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

"Whether the host should arrange the placing of his guests or leave it to the guests
themselves" is the subject of a dialogue in Plutarch's Quaestiones Conviviales. 246 Participants
debate how to arrange the guests at table so as to obtain the most pleasant and satisfactory dining
experience without offending anyone's social pride. Plutarch's father is in favor of dinners as
strictly ordered as an army, while his brother Timon argues that dinners should not be contests
for social pre-eminence (and thereby shows himself to be naïvely idealistic). 247 Plutarch himself
pleads for order. But in cases where rivals attended the same dinner, he argues that the place of
honor should harmlessly be afforded to relatives with special personal connection to the host.
The guest Lamprias finally declares that the individual character of each diner must be carefully
considered, and guests should be placed next to others of opposite demeanor, so that each might
learn from the other. None of these procedures is proclaimed preferable in the end. The point of
the dialogue is to show diverse possibilities, and to discuss the difficulties in pleasing all the
participants when their couch positions inherently carry so much social weight. The end goal of
all is to foster a relaxed atmosphere of conviviality and friendship; ironically they cannot agree
on how to go about it. 248 Hosts of formal dinners in nineteenth century England faced strikingly
similar problems:
"The host and hostess circulated discreetly to make sure that the appropriate
gentlemen were paired off with ladies of appropriate status and then arranged in
order of precedence for purposes of the formal promenade in to dinner. This,
since it often involved very tricky questions of status and rank, was probably in
many cases the hostess's most nerve-racking moment during the whole evening,
and, if she were uncertain, she would be well advised to consult Debrett's or
Burke's [published guides to peerages] at this point to get her ranks straight." 249
Knowledge of proper social ordering at banquets was a necessary and powerful tool to run a
successful affair, and if properly wielded, could advance or solidify the status of the host himself.
Slaves cooked and served the free family and guests of wealthy households. Slaves have
been called "the human props essential to the support of upper-class Roman convivial
246 Plu. Moralia 615C-619A: Πότερον αὐτὸν δεῖ κατακλίνειν τοὺς ἑστιωμένους τὸν ὑποδεχόμενον ἢ ἐπ᾿
αὐτοῖς ἐκείνοις ποιεῖσθαι (Loeb translation of the title of the dialogue).
247 Timon does not seem to realize that paying strict attention to rank and person in the order of a dinnerparty
(as Augustus did, Suet. Aug. 74) contributed to the social stability of the state by reminding all the
participants that they should know their place and be content with it (D'Arms 1990, 308). For if (as Plin. Ep.
9.5.3 notes) 'the distinctions of orders and dignity become confused, nothing is more unequal than the
resulting equality.' (paraphrasing D'Arms' 1990, 312 translation). See also D'Arms 1984, 344-348.
248 See D'Arms 1990 for the difficulty in reconstructing a canonical attitude to issues of equality, freedom
and pleasure at a Roman dinner.
249 Pool 1993, 73. The stress of hosting is revealed by Cicero in Att. 13.52 when he concludes, after hosting
Caesar and his retinue at dinner: "But my guest was not the kind of person to whom one says 'Do come
again when you are next in the neighborhood.' Once is enough." (Shackleton Bailey translation).
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