（οἰκία, οἴκησις, οἰκητήριον
, a dwellinghouse; οἶκος
, generally a room; in Homer and the tragedians, δόμος
, but more usually in the plural as a dwelling-house). A house.
One special form of hut appears to have been commonly used by many different races of men
at an early stage of their development. This was a small circular structure made of branches
of trees stuck into the ground in a circle, and then bent inwards till their ends met and
were tied together at the top. This rude frame-work was then filled in by wattled work woven
in and out, and the whole was daubed over with tempered mud or clay. The hut of Achilles,
thatched with rushes (
Il. xxiv. 450
), was probably a dwelling of this sort.
In historic times a survival of this ancient circular form of house existed in the form of
the Prytaneum in Athens and elsewhere, and also in the Athenian Θόλος
, which was built in the newer part of Athens as an adjunct, in a more
convenient position for the use of the Prytanes. The Tholus was a round building with a
conical roof, and must have had some resemblance to the Roman Temple of Vesta, to which the
same name was frequently applied. The original Temple of Vesta was a round hut formed with
wattle-work of osiers (Ovid,
Fast. vi. 261
foll.; Fest. p. 250 M.).
Even during the imperial period in Rome one or more wattled huts were preserved in memory
of the primitive dwellings of its founders. One of these, which stood at the western angle of
the Palatine Hill, was known as the Casa Romuli
); it was twice burned and repaired during the reign of Augustus (Dio Cass. xlviii. 43
, and liv. 29
Tugurium Faustuli is probably another name for the same thing. Another hut, also called after
Romulus, appears to have been
preserved on the Capitoline Hill (Vitruv. ii. 1; Contr.
A careful representation of this early form of house, as used by the prehistoric Latin
race, exists in the small sepulchral “houseurns,” which are found in
considerable numbers in the early cemeteries of central Italy and elsewhere. These curious
pieces of archaic pottery have small movable doors fixed with a wooden peg. See Virchow,
Die italienischen und deutschen Haus-Urnen (Berlin, 1884)
During the many centuries which elapsed before the commencement of the historic period of
Greece, a state of society existed very different from that with which Greek literature has
made us familiar. Instead of large cities, a number of small, highly fortified towns or
villages were ruled in an autocratic way by some chieftain of semi-Oriental habits, who lived
in a style of much luxury and splendour, surrounded by a group of followers, very much like
those of a mediæval feudal lord. At this early period wealth and splendour, which
in historic times were devoted to the more public uses of the agora, the council chamber, and
the temples of the gods, were lavished on the palace of the chief. It is this period that is
celebrated in the Homeric poems which, there is every reason to believe, give us a faithful,
if highly coloured, picture of the magnificence which adorned the dwellings of wealthy
chiefs, such as Alcinoüs and, in a lesser degree, Odysseus. The recent discoveries
made by Dr. Schliemann and Dr. Dörpfeld, within the massive walls of Tiryns (the
of Homer), have for the first time
shown us that the stately and richly decorated palaces of the Odyssey
wholly the offspring of a poet's fancy. See Tiryns
II. The Homeric Palace of Odysseus
The palace of Odysseus, as depicted in the Odyssey
, may be taken as
representing the Homeric house. It has been most clearly described by Prof. Gardner, of whose
valuable paper in the Quarterly Review (January, 1886)
follows under this head is practically a summary.
The Homeric house consisted of three parts:
, the fore-court; δῶμα
, the hall of the men; and
, called in later times γυναικωνῖτις
, the apartments of the women. The house was entered by massive
folding-doors (θύραι δικλίδες
), and on either side were
stone seats (ἑδραι
). The doors led into the αὐλή
, or open court-yard, which was used as a kind of farm-yard. On
either side and behind were chambers (θάλαμοι
) used for
various purposes, such as grinding the corn (
Od. xx. 105
), and sometimes for sleeping in (
Od. xix. 48
). In one corner of the court was the θόλος
, a circular building. In the midst of the court was the altar of Ζεὺς ἑρκεῖος
. In the court were two colonnades or porticoes, each
, one on either side right and left of the
court-yard (αἴθουσα αὐλῆς
), and the other opposite the
entrance to the court-yard and along the front of the δῶμα
. The latter is often considered as part of the
, so that αἴθουσα
are often used as synonymous terms. Crossing
, the visitor passed into the μέγαρον
, where the chiefs
lived. At either end of the μέγαρον
was a door, one leading
into the court-yard through the αἴθουσα
, and the
other into the women's apartments, the θάλαμος
, properly so
called. In front of either door was a threshold (οὐδός
probably raised. The threshold in front of the door into the μέγαρον
was made of ash-wood, and the threshold in front of the door into the
women's apartments was of stone, λάϊνος οὐδός
Od. xx. 258
), a distinction which is most important for understanding
the combat between Odysseus and the suitors. By the ashen threshold was the δουροδόκη
, or spear-stand, close to one of the pillars (
Od. i. 128
). The μέγαρον
was of great
size. In the palace of Odysseus the three hundred suitors of Penelopé feasted in
it. Its height was that of the house itself, and its roof was supported by lofty pillars
). In the upper part of the μέγαρον
was the ἐσχάρα
, or hearth, where the
food was cooked (
Od. xx. 123
), and the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, as in
the old Roman atrium.
Besides the two principal doors of the μέγαρον
already mentioned, there was a third, or postern-door,
, the position of which has given rise to
much dispute. It should, however, probably be placed, for the reasons given by Gardner and
Jebb, on the side of the μέγαρον
, as shown in the plan
(Plan, 6), leading into the λαύρη
Od. xxii. 128 Od., 137
), or narrow
passage which gave access to the women's apartments from the outer court-yard, thus avoiding
the necessity of passing through the μέγαρον
The women's rooms, or θάλαμος
, properly so called, also
styled μέγαρα γυναικῶν
Od. xxii. 151
), were immediately behind the μέγαρον
on the ground-floor, directly communicating with the latter by a door.
This is clear from the whole narrative in the Odyssey
of the combat between
Odysseus and the suitors. The passages proving this have been critically examined by Prof.
Jebb in the essay quoted below. (Cf.
Od. xvii. 506 Od., xx. 389
, etc.; see
also iv. 718.) Here the women sat engaged in weaving and domestic occupations. Here was the
nuptial chamber, with the marriage-bed made by Odysseus with his own hands (
Od. xxiii. 192 Od., 295
ordinary sleeping and other rooms of the women were in the upper story (ὑπερώϊον
), which was reached by a ladder, κλίμαξ
Od. xxi. 5
Od. ii. 358 Od., iv. 760
Il. ii. 514 Il., xvi. 184
ad Od. i. 328
, p. 1420, 53). Hence we find Penelopé, after
sleeping with Odysseus in the nuptial chamber, ascending with her handmaids into the upper
Od. xxiii. 364
). It is therefore a mistake on the part of some modern
writers to describe the women's rooms as situated only in the upper story. In the women's
rooms was the armory (θάλαμος ὅπλων
Od. xxii. 140 Od., 151
-156), and the
treasury at the further extremity (θάλαμος ἔσχατος
a high roof (
Od. xxi. 8
). In the women's part of the house there was also an open
court, in which grew an olive-tree in the palace of Odysseus (
Od. xxiii. 190
For further details regarding the Homeric house, reference may be made to Gardner,
Journ. of Hellenic Studies
, iii. p. 264 foll.; Jebb, ib. vii. p. 170 foll.;
Dörpfeld, in Schliemann's Tiryns (London, 1866)
Winckler, Die Wohnhäuser der Hellenen (Berlin, 1868)
Protodikos, De Aedibus Homericis (Leipzig, 1877)
De Aedibus Homericis (Giessen, 1884)
. Valuable accounts of the
architecture and other arts of the Homeric period are given by
Helbig, Das homerische Epos (1876)
, and by Buchholz,
Die homerischen Realien (Leipzig, 1883-85)
III. The later Greek House
The discoveries of recent years have shown that bricks made of unbaked clay were very
extensively used down to quite late times for the private houses of the Greeks, and this is
one reason why examples of Hellenic domestic architecture are so very rare. Burnt bricks were
first introduced by the Romans (Blümner, Technol. u. Terminol.
ii. p. 11). Till quite recently very few remains of Greek houses were known to exist. The
excavations, however, made in the Greek city of Naukratis in the Egyptian Delta during
1884-86 by Messrs. Flinders Petrie and Ernest Gardner have brought to light remains of a
large number of Greek streets and
Plan of a Greek House at Naukratis in Egypt.
houses, all built of sundried brick, coated with painted stucco. The accompanying
figure shows part of Mr. Petrie's discoveries: A is a single house forming a complete insula
, as the Romans would call it; it consists of six rooms, with what was
probably a small central open court. B B appear to be shops. C C are narrow streets. In this
Greek city the streets seem all to be very narrow, and the insulae
mostly very small—in many cases, like the figured example, consisting of one house
only. Though but very scanty remains were found of the unbaked-brick walls, yet in a few
places patches of painted stucco on the exterior were found in situ.
Though walls of this sort would last very well so long as they were roofed over and protected
by their coating of hard stucco, yet when once they had fallen into a ruined state the
process of decay would be rapid and complete, even in Egypt, and of course much more so in a
more rainy climate.
The other more important examples of Greek domestic architecture which have yet been
discovered are some houses in the Piraeus, the foundations of which were exposed in 1884
during the laying out of a new street by the municipality. (See Dr. Dörpfeld, in
Mittheil. d. deutsch. archäol. Inst. in Athen
, vol. ix. no. 3,
1884.) The figure shows a reduction made from Dr. Dörpfeld's plan.
On the southeast and southwest sides the block faces upon streets; it appears to be a
Plan of a Greek House discovered in the Piraeus.
house, though this is not quite certain, owing to the impossibility of ascertaining the
positions of all the doors. On the northwest side remains were found of a large open
peristyle, apparently derived from the αὐλή
of the earlier
Hellenic plan; under the covered porticus of this cloister an altar was found, probably
dedicated to Zeus Herkeios. On the southeast side the house was entered through a long
shallow porch, with two columns, in which stood another altar, probably that of Apollo
Agyieus. This porch led into a small open court, surrounded on three sides by a covered walk
). The pavement of
this was laid so as to drain into an open gully, through which the rainwater escaped into a
drain. In one corner of the court was a well, and on the other side a stone cistern for
storing water; a second cistern stood in the room adjoining the open court on the northwest.
Some remains of paving were found, as is indicated on the plan. In one room it consists of
stone flags; in another of a sort of rude mosaic, formed of pebbles set in concrete. On the
southwest side are some rooms which were entered directly from the street, these may have
been shops or public offices. Traces of a staircase leading to an upper floor were found at
one end of the room with the flagging pavement. This block measures, without counting the
large peristyle, about 140 feet by 75 feet. The clear open space of the peristyle was about
68 feet wide; its other dimension was not discovered. It is possible that this block may have
been all part of the same house— one portion being the ἀνδρωνῖτις
, or men's part, and the rest the γυναικωνῖτις
, or women's part.
During the most flourishing period of Greece the private houses appear to have been small
and simple in design; splendour of materials and ornament were reserved for the temples of
the gods and the public buildings, such as the Agora and the great στοαί
, which in Athens especially contributed so largely to the architectural
magnificence of the city. The front of the house towards the street was not large, as the
apartments extended rather in the direction of its depth than of its width. In towns the
houses were often built side by side, with party walls between (ὁμότοιχοι οἰκίαι
). The exterior wall was plain and often covered with plaster
or stucco. Sometimes, as in Tanagra, the exterior was adorned with what was probably
terra-cotta ( Dicaearch. p. 245, Fuhr). Plutarch says that Phocion's house was ornamented
with plates of bronze (Plut. Phoc. 18
Unbaked clay, as we have already shown, was used for the walls; thus it was easy for the
Plataeans to break through the party walls of their houses, so as to communicate with each
other. For the same reason the burglar was called τοιχωρύχος
, because he found it easier to obtain an entrance into houses by
breaking through the soft walls than by the door or windows (De Leg.
Foreigners were specially struck by the mean appearance of the private houses of Athens in
the time of Pericles, as strongly contrasting with the splendour of the public buildings
(Thuc. ii. 14
, Thuc., 65
“A stranger,” says Dicaearchus, “might doubt upon a sudden view
whether this were really the city of Athens,” so mean were the houses and crooked
and narrow the streets. It was not till the time of Demosthenes that good houses began to be
built in Athens.
In all cases the country houses must have been much finer buildings than
those in the old cities, where streets were narrow and sites often very cramped (Isocr.
20). Thucydides (ii. 14) speaks of the preference of the Athenians for
houses in the country. See Villa
The plan and whole arrangement of town and country houses would naturally be absolutely
different, and it is unreasonable to suppose that one fixed type of house was used by the
Greeks. Existing remains show us that the Roman houses had as many varieties of plan as we
have now, and yet many archæologists have written as if there was one stereotyped
plan of house used in classical times. The somewhat pedantic language of Vitruvius (vi. 7,
10) on the subject has tended to support the belief in the existence of one fixed type of
Greek house, but at his date, in the reign of Augustus, archæology was practically
an unknown science, and it may reasonably be suggested that the so-called Greek plan of
Vitruvius does not represent the domestic architecture of the bygone days when the Greeks
were an independent race, but rather Vitruvius's private notion, as a practising architect,
of a house to be built for some wealthy Roman in the revived pseudo-Hellenic style which
began to be popular in the reigns of the early emperors of Rome.
Nevertheless, many of Vitruvius's statements may be of great use in illustrating difficult
passages in older Greek writers, which treat of some details in the Hellenic house,
especially when the description is compared with some of the existing Roman dwellings, which
are evidently designed to some extent after a real or supposed Greek model.
Greek houses had three principal features in common. First, there were one or two open
courts, surrounded by the various rooms. Secondly, in a Greek family the women lived in
private apartments allotted to their respective use. Hence the house was always divided into
two distinct portions, already mentioned—the Andronitis (ἀνδρωνῖτις
), or men's apartments, and the Gynaeconitis (γυναικωνῖτις
), or women's apartments. Thirdly, the Gynaeconitis was, as a
general rule, in larger houses behind the Andronitis, and on the same floor as the latter
Much difficulty has been occasioned in the arrangement of a Greek house by the statement of
Vitruvius (vi. 7 ) that the principal entrance led at once into the Gynaeconitis, and
that the Andronitis therefore was behind the women's rooms, or rather, if we construe his
words strictly, by their side. But such an arrangement is alike inconsistent with the careful
state of seclusion in which the Greek women were kept, and also with the positive statements
of the writers of the period. It is very likely that Vitruvius misunderstood to some extent
the descriptions given by his Greek authorities, and has assigned to the Gynaeconitis the
arrangement of the Andronitis.
The plan below of the ground-floor of a Greek house of the larger size, with two courts or
peristyles, is taken, with slight alterations, from Guhl and Koner. It is of course
conjectural, but it will serve for the probable
further we cannot go) of the Greek house at the period we are speaking of. Other plans,
differing very much from this, have been given by several modern writers; but this appears on
the whole the most consistent with the ancient authorities. In smaller
Plan of a Greek House. (Guhl and Koner.) EntranceA. -hall. B. Peristyle of the
Andronitis. a. Altar of Ζεὺς
ἑρκεῖος. C. Andron, or dining-hall. b.
ἑστία. K. Peristyle of the Gynaeconitis. H. Rooms of the
Andronitis. F. Perhaps sanctuaries of the θεοὶ κτήσιοι
and θεοὶ πατρῶοι. D. Thalamos. E. Amphithalamos. G. Rooms
of the Gynaeconitis, for working in wool and other purposes. I. Rooms of the Andronitis,
and in some houses perhaps shops opening to the street. 1. Πρόδομος, and farther back, street-door, αὔλειος
θύρα. 2. Door between the men's and women's rooms, μέσαυλος or μέταυλος θύρα. 3. Garden-door,
houses the Gynaeconitis was much more limited, having no open court, and in some
cases was restricted to the upper story.
Some other matters connected with a Greek house require notice.
1. Upper Stories.
When there was an upper story (ὑπερῷον, διῆρες
seldom extended over the whole space occupied by the lower story. The principal use of the
upper story was for the sleeping apartments, both of the family and of the slaves. Houses
rarely had more than two stories; but in later times we find in the larger towns mention of
houses with three stories (τριστέγη
, Artemid. iv. 46
; Acts, xx. 8, 9). The access to the upper floor seems to have been
sometimes by stairs (ἀναβαθμοί
) on the outside of the
house, leading up from the street, as was the case at Rome (Aristot.
Oec. ii. 5
, p. 1347 Oec., 5
). The upper
story was sometimes let, or used for lodging guests (De Venef.
14). But in
some large houses there were rooms set apart for the reception of guests (ξενῶνες
) on the ground-floor.
Portions of the upper story sometimes projected beyond the walls of the lower part,
forming balconies or verandas (προβολαί, γεισιποδίσματα
Pollux, i. 81), like the Roman maeniana.
The roofs were generally flat, and it was customary to walk about upon them, as on the
at Rome (adv. Simon.
389), or to pass from one house to another (Demosth. c.
p. 609.53). But highpitched roofs were also used, covered with tiles
, Pollux, i. 81).
For particulars, see Ianua
. In the interior of the house the place of doors
was sometimes supplied by curtains (παραπετάσματα,
), which also hung between the pillars of the peristyle. They were
either plain, dyed, or embroidered (Pollux, x. 32; Theophr. 5).
Aula of Greek House. (Von Falke.)
The principal openings for the admission of light and air were in the uncovered peristyle
and perhaps in the roofed part of the peristyle; but it is incorrect to suppose that the
houses had no windows (θυρίδες
), or at least none
overlooking the street. They appear to have been chiefly in the upper story, and in ancient
works of art women are represented looking out of them (Thesm.
These were called ἀπόπατοι, ἄφοδοι
, or κοπρῶνες
. Their position is nowhere expressly indicated, but they
were probably, as in Roman houses (see below), in proximity to the kitchen.
Artificial warmth was procured by little portable stoves (ἐσχάρια,
) or chafing-dishes (ἀνθράκια
.) It is often supposed that the chimney was
altogether unknown, and that the smoke escaped through an opening in the roof; but it
is not easy to understand how this could be the case when there was an upper story. The
mentioned by Herodotus (viii. 137) was not
really a chimney, but only an opening in the roof. But the κάπνη
of Aristophanes (
) seems to have been really a chimney, as it is described by
the Scholiast on the passage as pipe-shaped (σωληνοειδής
In any case, the chimney seems to have been used only in the kitchen (ὀπτάνιον
, Alexis ap.
Athen. ix. p. 386 b).
The decorations of the interior were very plain at the period to which our description
refers. The floors were mere plaster. At a late period coloured stones were used (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 184
). Mosaics are first
mentioned as introduced under the kings of Pergamus. The walls, up to the fourth century
B.C., seem to have been only whitewashed. The first instance of painting them is that of
Alcibiades (In Alcib.
17)—an innovation that met with considerable
opposition (Xen. Mem. iii. 8.10
Oecon. ix. 2
). Plato mentions the painting of the walls of houses as
a mark of a τρυφῶσα πόλις
A). These allusions prove that the practice was not uncommon in the time of Plato and
Xenophon. We have also mention of painted ceilings at the same period, and at a later period
this mode of decoration became general.
8. Letting and Price of Houses.
There was a great deal of speculation in the building and letting of houses at Athens
Oecon. iii. 1
). A distinction was made at Athens between the οἰκία
, which was a dwelling-house for a single family, and the
, which was adapted to hold several families—like the Roman insula.
were let mostly to foreigners who came to Athens on business, and especially to the μέτοικοι
, whom the law did not allow to acquire real property, and
who therefore could not purchase houses of their own. Pasion, the banker, had a
lodging-house valued at 100 minas (Demosth. c. Steph.
i. p. 1110.28). Two
counting-houses are mentioned by Isaeus (De Hagn. Her.
42) as yielding a
return of rather more than 8 1/2 per cent. interest on the purchase-money. But this probably
was much below the average. The summer season was the most profitable for the letting of
houses, when merchants and other visitors flocked to Athens. The rent was commonly paid by
the month. Lodging-houses were frequently taken on speculation by persons called ναύκληροι
Harpocrat.), who made a profit by underletting them, and sometimes for not very reputable
purposes (Isaeus , De Philoct. Her.
19). Boeckh has given an account from the
ancient writers of the prices of houses at Athens, which seem to have been very small. They
varied from 3 minas ($54) to 120 minas ($2160), according to their size, situation, and
condition, from 30 to 50 minas ($540 to $900) being an ordinary price (Boeckh, Publ.
Econ. of Athens
, pp. 65, 141; Staatshaush.
i. p. 84).
For further details regarding the Greek house, see the commentators on Vitruvius;
Schneider, Epim. ad Xen. Mem.;
Hirt, Die Lehre der
, pp. 287-289; Stieglitz, Archäol. d.
, vol. ii. pt. 2, pp. 150-159; Krause, Deinokrates
, p. 488
foll.; Winckler, Die Wohnhäuser der Hellenen (Berlin,
; Becker-Göll, Charikles
, ii. p. 105 foll.;
Hermann-Blümner, Griech. Privatalt.
p. 143 foll.; Guhl and Koner,
Leben d. Griech. u. Röm.
p. 95 foll., 5th ed.); Laloux,
L'Architecture Grecque (1888)
IV. The Roman House
The earliest dwellings of the Latins on the Palatine Hill were probably mere huts of
mud-daubed osiers, like the hut of Romulus, which was preserved as a sacred relic for many
centuries. After the burning of Rome by the Gauls, the city was rebuilt in haste, with very
narrow streets and on no regular plan (Liv.v. 55
). Even the houses
of the richest citizens were small and of inexpensive materials, such as unburnt brick or
soft brown tufa. No examples of fired bricks are known in Roman buildings till the time of
Iulius Caesar; and the remarks of Vitruvius seem to refer wholly to crude or sun-dried
bricks, of which no examples in Rome have survived to modern times. Down to the beginning of
the last century of the Republic, Romans of rank continued to live in small houses. In B.C.
125, the censors censured Lepidus, the augur, because he paid 6000 sesterces (about $250) for
his house rent (Vell. Paterc. ii. 10); and Sulla , when a young man, paid only 3000 sesterces
for his rooms on the ground-floor, while a freedman in the upper part of the same house paid
only 2000 sesterces, or $80 (Sall.
The earliest regulation we find respecting houses is a law of the Twelve Tables that each
building should be separated from another by a space of 2 1/2 feet called ambitus
(Fest. pp. 5
, Fest. 11
M.). But this enactment was disregarded, and was again enforced by Nero when he rebuilt the
city (Tac. Ann. xv. 43
; see below). As Rome
increased in population, the houses were raised in height. The insula
in which the lower and middle classes lived, was a building of several stories, let out in
flats or separate rooms to different families or persons. The domus
or aedes privatae
, on the contrary, was a separate house,
in later times a palace, usually with only one story above the ground-floor, the abode of the
rich and great, and inhabited for the most part by a single family; though, as in the case of
the palazzi in modern Rome, parts of them, especially at the back or top of the domus
, were sometimes rented (Plaut.
Trin. i. 2, 157
; Suet. Ner.
7). In the general description of a Roman house our remarks
apply only to the domus
, properly so called, as the insula
was built on an entirely different plan.
is defined by Festus (p. 111, M.) to be
a building not joined by common walls with neighbouring houses, but surrounded by a street,
so that it stood like an island surrounded by rivers or the sea. It was thus, as has been
said, very much like one of the large hotels in modern cities, with one or more courts, and
bounded on all sides by streets, like the Louvre Hotel at Paris. The ground-floor was usually
rented for shops (tabernae
), and the upper stories in flats or separate
rooms, as in continental and American cities at the present day. Such an insula
, containing various tenements and shops, is the house of Pansa at Pompeii,
described below. The number of insulae
at Rome naturally exceeded that
of the domus;
and accordingly we find in the Notitia
which was compiled between A.D. 334 and 357, that there were at Rome 44,171 insulae
and 1782 domus
ii. p. 120). To the same effect Suetonius, in describing the fire at Rome under Nero, speaks
of the “immense number” of insulae
that were burned,
in addition to the palaces (domus
) of the nobles (Suet. Ner. 38
). Becker and some other writers
erroneously suppose that a single floor or a separate room in such a house was also called
, but the proper name for such a separate lodging was cenaculum
, ii. p. 221).
It was apparently usual for an insula
to have been built on
speculation, and let by the proprietor to different occupants (Plut.
; Mart.iv. 37
). Hence the stories
or separate rooms were called cenacula meritoria
7; Juv.iii. 234
) or conducta.
some shops, which he let (Ad Att.
xiv. 9). The rent (pensio
) at Rome was considerable, even for a miserable garret (Juv. iii. 166
, Juv. 3.225
). Poor persons in the time of Iulius
Caesar appear to have paid 2000 sesterces ($80 or $85) as the usual rent (Suet. Caes. 38
). Caelius was said to have paid 30,000 sesterces (about
$1200) for the rent of a third floor in the insula
of P. Clodius, though
Cicero says the real rent was only one third of this sum (
Cael. 7, 17
). The insularii
were not the
occupants of the insulae
, but the agents who had charge of the insulae
and collected the rents. They were also called procuratores insularum.
appears to have been named
after the person to whom it belonged. Thus we find in inscriptions the insula Arriana
, the insula Sertoriana
, etc. (Orelli, 4324).
The upper stories and the separate rooms of the insula
were, as we
have already said, called cenacula.
This word properly signifies rooms
to dine in; but after it became the fashion to dine in the upper part of the house, all the
rooms above the ground-floor were called cenacula
v. 162). There were different flights of stairs connecting the upper stories with
the lower part of the house, as we find to be the case in houses at
Pompeii. Sometimes the stairs had no connection with the lower part of the house, but
ascended at once from the street (Liv. xxxix. 14, 2
xxi. 62, 3
). As the different stories could not
all be lighted from openings in the roof, as in the domus
, they had
windows looking out into the street (Liv.i. 41Liv., xxiv. 21
). They also had sometimes balconies, supported by brackets,
projecting into the street, from which an occupant could shake hands with his next-door or
opposite neighbour (Mart.i. 86
). These balconies were called maeniana
, and the same name was also given to the stories which projected
over those below, as we see in some old houses in England (Fest. p.
; Fest. 22
, M.; Isid. xv.
3, 11; Vitruv. v. 1, 2). Projecting stories were
forbidden in A.D. 368 to be erected in Rome (Ammian. Marcell. xxvii. 9, 8) on account of the
narrowness of the streets, and were again forbidden by the emperors Honorius and Theodosius
unless there was an open space, in some cases of ten, in others of fifteen feet, clear of any
adjacent building (Cod. Iust.
viii. 10, 11). Such a projecting story is seen
in some of the Pompeian houses.
Maenianum, or Projecting Story. (Overbeck, |
We find mention of a house three stories high in B.C. 218 (Liv.xxi.
); and Martial considered the third story, where he
lived, as very high. If we were to estimate the height of the Roman houses by the way in
which they are spoken of by the ancient writers, we should probably assign to them too many
stories; for the houses, as Friedländer observes, very likely appeared higher than
they really were in consequence of the narrowness of the streets. We have no express mention
of any houses more than four stories high; but from various circumstances we may infer that
some of the houses at Rome had a larger number of stories than are expressly mentioned. Thus
Augustus limited the height of houses to seventy feet, which implies that they had been built
still higher, and Cicero describes the houses as hoisted up and suspended in the air
ii. 35, 96). See Friedländer, Sittengesch.
, i. p. 5 foll.
The houses let for hire were in Rome, as in modern cities at the present day, badly
built by speculators. The upper stories were of wood (tabulata,
) and frequently fell down, while their material made them more liable to
fires, which were very frequent in Rome. Catullus speaks ironically of the advantages of a
beggar, who had nothing to fear from fire or the fall of houses. The returns from house
property in Rome were large, but people feared to invest in it on account of fires (Gell. xv. 1
). The inundations of the Tiber also caused the fall of
houses. For further details, see Friedländer, i. p. 26 foll.
It was not, however, till the reign of Nero that a complete reform was effected in the
arrangement and construction of the houses and streets of Rome. Nero had a new and elaborate
Building Act drawn up, which required fire-proof materials, such as peperino
, a hard volcanic stone, to be used for the external walls of houses. He also
enacted that each building should have separate walls and a space (ambitus
) left open all round it. As a means of escape and assistance in the case of
fire he also caused arcades or colonnades to be built at his own expense in front of the insulae.
In Trajan's reign the limit of height for street houses was fixed
at sixty feet (Aurel. Vict. Epit.
13). The emperors Antoninus and Verus again
made an ordinance about the space to be left round the insulae
viii. 2, 14).
We now turn to the history and construction of the domus
, or mansion of the great and wealthy. It was not till the last century of the
Republic, when wealth had been acquired by conquests in the East, that houses of any
splendour began to be built; but it then became the fashion not only to build houses of an
immense size, but to adorn them with marble columns, paintings, statues, and costly works of
art. They covered a large space, most of the rooms being on the ground-floor. The spacious
, being open to the sky, did
not permit an upper story, which, if it existed, must have been confined to the sides of the
building, and could not have been very high, as otherwise it would have darkened the atria
These splendid mansions were
erected for the most part on the hills and along the slopes of the Palatine, on the side near
the Forum, which was the favourite quarter for the Roman nobles. In later times the various
palaces of the emperors swallowed up almost the whole of this site.
The house of the orator L. Crassus on the Palatine, built about B.C. 92, was the first
which had marble columns. For this, Crassus was severely blamed, and the stern republican M.
Brutus nicknamed him the “Palatine Venus.” This house was valued at
6,000,000 sesterces (about $240,000); but Pliny says that it yielded in magnificence to the
house of Q. Catulus on the same hill, and was much inferior to that of C. Aquilius on the
Viminal. The house of Catulus had a fine colonnade (porticus
with the spoils of the Cimbric War. It was near the house of Cicero, as a portion of the
colonnade was destroyed when Clodius razed the house of Cicero (Val. Max. vi. 3.1).
In B.C. 78, M. Lepidus, for the first time in Rome, used the rich Numidian marble not only
for columns, but even for the thresholds of his doors; yet the fashion of building
magnificent houses increased so rapidly that the house of Lepidus, which in his consulship
was the first in Rome, was thirty-five years later eclipsed by a hundred
others. Lucullus was especially celebrated for the magnificence of his houses. The Romans
were exceedingly fond of marble for the decoration of their abodes. An advance in costly
magnificence was made by the ædile M. Aemilius Scaurus in the middle of the first
century B.C. He purchased the house of L. Crassus and greatly enlarged it. He introduced, as
the supports of his atrium, columns of the black “Lucullean” marble no
less than thirty-eight feet in height, and of which the weight was so great that he had to
provide security for an indemnity in case of injury that might be done to the main sewers
while these immense blocks of marble were being carted through the streets (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 5
foll.). This house was sold
to Clodius for nearly 15,000,000 sesterces (about $600,000)—a price, says Pliny ,
worthy of the madness of kings. This is the highest price recorded in the time of the
Republic for a house. The consul Messalla bought the house of Autronius for 3,400,000
sesterces (about $140,000), and Cicero the house of Crassus (not L. Crassus, the orator) for
3,500,000 sesterces (about $140,000) (Ad Att.
i. 13, 6, with Tyrrell's note;
v. 6). Cicero's house was on the lower slope of the Palatine towards
, the official residence of Iulius Caesar as Pontifex Maximus, whom
Cicero calls his neighbour (Ad Fam.
v. 6, Ad Att.
These houses will serve as samples of the value of the mansions of the nobles during the
Republic. Sallust speaks of them as like cities in size (
), and Seneca describes them in the same terms under the Empire
Ep. 90 Ep., 43
), when the imperial
palaces became still more magnificent. Many of them, like the houses of Sallust and Maecenas,
described below, were surrounded by gardens. The rich noble, we are told, was not content
unless he had a rus in urbe
), and the extensive pleasure-grounds are
alluded to in other passages.
According to Vitruvius, the principal parts of a Roman house were:
- 1. Vestibulum,
- 2. Ostium,
- 3. Atrium,
- 4. Alae,
- 5. Tablinum,
- 6. Fauces,
- 7. Peristylium.
The parts of a house which were considered of less importance, and of which the
arrangement differed in different houses, were:
- 1. Cubicula,
- 2. Triclinia,
- 3. Oeci,
- 4. Exedrae,
- 5. Pinacotheca,
- 6. Bibliotheca,
- 7. Balineum,
- 8. Culina,
- 9. Cenacula,
- 10. Lararium or Sacrarium,
- 11. Diaetae,
- 12. Solaria,
- 13. Cellae.
We shall speak of each in order.
There has been much dispute respecting the exact signification of this word, which has
arisen from the different meanings attached to it at different periods of history and in
different kinds of houses. In the palaces of the nobles the vestibulum
was a vacant space before the house, forming a court-yard or entrance-court, surrounded on
three sides by the house, and open on the fourth to the street. The two wings ran out beyond
the façade of the building, and the door was in the third side opposite the
street. In some houses the projecting sides were occupied by shops opening into the street.
In the vestibulum
the clients assembled, till the door was opened, to
pay their respects (salutatio
) to the master of the house, so that they
might not be left standing either in the street or within the house (Gell. xvi. 5.3Gell. , 8
; vestibulum, quod est
, Varr. L. L.
vii. 81; Macrob. vi. 8.15). Hence in the
smaller houses in Rome and the municipal towns, there was either no vestibulum
, so that the door opened straight upon the street, or the vestibulum
was simply indicated by the door standing back a few feet from the
street, as in many of the houses at Pompeii. Sometimes there were steps from the street
leading up to the vestibulum
). In the houses of the nobility the vestibulum
was adorned with statues, arms, and other trophies (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 7
). Public buildings also had
, as the curia or senate-house (Liv. i.
48Liv., ii. 48
), and various temples (Plin. Ep. 86
was the entrance to the house, and is constantly used as
synonymous with ianua
door.” But ostium
properly signified the small vacant space
before the ianua
, whence Plautus (
Pers. v. 1, 6
) says ante ostium et ianuam.
stood the antae
(q. v.), two posts or pillars flanking the doorway. On
the threshold the word Salve
was frequently wrought in mosaic, as we see in
the Pompeian houses; and over the threshold there sometimes hung a cage containing a magpie
or a parrot, taught to greet those who entered (Petron. 28
; Mart.vii. 87, 6
; xiv. 76). Over the door a few words of good omen
were sometimes written, such as nihil intret mali
7287), or deprecatio incendiorum
(Plin. H. N. xxviii. 20
). Sometimes the house was
indicated by a sign over the door, as in mediæval times. Thus we are told that
Augustus was born ad Capita Bubula
), and Domitian, ad Malum Punicum
(Suet. Dom. 1
). The street-door itself is fully
described under Ianua
Whether the street-door opened into a hall or directly into the atrium
has been a subject of dispute. Vitruvius mentions no entrance-hall in a Roman
house; but there are reasons for believing there must have been an entrance-hall in the
palaces of the nobility, as behind the door there was a small room (cella
) for the house-porter (ostiarius
), and it is difficult to suppose that this was in the atrium
), especially as a dog was kept by his
side, chained to the wall, with a written warning Cave Canem
iii. 2, 169). Sometimes a dog was painted on the wall (Petron. 29
) or wrought in mosaic on the pavement, as we find in the
House of the Tragic Poet at Pompeii. (See illust. p. 296.) At the end of the hall, which
seems to have been called ostium
, there was no inner door, as Becker
describes, but the entrance to the atrium
was closed by a curtain (velum
), which was drawn aside by the usher when he admitted strangers to an
interview (Lamprid. Alex. Sev.
14; Plin. Ep. 20
). The entrance-hall was small, so that
a person in the atrium
could look through it at those walking in the
The first point to be determined in connection with the atrium
which the whole disposition of a Roman house depends, is whether the atrium
and the cavum aedium
denote two separate courts or one and the same. Some modern writers maintain that they were
distinct courts, and accordingly place three courts in a Roman house—first the
, then the cavum aedium
in the centre, and
lastly the peristylium
in the rear. But this view cannot be maintained;
it is rejected by the best modern authorities; it is in direct opposition to the statements
of Varro (L. L.
v. 161) and Vitruvius (vi. 3 and 8), who call
Restoration of the Interior of Roman House. (Overbeck,
sometimes the chief room of the house atrium
and it is contradicted by the fact that no houses in
Pompeii have yet been discovered containing more than two courts —namely, the atrium
and the peristylium.
We may therefore conclude
that the atrium
and the cavum aedium
same room, the only difference perhaps being that cavum aedium
indicated originally the open part, and atrium
the entire area; but in
general the two words are used as synonymous. The atrium
or cavum aedium
was a large room or court roofed over, with the exception of
an opening in the centre, called compluvium
, twoards which the roof
sloped so as to throw the rain-water into a cistern in the floor, termed impluvium
(Varr. 1. c.; Fest. p. 108, M.; Liv. xliii. 13,
; Plaut. Amph. v. 1, 56
). The water
from the impluvium
flowed into a well (puteus
under ground; for before the construction of the aqueducts the Romans were dependent upon
wells for their supply of water. The word impluvium
, however, is
sometimes employed in a wider sense to denote the whole uncovered space in the atrium
, and therefore the opening in the top as well as the cistern at the
bottom (Act. in Verr.
i. 23, 61, with the note of Pseudo-Ascon. p. 177, Or.).
in like manner is sometimes used in the same wide signification
as equivalent to impluvium
). The compluvium
was sometimes covered
with hangings, as a protection against the sun (Ovid,
Met. x. 595
). The breadth of the impluvium
according to Vitruvius, was not less than a quarter nor greater than a third of the breadth
of the atrium;
its length was in the same proportion according to the
length of the atrium.
Vitruvius (vi. 3) distinguishes five kinds of atria
or cava aedium
, which were called by the following names:
- a. Tuscanicum. In this the roof was supported by four beams,
crossing each other at right angles, the included space forming the compluvium. This kind of atrium was the most ancient of all.
- b. Tetrastylum. This was of the same form as the preceding,
except that the main beams of the roof were supported by pillars, placed at the four
angles of the impluvium.
- c. Corinthium was on the same principle as the
tetrastyle, only that there were a greater number of pillars around the impluvium, on which the beams of the roof rested.
- d. Displuviatum had its roof sloping the contrary way to the
compluvium, so that the water fell outside the house instead of
being carried into the impluvium, and was carried off by gutters.
- e. Testudinatum was constructed in the same way as the displuviatum, but it was roofed all over and had no compluvium. We are not informed, however, how light was admitted into an atrium of this kind.
, as we have already seen, was originally the only room of
the house, serving as sitting-room, bedroom, and kitchen, which it probably continued to do
among the lower classes even in later times (Serv. ad
Verg. Aen. i. 726Verg. Aen., ix. 648
). Here was the focus
, or hearth, which
served not only for cooking, but from its sacred character was used also for the receptacle
of the Lares or Penates that were sometimes kept in little cupboards near the hearth (Plaut.
Aul. ii. 18, 15
; Tibull. i. 10, 20; Juv. viii.
; Petron. 29
). The Lar, or tutelary god of the house,
stood close to the entrance behind the door leading into the atrium
Fast. i. 136
foll.); and we find him so placed in some of the
Pompeian houses. Near the sacred flame the members of the family took the common meal, and
the same custom continued in the country even in the time of Augustus (Hor. Sat. ii. 6, 65
foll.). In the atrium
master of the house kept his arca
(q. v.), or money-chest, which was
fastened to the floor. Here stood the nuptial bed (lectus genialis
against the back wall, opposite the entrance to the atrium
, whence it
was also called lectus adversus
). Here sat the mistress of the house, spinning and weaving with her maids (Liv. i. 57, 9
). Here all visits were paid
and here the patron received his clients (Plin. Ep.
i. 5, 31
). Here the corpse was placed before
it was carried out to burial. (See Funus
.) Here, in
, were placed the waxen imagines
of the ancestors of the house.
But as wealth increased, and numerous clients came to wait upon their patron, new rooms
were built, and the atrium
ceased to be the only room for the family. A
) was made for cooking; the Lares
were placed in a special lararium;
the meals were taken in the upper
story, hence called cenaculum;
the master and mistress slept in a
As the atrium
now became the
reception-room, it was fitted up among the wealthy with much splendour and magnificence for
the reception of their clients. The opening in the roof was enlarged for the admission
Section of a Roman House. (From Von Falke's |
Hellas und Rom.）
of more light, and was supported by pillars frequently made of costly marble.
Between the pillars and along the walls, statues and other works of art were placed
i. 23, 61). In the middle of the impluvium
marble fountain, with jets of water, frequently adorned with reliefs, of which many
beautiful specimens have been found at Pompeii. Near the fountain, where the hearth formerly
stood, was a marble table, called cartibulum
(q.v.). The atrium
, however, still continued, as in ancient times, to be the chief room of the
house, and it was not only the room for the reception of guests, but its primitive character
was preserved by its retaining the symbolical nuptial couch (Plin.
Ep. i. 1, 87
), the imagines
of the ancestors, and the instruments for weaving and spinning.
The rooms which opened out of the atrium
were lighted only through
, as there were no windows, as a general rule, upon the
, wings, were two small quadrangular apartments or recesses
on the left and right sides of the atrium
(Vitruv. vi. 4), but at its
farther end and open to the atrium
, as we see in the Pompeian houses.
Here the imagines
were kept in the houses of the nobles. But as the
were really a part of the atrium
, the imagines
were frequently described as standing in the atrium
Plin. H. N. xxxv. 6
Fast. i. 591
; Marquardt, Privatl.
was in all probability a recess or room at the farther
end of the atrium
opposite the door leading into the hall, and was
regarded as part of the atrium.
It contained the family records and
archives (Vitruv. vi. 4 and 8). It appears, from the houses of Pompeii, to have been
separated not by a door, but simply by a curtain or velum
, while it had
a door at the back leading into the peristylium.
that the tablinum
was originally an alcove made of wood (whence its
name) built at the back of the atrium
, in which meals were taken during
the summer, and was afterwards joined to the atrium
by breaking through
the walls of the latter.
With the tablinum
the Roman house appears to have originally ceased,
the sleeping-rooms being arranged on the upper floor. But when the atrium
and its surrounding rooms were used for the reception of clients and other
public visitors, it became necessary to increase the size of the house, and the following
rooms were accordingly added:
was a passage by the side of the tablinum
, which passed from the atrium
to the peristylium
, or open court, as we see in the Pompeian houses. We must not suppose,
however, that the plural indicates two passages (Vitruv. vi. 4).
was in its general form like the atrium
, but it was one third greater in breadth, measured transversely, than in
length (Vitruv. vi. 4); but we do not find these proportions preserved in the Pompeian
houses. It was a court open to the sky in the middle; the open part, which was surrounded by
columns, had a fountain in the centre, and was planted with flowers, shrubs, and trees
forming a viridarium.
were the two important parts of a Roman house.
The arrangement of the rooms leading out of the peristylium
are next to be noticed, varied, as has been remarked, according to the taste and
circumstances of the owner. It is therefore impossible to assign to them any regular place
in the house.
, bed-chambers, appear to have been usually small. There were
for the day and night (cubicula diurna
, Plin. Ep. i. 3
latter were also called dormitoria
, and were mostly on the upper floor
v. 6, 21). Vitruvius (vi.
7) recommends that they should face the east for the benefit of the rising sun. They
sometimes had a small ante-room, which was called by the Greek name of προκοιτών
, in which the cubicularius
, or valet, probably
slept (Plin. Ep. ii. 17Plin. Ep., 23
). In some of the Pompeian houses we find a recess in which the bed
was placed. This recess was called zotheca
, dining-rooms, are treated of in a separate article. See Triclinium
, from the Greek οἶκος
spacious halls or saloons borrowed from the Greeks, and were frequently used as triclinia.
H. N. xxxvi. 184.
) They were to have the same proportions as triclinia
, but were to be more spacious on account of having columns, which
had not (Vitruv. vi. 5). Vitruvius mentions four kinds of
) The Tetrastyle
, which needs no further
description. Four columns supported the roof.
) The Corinthian
, which possessed only
one row of columns, supporting the architrave (epistylium
), cornice (corona
), and a vaulted roof.
) The Egyptian
, which was more splendid and more
like a basilica than a Corinthian triclinium.
In the Egyptian oecus
, the pillars supported a gallery with paved floor, which formed a
walk round the apartment; and upon these pillars others were placed, a fourth part less in
height than the lower, which surrounded the roof. Between the upper columns windows were
) The Cyzicene
) appears in the time of Vitruvius to have been seldom used in Italy.
These were meant for summer use, looking to the north, and if possible facing gardens, to
which they opened by folding-doors. Pliny had oeci
of this kind in his
, which appear to have been in form much the same as the oeci
, for Vitruvius (vi. 5) speaks of the exedrae
connection with oeci quadrati
, were rooms for conversation and the
other purposes of society (De Nat. Deor.
i. 6, 15). They served the same
purpose as the exedrae
in the Thermae and Gymnasia, which were
semicircular rooms with seats for philosophers and others to converse in. See Balneae
(f, g, h) Pinacotheca, Bibliotheca
, and Balineum
), are treated of in separate articles.
, the kitchen.—The food was originally cooked in
, as has been already stated, but the progress of refinement
afterwards led to the use of another part of the house for this purpose. In the kitchen of
Pansa's house, of which a restoration is given below, a stove for stews and similar
preparations was found, very much like the charcoal stoves used in the present day. Before
it lie a knife, a strainer, and a kind of fryingpan with four spherical cavities, as if it
were meant to cook eggs.
Culina, or Kitchen, in Pansa's House.
In this kitchen, as well as in many others at Pompeii, there are paintings of the Lares
and Penates, to whom the hearth in the atrium
was sacred, and under
whose care the kitchen was also placed (Arnob. ii. 67). In the country the meals were taken
in the kitchen, as they were in ancient times in the atrium
6). The kitchen was in the back part of the house, and in connection with it was the pistrinum
, or bake-house, where bread was baked at home (Varr. ap.
Non. p. 55, 18); but after B.C. 171
there were public bake-houses in Rome. (See Pistor
.) In Pompeii have been found sinks of kitchens, called confluvia
Non. p. 544,
20) or coquinae fusoria
(Pallad. R. R.
In close and inconvenient proximity to the kitchen was the latrina
or privy, in order that a common drain might carry off the contents of both to the cloaca
or public sewer (Varr. l. c.; Colum. x. 85; cf. Plaut.
iv. 4, 24; Suet. Tib.
i. c. 17, p. 15). In many of the Pompeian houses we find the
contiguous to the kitchen, as is shown in the annexed cut from
Culina and Latrina in the House of Sallust. (Gell, |
of On the right are two small arches, which are the kitchen stove. On the left is
an arched recess, which is the latrina.
At the bottom is the mouth of a
pipe supplying it with water.
, or rooms in the upper stories, have been already
—The Lares or
Penates were originally placed near the hearth of the house in the atrium
, but when the latter became only a reception-room they were removed to a
special chapel, called Lararium
(Lamprid. Alex. Sev.
xiii. 2), in which statues of other
divinities were also placed. Such a chapel is found in the peristylium
of many of the Pompeian houses.
does not denote any particular kind of room, but is a word
borrowed from the Greek (δίαιτα
) to signify a room used for
any of the purposes of life (Plin. Ep. ii.
). Thus it denotes a bed-chamber (Plin. Ep. vi. 16,
), a dining-room (Sidon. Apoll.
Ep. ii. 2
), a summer-house or a room in a garden (Plin. Ep. ii. 17,
7, 1, 66.1; Orelli, Inscr.
4373, etc.). It is
also the collective name of a set of chambers. Thus Pliny speaks (
H. N. v. 6 H. N., 31
) of two diaetae
, in one of which were four bed-chambers and in another three.
, literally a place for basking in the sun, denotes a
terrace on the flat roof of a house, frequently used by the Romans, as is still the case in
Italy and the East (Isid. xv. 3,
12; Plaut. Mil. Glor.
ii. 3, 69; ii. 4, 25; Claud.
In the time of the emperors these solaria
on the tops of houses were
turned into gardens, which contained even fruit-trees and fish-ponds (Plin. Ep. 122
). Somewhat similar were the solaria
built by Nero on the colonnades in front of the insulae
). Sometimes the solaria
were covered by
a roof (Orelli, Inscr.
13. Cellae servorum, familiares
Cellae servorum, familiares
the small bedrooms of the slaves, were usually situated in the upper story, as in the house
of Pansa at Pompeii, or in the back of the house, with the exception of the cella
of the house-porter, which naturally was close to the front door (Colum. i. 6;
Cic. Phil. ii. 27, 67
; Hor. Sat. i. 8, 8
also denoted the store-room, of which there were
several, bearing various names, according to their contents. Of these an account is given
Cellars underground and vaulted are rarely mentioned (hypogea
, Vitruv. vi.  11), though several have been found at
V. Some Existing Remains of Roman Houses
The oldest remains of a house in Rome are those of the Regia, which was the residence of
the Pontifex Maximus and built on the site of the house occupied by Numa. It stood at the
southeast limits of the Forum, adjoining the House of the Vestal Virgins. (See Dio Cass.
xliii. 42, xliv. 17; Gell. iv. 6.
) Another house which is also of
interest from its early date is that known as “the House of Livia” or
“of Germanicus,” which is built in a hollow in the northwestern part of
the Palatine Hill. That it is probably not later in date than the time of Augustus is shown
by the construction of its walls, which are formed of concrete faced with very neat opus reticulatum
of tufa, no brick being used. The figure below shows its
plan, which, owing to the irregularity of the site, is at two different levels, the small
rooms grouped round the staircase F being at a much higher level than the larger rooms by the
the stairs D lead from the atrium
the higher floor behind. The main entrance is at B, approached down a short flight of steps.
C C are pedestals for a statue and an altar; E E are bedrooms; G is a narrow crypto-porticus
, which branches out of H, another dark passage, forming hidden
communications with different buildings on this part of the Palatine. A is a third vaulted
passage which leads to Caligula's palace; this is possibly the path by which Caligula's
murderers escaped when they hid themselves in the house of Germanicus (Joseph. Ant.
xix. 1, 2; Calig.
The paintings in the principal rooms of this house are among the finest examples of Roman
wall decoration that still exist. See Renier, Les Peintures du Palatin.
The floors are formed of marble mosaic in simple geometrical patterns, very neatly fitted
Plan of the so-called House of Livia. Passage. Stairs. C C. Pedestals for statues. D.
Stairs. E E. Bedrooms. F. Stairs. G. Crypto-Porticus. H. Crypto-Porticus. Q. Piscina. J K L
M. Bath-rooms. N N. Shops. O O. Street. P. Early Building.
with much smaller tesserae
than were used under the later Empire.
On the upper floor a long passage, approached by the staircase D, divides the house into
two parts. J K L M seem to be small bath-rooms. N N are shops with no communication with the
house, facing a public street, O O. At P are remains of a very ancient tufa building. Q is a
, which seems partly to have supplied the house with water. A
number of inscribed lead pipes were found, but these were of later date than the house
itself; water was laid on to the upper as well as to the ground floors.
In 1874, remains of a very interesting house of the time of Augustus were found on the
Esquiline Hill, not far from the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore. From its position on the line
of the Servian wall and agger
, it has been called “the House
of Maecenas,” who lived in that quarter, where he converted the public
burial-ground into a large park (Hor. Sat. i. 8,
). One fine room of this house, still well preserved, is of especial interest. It
appears to have been a sort of greenhouse for plants and flowers, and is a large vaulted
chamber, with a semicircular apse at one end. All round the walls are tiers of high steps
once lined with marble, intended to form stands for rows of flower-pots—arranged
exactly as in a modern conservatory. Prof. Mohr (Bull. Inst. Arch.
has pointed out that the cultivation of shrubs and flowers in this way was largely practised
by the Romans. On each side of the hall are six recesses, decorated with paintings of garden
scenes, with fountains among the flowers, treated in a skilfully deceptive way, so as to look
as if each recess were a window opening upon a real garden. The light was admitted only
through openings in the barrel-vault of the hall, on which were paintings of similar floral
subjects—a remarkable example of the theatrical scene-painter's style of decoration
which was popular among the Romans.
The House of Sallust, the historian, was one of the finest houses in Rome. It had, like the
House of Maecenas, extensive gardens, whence the residence was frequently called Horti
Sallustiani. So large were the gardens that the emperor Aurelian, who preferred living there
to the Palatine, erected in them a colonnade 1000 paces long, in which he took horse
exercise. Part of this house still exists in the narrow valley between the Pincian and
Quirinal Hills, near the Porta Collina in the Servian wall. The following figure shows the
plan of the existing remains, which will be soon destroyed by the filling up of the valley
where the building stands to make new boulevards—a most serious loss. The circular
part A is a lofty domed hall; B B is a balconylike gallery, supported on corbels, which runs
round the outside of the main building, at a height of about forty feet above the ground; C
is a fine vaulted room, with two stories over it; D D is a retaining wall, built against the
scarped face of the cliff to keep the crumbling tufa rock from decay; E E are rooms in four
House of Sallust in Rome.
stories, some with concrete and others with wooden floors; F are winding
marble-lined stairs, with mosaic landings, which led to the top of the house and the rooms on
the higher level of the hill. This part is still about seventy feet high. G is another
marble-lined staircase. A great part of the house is still unexcavated. The date of the
existing portion is of the first century A.D., and is evidently part of additions made by the
early emperors. In the sixteenth century an immense quantity of valuable marbles, including
magnificent columns of Oriental alabaster and Numidian stone, were found in the ruins of
Sallust's house and used to decorate several of the churches of Rome.
VI. Pompeian Houses
Though of course less magnificent than the palaces of Rome, the houses of Pompeii, from
their exceptionally perfect state of preservation, are of especial value as examples of Roman
domestic architecture, and have the advantage of being in most cases of known date. Few are
older than the Christian era, and none of course are later than A.D. 79, when the city was
overwhelmed by the eruption of Vesuvius. The existing remains show us, as a rule, only the
ground-floor of each house; and it should be remembered that a number of the best
rooms—especially, there is reason to believe, the bedrooms and the women's
apartments—were on the upper floors. The presence of stairs in apparently all the
houses proves that one-storied buildings were practically unknown in Pompeii; the few
fragments of the upper story which have been found standing show that, in some cases at
Atrium of the House of the Quaestor. (Pompeii.)
upper part of the house was partly constructed of wood, and was arranged so as to
project beyond the line of the lower story, very like the half-timbered houses of England and
France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In one respect the Pompeian arrangement resembled that of mediæval and modern
Italy; that is, the street-front on the ground-floor, even of large and handsome houses, was
usually occupied by a row of shops. In some cases these shops have no doorway or passage
communicating with the main house, and were probably rented by the owner to independent
tradesmen; in others the shops could be entered from the house, and in these cases we may
suppose that the shops were managed by the slaves or clients of the house-owner.
The accompanying plan shows a small shop, to which is joined the residence of its owner,
Plan of House with Shop.
forming a small block independent of the adjoining larger house.
- 1. An open archway, in which a wooden shopfront was fitted; the threshold of this
opening is rebated to receive the wooden partition, part of which was hinged so as to form
a narrow door; the upper part would be closed at night by flap-shutters hinged at the top,
an arrangement very like that of a modern Oriental bazaar. This method of constructing
shop-fronts was very common, not only in Pompeii, but in Rome and elsewhere. The presence
of a shop appears always to be indicated by this long grooved sill, with marks of the
hinged door on one side. A large number of examples still exist in Rome. The L-shaped counter
- 2. is formed of concrete and brick stuccoed; in it are inserted a row of amphorae, apparently for the reception of hot food or drink of some kind.
At one end is a charcoal stove
- 3.; 5, 5 are the dining-room and store-room of the shopkeeper; 4 is the staircase
leading to the sleeping apartments. The whole forms a complete house of the smallest
The two illustrations annexed represent two atria
of houses at
Pompeii. The first is the atrium
of what is usually called the “House of the Quaestor.”
The view is taken near the entrance-hall facing the tablinum
which the columns of the peristyle and the garden are seen. This atrium
which is a specimen of what Vitruvius calls the Corinthian, is surrounded by various rooms,
and is beautifully painted with arabesque designs upon red and yellow grounds.
The next illustration represents the atrium
of what is usually called
the “House of Ceres.” In
Atrium of the House of Ceres. (Restoration.)
the centre is the impluvium;
and, as there are no pillars
around the impluvium
, this atrium
must belong to
the kind called by Vitruvius the “Tuscan.”
The three following plans are good typical examples of the best class of houses in Pompeii.
The first is popularly known as “the House of the Tragic Poet.”
House of the Tragic Poet.
Like most of the other houses at Pompeii, it had no vestibulum
according to the meaning which we
Pompeian Mosaic. (Overbeck.)
have attached to the word. The ostium
, or entrancehall, which
is six feet wide, is nearly thirty long—a length occasioned by the shops on each
side. Near the street-door there is a figure of a large fierce dog worked in mosaic on
the pavement, and beneath it is written Cave Canem
, as here shown. The two
large rooms on each side of the vestibule appear from the large openings in front of them to
have been shops; they communicate with the entrance-hall, and were therefore probably
occupied by the master of the house. The atrium
is about twenty-eight
feet in length and twenty in breadth; its impluvium
is near the centre
of the room, and its floor is paved with white tesserae
, spotted with
black. On the left-hand corner of the atrium
is a small room (marked 1
in plan), perhaps the cella
of the ostiarius
a staircase leading to the upper rooms. On each side of the atrium
chambers for the use of the family or intended for the reception of guests, who were entitled
to claim hospitality. When a house did not possess a hospitium
or rooms expressly for the reception of guests, they appear to have been lodged in rooms
attached to the atrium.
At the farther end of the atrium
is the tablinum
, with the fauces
passage, at the side, leading into the peristylium
, with Doric columns
and garden (viridarium
). The large room on the right of the peristyle
is the triclinium;
beside it is the kitchen, with a latrina.
The second illustration contains the groundplan of an insula
surrounded by shops, which belonged to the owner and were let by him. The house itself, which
is usually called the “House of Pansa,” evidently belonged to one of the
principal men of Pompeii. Including the garden, which
Ground-plan of an Insula, known as the House of Pansa.
is a third of the whole length, it is about 300 feet long and 100 wide.
, or entrance-hall, paved with mosaic. Tuscan atrium.
C. Chambers on each side of the atrium
, probably for the reception of guests. D. Ala.
, which is open to the peristylium
, so that the
whole length of the house could be seen at once; but as there is a passage (fauces
), F, beside it, the tablinum
might probably be closed at
the pleasure of the owner. C. Chambers by the fauces
, of which the use is uncertain. G. Peristylium.
in the peristylium.
by the side of the peristylium.
, and by
its side there is a passage leading from the peristylium
to the garden.
M. Back door (posticum ostium
) to the street. N. Culina.
H. Servants' hall, with a back door to the street. P. Portico of two stories, which proves
that the house had an upper floor. The site of the staircase, however, is unknown, though it
is thought there is some indication of one in the passage M. Q. The garden. R. Reservoir for
supplying a tank,
The preceding rooms belonged exclusively to Pansa's house; but there were a good many
apartments besides in the insula
, which were not in his occupation: a.
Six shops let out to tenants. Those on the right and left hand corners
were bakers' shops, which contained mills, ovens, etc., at b.
The one on
the right appears to have been a large establishment, as it contains many rooms. c.
Two houses of a very mean class, having formerly an upper story. On
the other side are two houses much larger, d.
VII. General Details of Roman Houses
The wall (paries
) in earlier times was made of some easily worked
stone, such as tufa or peperino in large square blocks; or for the best houses unburnt brick
was used. In the time of Augustus concrete began to be the chief building material, and
later kiln-dried bricks. The inner walls were originally whitewashed (see Dealbatores
), and later were covered with stucco
). The plain surface of the walls was broken by
quadrangular panels, called abaci
H. N. xxxiii. 159
; xxxv. 3Plin. H. N.,
). (See, also, Abacus
.) In the second
century B.C., the practice was introduced from Greece of painting these panels with an
endless variety of figures, landscapes, buildings, gardens, etc., of which we have numerous
examples in the existing remains of houses in Rome and Pompeii. See Pictura
In addition to painting, other methods of decoration were used: in Rome especially the
chief way of ornamenting the rooms of the best houses was by lining the walls with slabs of
sawn marble, moulded into a skirting below and a cornice above. Great magnificence of effect
was produced by the skilful admixture of marbles of different rich colours, the moulded part
being usually of a deeper tint than the flat surfaces. In the most careful work these marble
linings were fastened to the walls by bronze clamps, but more often the slabs were simply
attached by a thick bedding of cement behind them (Plin.
Another very rich method of decoration was the application of stucco reliefs enriched with
gold and colours. A third system, applied also to vaults, was to encrust the walls with
Specimen of Decorative Wall-painting at Pompeii. (Reber.)
chiefly made of glass tesserae
of the most brilliant
jewel-like colours. See Musivum Opus
In fact, splendour of effect and a brilliant ensemble
characteristics of Roman house-decoration from the Augustan era down to later times.
The roofs (tecta
) of Roman houses were in the oldest times covered
with straw. Next came the use of shingles for the roofing of houses, which continued down to
the time of the war with Pyrrhus (Plin. H. N. xvi.
). Subsequently clay tiles, called tegulae
, superseded the shingles. The roofs of houses were sometimes flat, but they
were also gabled (pectenata
) like modern houses. These were of two
kinds, the tecta pectenata
, sloping two ways, and the tecta testudinata
, sloping four ways ( Fest. p. 213, M). Both kinds of roofs were
—that is, sloping towards the
street—and the houses had around
Roof in Peristyle of the House of C. Vibius. (Overbeck.)
them an ambitus
, or vacant space of 2 1/2 feet, to receive
the rain-water running off the roofs. The projecting eaves of roofs were called suggrundae.
The gabled roofs rose to a point called fastigium
(q. v.). For the most magnificent buildings, such as some of the imperial
palaces, the roofs were covered with tiles made of white marble, or even with bronze tiles
plated with gold. For further details, see Tegula
The floor (solum
) of a room was seldom boarded (strata
, Stat. Silv. i. 5,
), except in the upper stories. The floor on the ground-floor was usually of stone,
and, in the case of common houses, consisted of small pieces of stone, brick, tiles, etc.
(ruderatio, opus ruderatum
), beaten down (pavita
with a rammer (fistuca
), whence the word pavimentum
became the general name for a floor (Plin.
H. N. xxxvi. 185
foll.). Sometimes the floors were paved with thin
slabs of richly-coloured marbles, brought from Northern Africa, Arabia, or Greece (Tibull.
iii. 3, 16; Plin. Ep. 86Plin. Ep., 6
; Pallad. i. 9), and still more frequently with mosaics (opus musivum
). See Pavimentum
and Musivum Opus
In Rome and other parts of Italy, owing to the wonderful strength of the pozzolana
, the upper floors of houses were very frequently made of concrete cast in
one great slab on temporary boarding, fixed at the required level. This set into one compact
mass, like a piece of solid stone. On this, mosaic and other paving was laid, as on the
Ceilings were very commonly semicircular or “barrel” vaults (camarae
), decorated with stucco reliefs, mosaics, or painting. (See Camara
.) The extrados
vault was filled in level with concrete to form the floor above. Wooden ceilings and flat
concrete ceilings were decorated in the same way. One common method of ceiling decoration,
applied both to brick and concrete or to wooden ceilings, was to divide the whole area into
a number of deeply sunk panels, like pits or lakes (lacus, lacunae
whence they were called lacunaria
These were richly ornamented, either by stucco reliefs gilt and coloured, or, in the case of
wooden ceilings, by inlaid work of ivory, ebony, or other precious materials as well as by
paintings. In a few cases the “coffers” were covered with enriched
bronze plates, thickly gilt.
The Roman houses had few windows (fenestrae
). The atrium
were lighted, as we have seen, from
above, and the smaller rooms leading out of them generally derived their light from them and
not from windows looking into the street. The rooms only on the upper stories (cenacula
) seem to have been usually lighted by windows, and looked out upon
the street as well as the inner courts. Hence they are frequently mentioned by the ancient
writers (Livy, i. 41Livy, xxiv. 21
Hor. Carm. i. 25
; Propert. iv. [v.], 7, 16;
). In Pompeii, in like manner, the ground-floor
rooms were mostly lighted from the inner courts, so that few lower windows opened on the
street. There is an exception to this in the “House of the Tragic Poet,”
which has six windows on the ground-floor. Even in this case, however, the windows are not
near the ground, as in a modern house, but are six feet six inches above the foot-pavement,
which is raised one foot seven inches above the centre of the street. The windows are small,
being hardly three feet by two; and at the side there is a wooden frame, in which the window
or shutter might be moved backwards or forwards. The lower part of the wall is occu
Pompeian Fenestra or Window. (Overbeck.)
pied by a row of red panels four feet and a half high. The following illustration
represents part of the wall, with the apertures for windows above it, as it appears from the
street. The tiling upon the wall is modern, and is only placed there to preserve it from the
Wall with Apertures for the Windows in a House at Pompeii.
There has been much discussion whether glass windows were known to the ancients; but in
the excavations at Pompeii many fragments of flat glass have been discovered, and in the
of the public baths a bronze lattice was found with some of the panes still inserted in the frame (Gell, Pompeiana
i. p. 99). (See Vitrum
.) Besides glass, other
transparent substances were also used, such as talc, the lapis
of Pliny. Windows made of this were called specularia
(Plin. Ep. 90,
The subject of doors, with their locks and keys, is discussed under Ianua
. It is only
necessary to mention here that many of the rooms in Roman houses had no doors, but only
curtains, vela, aulaea, centones
; Plin. Ep. ii.
; Petron. 7
; Lamprid. Alex. Sev.
14). Sometimes, when there were doors, curtains were also drawn
across them. See Velum
7. The Heating of Houses.
The rooms were heated in winter in different ways. The cubicula,
, and other rooms which were intended for winter use, were built in that part
of the house upon which the sun shone most; and in the mild climate of Italy this frequently
enabled them to dispense with any artificial mode of warming the rooms. Rooms exposed to the
sun in this way were sometimes called heliocamini
(Plin. Ep. ii. 17,
8, 2, 17). The rooms were occasionally heated by hot air,
which was introduced by means of pipes from a furnace below (Plin.
Ep. ii. 17Plin. Ep., v. 6, 24
; Plin. Ep.
), but more frequently in earlier times by portable furnaces or braziers (foculi
Bronze Braziers from Pompeii. (Overbeck.)
which charcoal was burned. (See Focus
, however, was a fixed stove, in which wood appears to have
been usually burned (Vitell.
Sat. i. 5, 81
Ep. i. 11 Ep., 19
vii. 10; Sidon. Apoll.
Ep. ii. 2
). It has been a subject of much dispute among modern
writers whether the Romans had chimneys for carrying off the smoke, except in the baths and
kitchens. From many passages in ancient writers it certainly appears that rooms usually had
no chimneys, but that the smoke escaped through the windows, doors, and openings in the roof
(Vitruv. vii. 3, 4); but chimneys do not appear to have been entirely unknown to the
ancients, as some have been found in the ruins of ancient buildings, and it is impossible to
believe that among a luxurious people like the Romans in imperial times, they were
unacquainted with the use of chimneys.
8. The water supply
The water supply of a good Roman house was very complete; in towns the main usually ran
under the pavement in the middle of the street, and from it “rising
mains” branched off to the houses right and left, and often were carried to the
upper stories, where a cistern supplied the fountainjets (salientes
and other purposes below. For further details on the water-supply, see Aquae Ductus
, ii. pp. 213 foll.; Marquardt,
pp. 208 foll.; Guhl and Koner, pp. 462 foll., 5th ed.; Hirt,
Gesch. d. Baukunst
, iii. pp. 267 foll.; Fergusson, Hist. of
i. pp. 363 foll.; Burn, Rome
, pp. lxvii. foll.;
i. pp. i. foll., pp. 26 foll.;
Ménard, La Vie Privée des Anciens (Paris,
; Zumpt, Ueber die bauliche Einrichtung des röm.
Wohnhauses (Berlin, 1844)
; Mazois, Le Palais de Scaurus
. Although a large number of well-illustrated works on Pompeii have been
recently published, they have by no means superseded the earlier ones, which describe a great
deal that is now lost; this is specially the case with Sir William Gell's valuable
Pompeiana (London, 1824)
; and second part (London,
. The objects discovered are well illustrated by Pistolesi, Real
Museo Borbonico (1824-67)
. Dyer's Ruins of Pompeii
is a convenient hand-book. Niccolini and others, Le Case
di Pompeii (Naples, 1854-84)
, is a valuable work, which gives recent
discoveries. A very splendidly illustrated work is the Recueil des Peintures,
etc., de Pompéi (Paris, 1870-77)
. See also Zahn, Die
schönsten Ornamente aus Pompeji (Berlin, 1827-59)
; Mazois and Gau,
Les Ruines de Pompéi
(Paris, 1824- 38); Ternite,
Wandgemälde aus Pompeji
(Berlin, no date); Presuhn, Les
Décorations de Pompéi (Leipzig, 1878)
; Man's edition
of Overbeck's Pompeji (Leipzig, 1884)
; and Nissen,
Pompejanische Studien (Leipzig, 1877)
. Reference may be made to
the extensive bibliography at the end of the article Pompeii
in this Dictionary. Middleton, in his Ancient Rome in 1888
and Remains of Ancient Rome (London, 1892)
, gives some account of
existing houses in Rome.