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

Varro mentions places at home and abroad where the archaic meaning of cenaculum as 'dining
room' survived in his day. But by the first century B.C. in most of Italy, the word no longer
commonly meant dining room. The 3 c. A.D. scholiast Pomponius Porphyrio states that
cenaculum had been replaced by triclinium as the common term for dining room:
He says that new Latin words are able to merit greater authority if they have
been derived from the Greek, just as we have adopted triclinium (whereas
previously we called it a cenaculum, because the dining was done there). 154
One of the earliest instances of cenaculum appears in a fragment of Ennius (early 2 c. B.C.), who
describes the "most mighty cenacula of heaven". 155 Tertullian, the 2-3 c. A.D. source of this quote,
is still aware of both meanings for cenaculum when he tries to explain the passage. Tertullian
postulates that Ennius might have described these chambers either on account of their lofty
nature (cenacula as upper story rooms), or because Ennius had read a passage of Homer in which
Jupiter feasts there (cenacula as dining rooms). Plautus, a contemporary of Ennius, uses the term
to describe an upper-story room. He describes Jupiter residing in the 'attic' of Amphytrio's
house, whence he is able to have access to Amphytrio's wife. 156 Upper story apartments housed
all sorts from the wealthy to the indigent, but they are most commonly associated with the
middle and lower classes. 157 Cenacula could either be attached to a larger ground-floor house or
be separate flats altogether, with their own entrances off the street. 158 Imperial jurists always
used cenaculum in its sense as an apartment. 159
The urban fabric and the economic conditions of Pompeii and Herculaneum differed
greatly from Ostia and Rome. This is no doubt due in great measure to the earlier date of the
archaeological evidence from the Campanian towns and their much smaller size. Many scholars
have assumed that if Pompeii and Herculaneum had survived, the process of urban evolution
would have made these towns look much like Ostia and Rome. 160 However, the multistory
154 Pomp. Porph. Hor. Ars 52-53: Magis, inquit, auctoritatem mereri possunt nova verba, si a Graeco fuerint in
Latinum derivata, ut transtulimus triclinium (antea cenaculum illud vocabamus, qui ibi cenabatur), (text: Hauthal
1864, Vol. II, 652, author's translation).
155 Enn. Ann. 1.57 (Tert. adv. Valent. 7): Ennius poeta - "cenacula maxima caeli" - simpliciter pronuntiavit de elati
situs nomine vel quia Iovem illic epulantem legerat apud Homerum (Loeb text and translation).
156 Pl. Am. 861-864: (IV.) Ego sum ille Amphitruo, quoii est servos Sosia, idem Mercurius qui fit quando
commodumst, in superiore qui habito cenaculo, qui interdum fio Iuppiter quando lubet; (OCT text).
157 Cenacula of some merit: Suet. Aug. 45.1, 78.2, Suet. Vit. 7.2, Var. Men. 589, Vitr. 2.8.17, Petr. 38.10, Mart.
1.108; cenacula of lesser quality: Cic. Agr. 2.96, Fron. Aq. 1.76.2, Hor. Epod. 1.1.90, Juv. 10.18, Quint. Inst.
6.3.64.
158 Liv. 39.14.2 uses the term cenaculum to describe an apartment above the house (of a consul's mother) with
its own entrance onto the street in 186 B.C.
159 Frier 1980, 4-20 has demonstrated how legal sources describe the archaeological evidence for apartment
housing in Ostia and Rome.
160 Sutherland 1990, 2-3; Watts 1987, 21-22; McKay 1975, 81; Harsh 1935, 9-21; Boëthius 1934; Carrington
1933, 133-136. Richardson 1988a, 310 and Dwyer 1991, 30-31, however, disagree.
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