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

Varro's comments reveal a concern with keeping a proper matching set of furniture that can be
verified merely by comparison with other dining rooms. Guests expected a similar and familiar
arrangement of couches, so they might know their proper 'place' at table. Varro says that couches
are alike in material, height, and shape, but he does discuss differences in their applied
decoration. It was in the decoration that the owner could demonstrate his financial power or
particular decorative taste, whether in ivory, tortoise-shell, or precious metal inlays for couches,
couch coverings colored by expensive purple dyes, or table settings of silver and gold. 182
The quality of a triclinium in literary descriptions ranged from the 'everyday' to the
extremely elaborate. A triclinia cotidiana is mentioned by Vitruvius in his essay on the Greek
house. 183 The Younger Pliny, in a letter to Caninus Rufus at Comum, speaks of his friend's
triclinia which include rooms for holding a small gathering of a few friends and rooms for a large
dinner-party. 184 Most descriptions of triclinia are phrased in terms of their magnificence.
Manilius compares carved paneled ceilings in temples to ceilings in dining rooms:
Such ornamentation was once reserved for the gods; today it is one of our
extravagances: dining rooms rival temples in splendour, and under a roof of
gold we now take our meals off gold. 185
Triclinia are also described as satis pulcrum (quite lovely), installed on board the pleasure-galleys
of an emperor, set in the shadow of a large plane tree, combined with an aviary, set up in a fruit-
house amongst natural produce, or fitted with sliding ceilings for showers of flowers during the
182 Precious couches: Plin. Nat. 33.144, 33.146, 34.9, 34.14, 37.12-14; Historia Augusta, Antonius Heliogabus
20.4; Var. L. 9.47. Precious couch-coverings: Luc. 10.122-124; Petr. 40.2; Nep. frag. 27 (Plin. Nat. 9.137); Plin.
Nat. 8.196. Precious table-settings: Cic. Ver. 2.4.33, 2.4.62; Rhet. Her. 4.64; Ulp. dig. 13.6.5.14; Petr. 22.3; Petr.
73.5. Among other set-pieces described in dining rooms, Petr. 26.9 mentions a horologium in Trimalchio's
triclinium and Petr. 30.1-5 describes a notice at the doorposts of Trimalchio's triclinium that advertises when
the master is not dining at home. The younger Seneca, Dial. 9.9.5, decries the use of books as decorations in
a cenatio instead of as devices for learning. See also Ransom 1905, 54-61; Richter 1966, 105-109; Pirzio Biroli
Stefanelli 1990, 68-79 for expensive materials and decoration on dining-couches.
183 Vitr. 6.7.2: "Round the colonnades are the ordinary dining rooms, the bedrooms and servants' rooms.
This part of the building is called the women's quarter."; Circum autem in porticibus triclinia cotidiana, cubicula,
etiam cellae familiaricae constituuntur. Haec pars aedificii gynaeconitis appellatur (Loeb text and translation).
184 Plin. Ep. 1.3.1: "Your baths which are full of sunshine all day, the dining rooms for general or private
use, the bedrooms for night or the day's siesta -- are you there and enjoying them all in turn, or are you as
usual forever being called away to look after your affairs?; Quid balineum illud quod plurimus sol implet et
circumit, quid triclinia illa popularia illa paucorum, quid cubicula diurna nocturna? Possident te et per vices
partiuntur? An, ut solebas, intentione rei familiaris obeundae crebris excursionibus avocaris? (Loeb text and
translation).
185 Man. 5.288-292: Haec fuerat quondam divis concessa figura, nunc iam luxuriae pars est: triclinia templis
concertant, tectique auro iam vescimur auro (Loeb text and translation).
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