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

Social topography
Cicero characterized the difference between Greek and Roman practice in terms of their
respective terminology for meals:
The word our ancestors invented for a meal where friends meet was convivium, a
'living together', and they were quite right, because of its essential quality of a
social reunion. The Greek terms 'a drinking together' and 'feasting together' are
less satisfactory since they emphasize what is the least significant aspect of such
occasions. 16
Cicero realized that social interaction was the 'essential quality' of dinner, not the dinner itself.
This commensality, fostering interaction between people, their gods and their environment, was
the central meaning of the evening meal. The repeated prefix con- stresses how dinner brought
the entire household together at a regular time of the day to make, serve and eat the meal. The
dining room was the stage where the diners interacted with at least part of the household staff
that served them.
As we have seen in smaller homes, where cooking and dining areas were close together,
there were few architecturally expressed barriers to free - slave interaction, though this does not
mean, of course, that there were no social or moral boundaries between free and slave. In the
larger homes, dining areas and kitchens were further apart; in the grandest houses, it is not clear
that guests would have had any idea where the kitchen was, because they could not see, hear or
smell whence the food came. The literary and archaeological evidence combine to show that as
wealth, rank and status increased (measured roughly by house size and complexity), the
stratification and specialization of the household increased, and consequently the social distance
between the free family and dependent servants (see Table 4.1 above).
The contextual meaning of the meal therefore shifted from a family gathering in a small
residence to a familia entertaining and impressing outside guests in a large house. Control over
whom the household could invite to witness or participate in the meal increased with socio-
economic status, and the guest list became more exclusive, even as the 'business' of the meal, its
social function, had ever stronger 'public' ramifications. 17 The social axes of differentiation laid
out by Wallace-Hadrill come into clear focus at mealtime: smaller households participated in
humble, public meals, while owners of larger homes put on grand, private meals. 18 I will
16 Cic. Sen. 45: Bene enim maiores accubitionem epularem amicorum, quia vitae coniunctionem haberet, convivium
nominaverunt melius quam Graeci, qui hoc idem tum compotationem tum concenationem vocant, ut quod in eo genere
minimum est, id maxime probare videantur (OCT text, M. Grant translation). Cicero expresses the same opinion
in Fam. 9.24.3 (see D'Arms 1984, 344), and is supported also by Plu. Moralia 69C.
17 See chapter one, pp. 10, 22-24, 40-41, and 50-55 for the 'public' role of private meals.
18 Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 11; see chapter one above, p. 45, n. 193 and pp. 50-56.
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