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

"Boys" (pueri) here describe children who were attendants at meals; the term puer contains
inherent ambiguity in its meanings of "boy" and "slave". For families in which free children were
expected to wait at table as part of their daily chores, the meanings overlapped slightly (Figs.
1.23-1.25). 205 In the context of meals, puer usually means "slave"; young and handsome slave
boys were particularly favored to be the dispensers of wine at dinner, and were sometimes
subject to sexual service as a result. 206
Gender
A consistent division in family food preparation according to gender does not appear in
the sources. Most authors describe poor, rustic or archaic households, in which simple foodstuffs
prepared by matrons exemplify the moral soundness of households according to literary
convention. 207 Columella claims that in the past, men worked outdoors and in public, and
domestic chores fell to women until they became 'lazy' and these duties fell to the housekeeper;
part of Columella's intent is to decry the current laxity in work and morals. 208 From the quasi-
historical past of Rome, Plutarch cites a treaty with the Sabines that forbad the new wives of the
Romans from grinding grain or baking bread. According to Pliny, however, women at Rome
baked their own bread until 174 B.C. 209 Juvenal sketches a picture of a veteran's pregnant wife in
the mid-second century B.C. making porridge (puls) for her children. 210
205 According to Varro (Non. 156); Dixon 1992, 117 & n.95; Wiedemann 1991, 154; Fröhlich 1991, 222-229. In
the majority of sculpted or painted scenes of banquet from the Roman world that include children, they
seem to be slaves. See the tomb of Iulia Velva from York, Dixon 1992, Pl.15; painted panels of triclinium
scenes from the Casa del Triclinio (V.2.4) at Pompeii. One panel depicts a (perhaps free-born, as identified
by the angustus clavus along his tunic) boy serving the adults in the company of slave-boys (Figs. 1.23); two
others show only slave-boys (Figs. 1.24-1.25). See also the painted panel depicting two male diners, a young
woman and a child from room (d) of VI.14.29 at Pompeii, Collezioni 1989, 170-171, #341; sarcophagus
showing children playing with a dog underneath the funerary banquet couch of the deceased, Salza Prina
Ricotti 1983, Fig. 106; funerary relief of C. G. Materno from Cologne, Dosi & Schnell 1986a, 113; a painted
panel showing women and men at banquet being served wine by a boy, Fröhlich 1991, Taf. 21.2.
206 D'Arms 1991, 173, with refs.
207 For example, Ov. Med. 16-17 and Hor. Epod. 2. 39-48 describe Sabine matrons of old preparing the
cooking fire, among other chores; Ov. Fast. 4.697-698 describes the varied household tasks of an archiac
country home; Mart. 12.18 travels to the countryside (and hence back to an idyllic, rustic time) to witness his
bailiff's wife putting pots on the fire. See also Hudson 1989, 70-77.
208 Col. 12.praef. Columella in this passage is stressing what he thought women were not suited to do (i.e.
work outdoors and engaging in public business). Maurin 1983 agrees, claiming that female work
traditionally included the baking of bread, the preparation of meals, and the maintenance of the house.
Berry 1994 has emphasized the administrative role of the woman of the house, particularly over the slaves
who actually operated the household.
209 Plu. Moralia 284F, Plin. Nat. 18.107. Hor. S. 1.4.36-38 pictures old women or slave-boys making trips to
get bread from the bakery or water from a fountain. Purcell 1994, 664 describes this point as a change
between high status baking bread at home, and baking as a low-status trade.
210 Juv. 14.166-172.
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