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

himself eat under similar conditions in their presence and be an example
to them of frugality. He should not take his meals reclining on a couch
except on solemn holidays, and he should celebrate festival days by
bestowing largesse on the strongest and most frugal among them,
sometimes even admitting them to his own table and showing himself
also to confer other honours upon them. 126
Columella advises that laborers eat in the controlled company of the bailiff at home, not in town,
where they might find trouble. 127 Dinner is central to the character of the household and all of
its members. By insisting they eat at home, the master retains control of the workers' social
identities, rather than leaving them to shape their own identities at meals elsewhere. The bailiff
is occasionally to reward good workers on holidays by giving them social rewards such as the
right to recline with him at his table. He has the authority to provide honored slaves with
largesse much like a patron would dispense favors to chosen clients, replicating and reinforcing
social distinctions through the medium of a meal.
Holidays by definition supersede the rules that apply on normal days; their occasion
alters the daily social order that normally determines 'who gets to eat and when'. Holidays
provided periodic respite from the normal routine throughout the year, just as the dinner
provided a daily respite for the free family (but not for their slaves!) from labor. The most
important holiday of the year for Roman slaves was the Saturnalia. At that time, the entire social
order was theoretically reversed, temporarily allowing slaves to be 'free', letting them assume the
role of master, or allowing them to be served by their masters at dinner. 128 In practice, not all
masters played out the charade to that extent. Some households reversed only the order of
eating, letting slaves dine first. Other masters permitted but a modicum of equality, or simply let
their servants celebrate alone. 129
126 Col. 11.1.19: consuescatque rusticos circa larem domini focumque familiarem semper epulari atque ipse in
conspectu eorum similiter epuletur, sitque frugalitatis exemplum: nec nisi sacris diebus accubans cenet, festosque sic
agat, ut fortissimum quemque et frugalissimum largitionibus prosequatur, nonnumquam etiam mensae suae adhibeat,
et velit aliis quoque honoribus dignari. (Loeb text and translation). See also Pomp. Porph. Hor. Carm. 3.17.13-16.
127 Columella advises that neither slaves nor their bailiff venture beyond the grounds of the estate,
especially to the town or a market; non urbem, non ullas nundinas (11.1.23); his hopes are that after a long day
of work, they "will turn their attention to food and rest and sleep, rather than to evil doing"; cibo quietique
potius ac somno quam maleficiis operam dabit (11.1.27) (Loeb texts and translation). Columella is describing a
villa, but his comments should apply as well to large urban households, where servants lived surrounded
by opportunities for trouble in the bars and cook shops outside the house.
128 By the Augustan period, the celebration lasted three days, XIV-XVI Kal. Ian. (Dec. 17-19). See D'Arms
1991, 176 for a discussion of slaves at the Saturnalia, including refs: Macr. Sat. 1.7; Lucian Chronos 18.
129 Reversing the order of eating: Macr. Sat. 1.24.23; equality: D. C. 60.19; Athen. 14.44.; alone: Cic. Att.
13.52.2; Plin. Ep. 2.17.22.
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