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

Roman house, Vitruvius mentions how oeci are in general more spacious (spatiosiores) than
triclinia. Furthermore, an oecus Cyzicenus is large enough to fit two sets of three dining-couches
with room to spare. 169 When dining-couches are arranged for a banquet in this sort of room, the
oecus becomes in effect a triclinium. In sum, an oecus appears to be a room of larger dimensions
and of greater architectural elaboration than a triclinium.
Triclinium
Triclinium is by far the most common term for a dining area; it appears primarily in the
works of Petronius, Suetonius, and Vitruvius. 170 The word was derived from the Greek
τρίκλινος, "three couches" (κλίναι), that described the customary number of dining-couches at a
dinner. 171 The sign advertising the Hospitium di P. Sittius at Pompeii (VII.1.44-45) clearly
details the furniture (three couches) in that establishment's dining room:
HOSPITIVM·HIC·LOCATVR
TRICLINIVM·CVM·TRIBVS·LECTIS
ET·COMM(ODIS) 172
Romans adopted the practice of reclining at table from the Greeks, perhaps through the
Etruscans, who seem to have sat at table until ca. the 6th c. B.C., when they themselves reclined
like the Greeks. 173 Only one person (or at best, two) reclined on Greek κλίναι, which measured
ca. 0.90 m. wide and 1.70-1.90 m. long. 174 The Romans adapted reclining at table to a larger
couch (lectus tricliniaris) which held up to three people. Three of these couches would be fit in a
horseshoe pattern around a central table, where the dinner courses were placed (Figs. 1.23-
1.27). 175
The earliest occurrence of the word triclinium dates to the late 3 c. B.C., in a fragment of
Cn. Naevius. 176 It appears again in a late 2 c. B.C. fragment of Lucilius, in which the term means
not just an arrangement of three couches, but a room in which the couches lie. 177 Pliny the Elder
169 Vitr. 6.3.8; oecus Cyzicenus: Vitr. 6.3.10, 6.7.3. For the texts, see below, pp. 94-96.
170 Other authors or works which use the word several times include Cicero, the Younger Pliny and Elder
Pliny, the Historia Augusta, the Elder Seneca, and Varro.
171 Pomp.Porph. Hor. Ars. 52-53; Serv. A. 1.698. See also Marquardt I, 354-355 and Daremberg-Saglio, s.v.
"lectus" and "triclinium".
172 Niccolini II, 41; Della Corte 1954, 171 (#402): "This hospitium is available for rent: a dining room with
three couches and other conveniences" (author's translation).
173 Bonfante 1986, 233-235 gives a clear account of the change in Etruscan custom from sitting to reclining at
banquet, based primarily on a series of tomb paintings beginning in the 7th c. B.C.
174 Dunbabin 1991, 121-122.
175 Johnston1932, 226-229; Mau 1908, 262-264.
176 Naev. palliatae, 81: "Where are you all about to dine, here or in the dining room?"; utrubi cenáturi estis,
hícne an in triclínio? (Ibycus text, author's translation).
177 Lucil. frag. 1107 (quoted in Donat. ad Ter. Eun. 2.3.45): "But some Tiresias, full of years, a lost soul, was
groaning with coughs before the door and the threshold of the dining room"; ante fores autem et triclini limina
quidm perditus Tiresia tussi grandaevus gemebat (Loeb text, 5.228-229 and translation).
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