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

Cenatio, cenatiuncula
Cenatio is derived from cena, the main meal of the day, and indicates the space reserved
in the house for dinner. 147 It is not the most common word for a dining area, appearing only 24
times in Latin literature, half of those in the works of Pliny the Younger and the younger
Seneca. 148 A cenatio has no prescribed limits on its size or quality of decoration. It may be modica
(modest), cotidiana (everyday), or may even be described as a mica (morsel, crumb). 149 Cenationes
are also described as possessing lofty marble columns, a hypocaust heating system, a high and
elaborately decorated ceiling (perhaps with sliding panels to allow perfume or flowers to rain
down upon the guests), or even a revolving roof. 150 Any dining room may be a cenatio,
regardless of its size, description, or accoutrements.
The diminutive cenatiuncula appears twice, once in reference (by Pliny) to a small
artificial grotto used for picnics near Lake Como, and once referring to a double function dining
room/living-room in a letter of Sidonius. 151 It is not clear whether cenatiuncula was in common
parlance in the 1st century A.D. at Pompeii, but its meaning as a dining area is unequivocal.
Small versions of dining rooms with evidence for couches (but not large enough to hold a proper
set of three couches) do appear in the archaeological record. I categorize such small dining
rooms under the term "dinette".
Cenaculum
The term cenaculum originally described the house dining room, and particularly
connoted an upper-floor dining room. Cenaculum was eventually extended to include any upper
floors of a house or tenement block. 152 Varro describes the evolution of its meaning:
They called where they dined the cenaculum, just as such rooms are called even
today at Lanuvium in the Temple of Juno, in the rest of Latium, at Falerii, and at
Cordoba [Spain]. Later, when they began to dine in the upper part of the house,
all rooms of the upper part of the house were called cenacula. 153
147Bek 1983, 105 n.2. The room is named and defined by the function for which it is used.
148Based on a search through all Latin authors using Ibycus, for the string "cenati". Suetonius and
Columella are the only other authors who use the word more than once. The earliest occurrence of the word
is in the first half of the 1 c. A.D.
149modica: Plin.Ep. 2.17.10; cotidiana: Plin. Ep. 5.6.21; mica: Mart. 2.59
150 Lofty marble columns: Juv. Sat. 7.182-183; Sen. Ep. 115.9; hypocaust heating: Sen. Dial. 1.4.9; high and
elaborate ceilings: Sen. Dial. 12.9.2, Ep. 90.9, 90.15; Suet. Ner. 31.2; revolving roof: Suet. Ner. 31.2. Hor. S. 2.8
describes hangings on the walls or ceiling of a dining room which crash down inopportunely during a meal.
151 Plin. Ep. 4.30.2; Sidon. Ep. 2.2.11 (see above, p. 87, n. 142).
152 Sutherland 1990, 3-7; Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 108; Dosi & Schnell 1986b, 12-15.
153 Var. L. 5.162: Ubi cenabant cenaculum vocitabant, ut etiam nunc Lanuvi apud aedem Iunonis et in cetero Latio ac
Faleris et Cordubae dicuntur. Posteaquam in superiore parte cenitare coeperunt, superioris domus universa cenacula
dicta (Loeb text, author's translation).
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