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

In the Egyptian hall, the columns that run along each side of the room support open-air
balconies which cover the side aisles. Directly above the lower colonnades at the second story
balcony level are secondary colonnades of reduced size; the open spaces between their columns
essentially form clerestory windows that illuminate the room. At Herculaneum, room (5) of the
Casa dell'Atrio a Mosaico (IV.2) fits the description of an Egyptian hall very closely, except that
pillars are substituted for columns (Fig. 2.36). 198
Servius implies that, in the fourth century A.D., basilica was considered to be a synonym
for cenatio and triclinium. 199 The word basilica is usually understood as a spacious multi-story
public building with a double colonnade forming a nave and two aisles on the interior. It is this
formal similarity, and perhaps the relatively large size of such a room in the house, that lead
Vitruvius to compare an Egyptian oecus to a basilica. Vitruvius' observation was not only
insightful, but prophetic. By the late 4th-mid 6th c. A.D., as Ellis points out, "The most important
movement in Roman housing ... is the absorption of a variety of public functions into the houses
of the aristocracy". 200 Ellis locates a number of large rooms in those late houses which he calls
"audience chambers", which appear to have served the function of basilicae by holding public
affairs within the private house. It is reasonable to postulate that large dinner-parties were held
in these chambers, and that they were known colloquially as "basilicas"; this would explain
Servius' comment. There is no evidence that triclinia or oeci were known as basilicae in the 1 c.
A.D., but some Pompeian houses possess particularly spacious halls which some scholars have
considered 'basilical' because they could have contained large banquets, receptions, or
meetings. 201 Vitruvius speaks elsewhere of the need for lofty and spacious spaces (comparable
to public buildings) in the private houses of officials and magistrates, because public hearings
and trials are held there. He calls these spaces basilicae:
And those of the highest status, who are involved in politics and the struggle for
office and have to appear in public, must have high and impressive vestibules,
wide courtyards and wide porticoes lined with trees to show off visibly how
important they are. Furthermore, their libraries and basilicas should be built as
magnificently as public ones, since these men often need to preside over public
meetings and cases requiring arbitration or legal judgments in their homes. 202
198Maiuri 1952, 5-8; Maiuri 1958, 280-290.
199Serv. A. 1.698. See above, p. 86, n. 136.
200Ellis 1988, 569. See also Ellis 1991.
201An example is room (18) in the Casa del Menandro at Pompeii (I.10.4) (Fig. 5.163); see Dunbabin 1991,
124, and Tamm 1963, 144.
202Vitr. 6.5.2-3: nobilibus vero, qui honores magistratusque gerundo praestare debent officia civibus, faciunda sunt
vestibula regalia alta et peristylia amplissima, silvae ambulationesque laxiores ad decorem maiestatis perfectae;
praeterea bybliothecas, basilicas non dissimili modo quam publicorum operum magnificentia comparatas, quod in
domibus eorum saepius et publica consilia et privata iudicia arbitriaque conficiuntur (Loeb text, author's
translation).
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