclining in this place, you are engrossed by the pleasures of the view
whenever you are not busy with the meal"; ex hoc triclinio fit in diaetam sive cenatiunculam transitus, cui fere
totus lacus quaeque tota lacui patet. In hac stibadium et nitens abacus...Quo loci recumbens, si quid inter edendum
vacas, prospiciendi voluptatibus occuparis (Loeb text and translation).
143 A dining room can hold a large party or a small gathering in Plin. Ep. 1.3.1: quid triclinia illa popularia illa
paucorum (Teubner text).
144 Petr. 85.4: Forte cum in triclinio iaceremus, quia dies sollemnis ludum artaverat pigritiamque recedendi
imposuerat hilaritas longior (Loeb text).
145 A survey of sleeping beds from the furniture of Herculaneum reveals that they measured ca. 1 by 2 m.
(Van Binnebeke 1991, 141). Wallace-Hadrill (1994, 113-114) measured thirty-five niches for sleeping beds,
and found a range of measurements from 0.70-1.60 m. in width, with a mean between 1.20-1.30 m. His
sample probably included double beds as well as single beds. The author's survey of niches for dining
couches at Pompeii reveals an average couch size of 1.23 by 2.44 m. (see below, p. 111). For literary sources
on couch sizes, see Varro, L. 8.32 (below, p. 92, n. 179).
146 Plin. Ep. 8.21.2: "so I chose the most suitable time and place, and to accustom them from now onwards to
being received by a leisured audience in a dining room, I gathered my friends together in the month of July
(which is usually a quiet time in the law-courts) and settled them in chairs in front of the couches."; tempus et
locum opportunissimum elegi, utque iam nunc adsuescerent et ab otiosis et in triclinio audiri, Iulio mense, quo maxime
lites interquiescunt, positis ante lectos cathedris amicos collocavi (Loeb text, B. Radice translation).
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