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

to extinguish the living flame. 36 Cold or ruined hearths completely devoid of a spark meant
empty, lifeless houses with dead or absent family members. 37 On the day of the dead when the
spirits of ancestors were honored, no fires on hearths were allowed because fire equaled life, and
the dead could not 'coexist' with the living. The dead ate their food cold and in perpetual
shadow, not in the warm light of a crackling hearth. 38
Active hearths and braziers furnished constant heat during the cold months of winter.
Tibullus depicts a rustic individual "piling large logs upon the blazing hearth", providing
welcome warmth for dinner on a winter day short of light. 39 Varro claims that in times past,
winter meals were taken around the hearth and summer meals were taken in the open:
In winter and on cold (days), people used to eat at the hearth; in summer-time
they would eat in an uncovered place: the chorte (enclosed yard) in the country,
and the tabulinum in the city, which we are able to understand was a verandah
constructed of planks. 40
Wood on a winter hearth provided more ambient heat than charcoal could. 41 However, charcoal
(whether on a fixed stove or portable brazier) was better for cooking because it gave off less
smoke, and the temperature of the fire was more easily controlled. 42
36 Juv. 15.72-93; Luc. 2.126-129; Sen. Thy. 60-62, 145-146, 767-770. Liv. 45.16.5 reports an incident in which
blood was said to have seeped from a hearth for a number of days. The portent was deemed so horrible that
the entire city of Rome had to be purified.
37 Ov. Tr. 1.3.40-45: On Ovid's night of exile from Italy, his hearth is extinctus, and the Lares and Penates
cannot aid him; the fire is out, and the Genius of the household is gone. [Quint] Decl. 12.13.16-18 describes
terrible, widespread death (from famine) in terms of hearth fires being injured and extinguished by fallen
cadavers.
38 Ov. Fast. 2.563-566, referring to Feb. 21st: Di quoque templorum foribus celentur opertis, ture vacent arae,
stentque sine igne foci. Nunc animae tenues et corpora functa sepulchris errant, nunc posito pascitur umbra cibo
(Teubner text).
39 Tib. 2.1.22: ingeret ardenti grandia ligna foco (Loeb text). See also Hor. Carm. 1.9; Pers. 6.1.
40 Var. Vita Populi Romani, frg. 29 (Non. p. 83M): ad focum hieme ac frigoribus cenitabant; aestivo tempore in loco
propatulo: rure in chorte; in urbe in tabulino, quod maenianum possumus intellegere tabulis fabricatum (Lindsay
1964 text, author's translation). See Marquardt I, 258, n.3 for an assessment of the etymology of tablinum
given in this passage, and also Mau 1908, 257. Pomp. Porph, Hor. Carm. 3.17.13-16 agrees that country folk
took their winter meals around the hearth after their work was done, citing Verg. G. 1.371, Ecl. 5.70 as
supporting evidence.
41 For wood as the fuel for a focus, see: Mart. 1.49, 3.58, 8.40, 9.61; Ov. Fast. 4.741; Ov. Nux 177; Plin. Nat.
12.81; Tib. 2.1.21; Var. L. 6.66; Var. R. 1.15; Verg. Ecl. 7.48, G. 1.174, 3.377. Stoves and ovens also used wood,
often in the form of branches and sticks (cremia): Cato, Agr. 37; Col. 12.19.3. Plin. Nat. 19.18 also claims that
the discarded hulls of flax make good tinder for ovens.
42 Plin. Nat. 35.89.6 is the only written source that describes the type of fuel on a foculus; it is extincto carbo, or
charcoal. However, Cato, Agr. 38.4 and Plin. Nat. 16.23 both discuss the production of charcoal as fuel for
larger stoves and kilns. Archaeological sources are clear; braziers and stoves at Pompeii were often found
with charcoal intact on their top surface, signs of their recent use (Salza Prina Ricotti 1978/80, 240).
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