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

lectus summus niche is sometimes present, and the lectus imus niche is rarely present. Couch
niches are secure indications that dining was carried out or intended to be carried out. 256
The size of couch niches reveals the approximate size of the couches that fit in them.
Couch sizes are the basis of the dimensional parameters that define a 'dining room'. A dining
room is defined as: ' a room designed to hold three dining-couches in the standard !-shaped
arrangement'. The width of the lectus summus and the length of the lectus medius together take up
the width of the room, perhaps with a little room to spare between the couches. Because there
are upper and lower limits to the size of a three-person dining-couch, there are therefore upper
and lower limits to the width of a dining room. I assume that dining rooms with niches were just
large enough to contain their couches, and no more. Dining rooms without niches were
presumably wide enough to hold the couches as they were, without architectural modification.
Some leeway (in this study, up to 0.15 m. is allowed) must have been available for
adjusting the position of the couches slightly. However, the 'dining room' type does not allow for
enough space (as narrow as 0.20-0.25 m.) between the couches and walls for people to walk
through. Whether servants could walk around behind the couches to serve food, wine, or attend
to personal needs of the guests (such as urination) must have affected the service and experience
of a meal. 257 Circumambulation draws the line of definition between the dimensions of the
'dining room' and the 'dining-hall'.
I measured twenty-two dining room couch niches from the study sample in order to
make a proxy calculation of couch sizes. In dining rooms with niches for both the short and long
sides of couches, retrieving the dimensions of the couches was straightforward. Most dining
rooms, however, had a single niche for the short end of the lectus medius. In these cases, the
width of the lectus medius (presumably equal to the width of the lectus summus), was subtracted
from the total width of the room to provide the length of the lectus medius. In this way, the width
of one couch niche provided the dimensions for all of the couches, assuming that all couches
were the same size. 258 The reconstructed couch dimensions are presented in Table 2.1 below:
256 Niches for beds also sometimes appear in cubicula, but those rooms are much too small to hold an
arrangement of three couches. See above, pp. 86-87, n. 141, 145.
257 Vitr. 6.3.10 specifically mentions being able to walk around dining couches in the more spacious oeci
Cyziceni; see above, p. 94, n. 188.
258 Varro L. 9.9, 9.47 takes for granted that dining couches come as a set and are of the same size (see pp. 92-
93, n. 179-181).
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