The Private Life of the Romans Part 8

Vitruvius thought that its length should be twice its breadth, but the ruins show no fixed proportions. The Romans were so fond of the air and the sky that the court must have often served as a dining-room, and Horace has left us a charming picture of the master dining under an arbor attended by a single slave. Such an outdoor dining-room is found in the so-called House of Sall.u.s.t at Pompeii (Fig. 52).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 53. BEDROOM]

--205. The sleeping-rooms (_cubicula_) were not considered so important by the Romans as by us, for the reason, probably, that they were used merely to sleep in and not for living-rooms as well. They were very small and the furniture was scant (Fig. 53) in even the best houses.

Some of these seem to have had anterooms in connection with the _cubicula_, which were probably occupied by attendants (--150), and in even the ordinary houses there was often a recess for the bed. Some of the bedrooms seem to have been used merely for the midday siesta (--122), and these were naturally situated in the coolest part of the court; they were called _cubicula diurna_. The others were called by way of distinction _cubicula nocturna_ or _dormitoria_, and were placed so far as possible on the west side of the court in order that they might receive the morning sun. It should be remembered that in the best houses the bedrooms were preferably in the second story of the peristyle.

--206. A library (_bibliotheca_) had a place in the house of every Roman of education. Collections of books were large as well as numerous, and were made then as now by persons even who cared nothing about their contents. The books or rolls, which will be described later, were kept in cases or cabinets around the walls, and in one library discovered in Herculaneum an additional rectangular case occupied the middle of the room. It was customary to decorate the room with statues of Minerva and the Muses, and also with the busts and portraits of distinguished men. Vitruvius recommends an eastern aspect for the _bibliotheca_, probably to guard against dampness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 54. CHAPEL IN HOUSE]

--207. Besides these rooms, which must have been found in all good houses, there were others of less importance, some of which were so rare that we scarcely know their uses. The _sacrarium_ was a private chapel (Fig. 54) in which the images of the G.o.ds were kept, acts of worship performed, and sacrifices offered. The Lar or tutelary divinity of the house seems, however, to have retained his ancient place in the _atrium_. The _oeci_ were halls or saloons, corresponding perhaps to our parlors and drawing-rooms, used occasionally, it may be, for banquet halls. The _exedrae_ were rooms supplied with permanent seats which seem to have been used for lectures and similar entertainments. The _solarium_ was a place to bask in the sun, sometimes a terrace, often the flat roof of the house, which was then covered with earth and laid out like a garden and made beautiful with flowers and shrubs. Besides these there were, of course, sculleries, pantries, and storerooms. The slaves had to have their quarters (_cellae servorum_), in which they were packed as closely as possible.

Cellars under the houses seem to have been rare, though some have been found at Pompeii.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 55. HOUSE OF PANSA]

--208. The House of Pansa.--Finally we may describe a house that actually existed, taking as an ill.u.s.tration one that must have belonged to a wealthy and influential man, the so-called House of Pansa at Pompeii (Fig. 55; and see also Overbeck's _Pompeii_, p. 325; Harper, p. 549; Becker, II, p. 214; Smith, I, p. 681; Schreiber, LIII, 16; the various plans are slightly different). The house occupied an entire square, facing a little east of south. Most of the rooms on the front and sides were rented out for shops or stores; in the rear was a garden. The rooms that did not belong to the house proper are shaded in the plan here given. The _vestibulum_, marked 1 in the plan, is the open s.p.a.ce between two of the shops (--193). Behind it is the _ostium_ (1'), with a figure of a dog (--195) in mosaic, opening into the _atrium_ (2, 2) with three rooms on each side, the _alae_ (2', 2') being in the regular place, the _compluvium_ (3) in the middle, the _tablinum_ (4) opposite the _ostium_, and the pa.s.sage on the eastern side (5). The _atrium_ is of the _Tuscanic.u.m_ style (--196), and is paved with concrete; the _tablinum_ and the pa.s.sage have mosaic floors. From these, steps lead down into the court, which is lower than the _atrium_, measures 65 by 50 feet, and is surrounded by a colonnade with sixteen pillars. There are two rooms on the side next the _atrium_, one of these (6) has been called the _bibliotheca_ (--206), because a ma.n.u.script was found in it, but its purpose is uncertain; the other (6') was possibly a dining-room. The court has two projections (7', 7') much like the _alae_, which have been called _exedrae_ (--207); it will be noticed that one of these has the convenience of an exit (--202) to the street. The rooms on the west and the small room on the east can not be definitely named. The large room on the east (T) is the main dining-room (--204), the remains of the dining couches being marked on the plan. The kitchen is at the northwest corner (13), with the stable (14) next to it (--203, end); off the kitchen is a paved yard (15) with a gateway into the street by which a cart could enter. East of the kitchen and yard is a narrow pa.s.sage connecting the peristyle with the garden (--202). East of this are two rooms, the larger of which (9) is one of the most imposing rooms of the house, 33 by 24 feet in size, with a large window guarded by a low bal.u.s.trade, and opening into the garden. This was probably an _oecus_ (--207). In the center of the court is a basin about two feet deep, the rim of which was once decorated with figures of water plants and fish. Along the whole north end of the house ran a long veranda (16, 16), overlooking the garden (11, 11) in which was a sort of summer house (12). The house had an upper story, but the stairs leading to it are in the rented rooms, suggesting that the upper floor was not occupied by Pansa's family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 56. SECTION OF THE HOUSE OF PANSA IN POMPEII]

--209. Of the rooms facing the street it will be noticed that one, lightly shaded in the plan, is connected with the _atrium_; it was probably used for some business conducted by Pansa himself (--193, end), possibly with a slave (--144) or a freedman (--175) in immediate charge of it. Of the others the suites on the east side (A, B) seem to have been rented out as living apartments. The others were shops and stores. The four connected rooms on the west, near the front, seem to have been a large bakery; the room marked C was the salesroom, with a large room opening off of it containing three stone mills, troughs for kneading the dough, a water tap with sink, and a recessed oven. The uses of the others are uncertain. The section plan (Fig. 56) represents the appearance of the house if all were cut away on one side of a line drawn from front to rear through the middle of the house. It is, of course, largely conjectural, but gives a clear idea of the general way in which the division walls and roof must have been arranged.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 57. WALL OF ROMULUS]

--210. The Walls.--The materials of which the wall (_paries_) was composed varied with the time, the place, and the cost of transportation. Stone and unburned bricks (_lateres crudi_) were the earliest materials used in Italy, as almost everywhere else, timber being employed for merely temporary structures, as in the addition (--190) from which the _tablinum_ developed. For private houses in very early times and for public buildings in all times, walls of dressed stone (_opus quadratum_) were laid in regular courses, precisely as in modern times (Fig. 57). Over the wall was spread a coating of fine marble stucco for decorative purposes, which gave it a finish of dazzling white. For less pretentious houses, not for public buildings, the sun-dried bricks were largely used up to about the beginning of the first century B.C. These, too, were covered with the stucco, for protection against the weather as well as for decoration, but even the hard stucco has not preserved walls of this perishable material to our times. In cla.s.sical times a new material had come into use, better than either brick or stone, cheaper, more durable, more easily worked and transported, which was employed almost exclusively for private houses, and very generally for public buildings. Walls constructed in the new way (_opus caementicium_) are variously called "rubble-work"

or "concrete" in our books of reference, but neither term is quite descriptive; the _opus caementicium_ was not laid in courses, as is our rubble-work, while on the other hand larger stones were used in it than in the concrete of which walls for buildings are now constructed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 58. METHOD OF CASTING CONCRETE WALLS]

--211. Paries Caementicius.--The materials varied with the place. At Rome lime and volcanic ashes (_lapis Puteola.n.u.s_) were used with pieces of stone as large or larger than the fist. Brickbats sometimes took the place of stone, and sand (--146) that of the volcanic ashes; potsherds crushed fine were better than the sand. The harder the stones the better the concrete; the very best was made with pieces of lava, the material with which the roads were generally paved. The method of forming the concrete walls was the same as that of modern times, familiar to us all in the construction of sidewalks. It will be easily understood from the ill.u.s.tration (Fig. 58). Upright posts, about 5 by 6 inches thick, and from 10 to 15 feet in height, were fixed about 3 feet apart along the line of both faces of the intended wall. On the outside of these were nailed horizontally boards, 10 or 12 inches wide, overlapping each other. Into the intermediate s.p.a.ce the semi-fluid concrete was poured, receiving the imprint of posts and boards. When the concrete had hardened, the frame-work was removed and placed on top of it and the work continued until the wall had reached the required height. Walls made in this way varied in thickness from a seven-inch part.i.tion wall in an ordinary house to the eighteen-foot walls of the Pantheon of Agrippa. They were far more durable than stone walls, which might be removed stone by stone with little more labor than was required to put them together; the concrete wall was a single slab of stone throughout its whole extent, and large parts of it might be cut away without diminishing the strength of the rest in the slightest degree.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 59. WALL FACINGS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 60. BRICK FOR FACING WALL]

--212. Wall Facings.--Impervious to the weather though these walls were, they were usually faced with stone or kiln-burned brick (_lateres cocti_). The stone employed was usually the soft tufa, not nearly so well adapted to stand the weather as the concrete itself.

The earliest fashion was to take bits of stone having one smooth face but of no regular size or shape and arrange them with the smooth faces against the frame-work as fast as the concrete was poured in; when the frame-work was removed the wall presented the appearance shown at A in Fig. 59. Such a wall was called _opus incertum_. In later times the tufa was used in small blocks having the smooth face square and of a uniform size. A wall so faced looked as if covered with a net (B in Fig. 59) and was therefore called _opus reticulatum_. A section at a corner is shown at C. In either case the exterior face of the wall was usually covered with a fine limestone or marble stucco, which gave a hard finish, smooth and white. The burned bricks were triangular in shape, but their arrangement and appearance can be more easily understood from the ill.u.s.tration (Fig. 60) than from any description that could be given here. It must be noticed that there were no walls made of _lateres cocti_ alone, even the thin part.i.tion walls having a core of concrete.

--213. Floors and Ceilings.--In the poorer houses the floor (_solum_) of the first story was made by smoothing the ground between the walls, covering it thickly with small pieces of stone, bricks, tile, and potsherds, and pounding all down solidly and smoothly with a heavy rammer (_fistuca_). Such a floor was called _pavimentum_, and the name came gradually to be used of floors of all kinds. In houses of a better sort the floor was made of stone slabs fitted smoothly together. The more pretentious houses had concrete floors, made as has been described. Floors of upper stories were sometimes made of wood, but concrete was used here, too, poured over a temporary flooring of wood. Such a floor was very heavy, and required strong walls to support it; examples are preserved of the thickness of eighteen inches and a span of twenty feet. A floor of this kind made a perfect ceiling for the room below, requiring only a finish of stucco. Other ceilings were made much as they are now, laths being nailed on the stringers or rafters and covered with mortar and stucco.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 61. HUT OF ROMULUS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 62. TILE FOR ROOF]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 63. TILE ROOF]

--214. Roofs.--The construction of the roofs (_tecta_) differed very little from the modern method, as may be seen in the ill.u.s.tration shown in --196. They varied as much as ours do in shape, some being flat, others sloping in two directions, others in four. In the most ancient times the covering was a thatch of straw, as in the so-called hut of Romulus (_casa Romuli_) on the Palatine Hill preserved even under the Empire as a relic of the past (Fig. 61). Shingles followed the straw, only to give place in turn to tiles. These were at first flat, like our shingles, but were later made with a f.l.a.n.g.e on each side (Fig. 62) in such a way that the lower part of one would slip into the upper part of the one below it on the roof. The tiles (_tegulae_) were laid side by side and the f.l.a.n.g.es covered by other tiles, called _imbrices_ (Fig. 63) inverted over them. Gutters also of tile ran along the eaves to conduct the water into cisterns, if it was needed for domestic purposes. The appearance of the completed roof is shown in Fig. 49, --202.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 64. DOOR OF ROMAN HOUSE]

--215. The Doors.--The Roman doorway, like our own, had four parts: the threshold (_limen_), the two jambs (_postes_), and the lintel (_limen superum_). The lintel was always of a single piece of stone and peculiarly ma.s.sive. The doors were exactly like those of modern times, except in the matter of hinges, for while the Romans had hinges like ours they did not use them on their doors. The door-hinge was really a cylinder of hard wood, a little longer than the door and of a diameter a little greater than the thickness of the door, terminating above and below in pivots. These pivots turned in sockets made to receive them in the threshold and lintel. To this cylinder the door was mortised, their combined weight coming upon the lower pivot. The cut (Fig. 64) makes this clear, and reminds one of an old-fashioned homemade gate.

The comedies are full of references to the creaking of these doors.

--216. The outer door of the house was properly called _ianua_, an inner door _ostium_, but the two words came to be used indiscriminately, and the latter was even applied to the whole entrance (--195). Double doors were called _fores_, and the back door, usually opening into a garden (--208), was called the _postic.u.m_. The doors opened inwards and those in the outer wall were supplied with bolts (_pessuli_) and bars (_serae_). Locks and keys by which the doors could be fastened from without were not unknown, but were very heavy and clumsy. Finally it should be noticed that in the interiors of private houses doors were not nearly so common as now, the Romans preferring portieres (_vela_, _aulaea_).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 65. WINDOW]

--217. The Windows.--In the princ.i.p.al rooms of the house the windows opened on the court, as has been seen, and it may be set down as a rule that in rooms situated on the first floor and used for domestic purposes there were no windows opening on the street. In the upper floors there must have been windows on the street in such apartments as had no outlook on the court, as in those for example above the rented rooms in the House of Pansa (--208). Country houses may also have had outside windows in the first story (--203). All the windows (_fenestrae_) were small (Fig. 65), hardly larger than three feet by two. Some were provided with shutters, which were made to slide backward and forward in a frame-work on the outside of the wall. These shutters were sometimes in two parts moving in opposite directions, and when closed were said to be _iunctae_. Other windows were latticed, and others still were covered with a fine network to keep out mice and other objectionable animals. Gla.s.s was known to the Romans of the Empire but was too expensive for general use. Talc and other translucent materials were also employed in window frames as a protection against cold, but only in very rare instances.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 66. STOVE FOR HEATING]

--218. Heating.--Even in the mild climate of Italy the houses must often have been too cold for comfort. On merely chilly days the occupants probably contented themselves with moving into rooms warmed by the direct rays of the sun (--204), or with wearing wraps or heavier clothing. In the more severe weather of actual winter they used charcoal stoves or braziers of the sort that is still used in the countries of southern Europe. They were merely metal boxes (Fig. 66) in which hot coals could be put, with legs to keep the floors from injury and handles by which they could be carried from room to room.

They were called _foculi_. The wealthy had furnaces resembling ours under their houses, the heat being carried to the rooms by tile pipes; in some instances the part.i.tions and floors seem to have been made of hollow tiles, through which the hot air circulated, warming the rooms without being admitted to them. These furnaces had chimneys, but furnaces were seldom used.

--219. Water Supply.--All the important towns of Italy had abundant supplies of water piped from hills and brought sometimes from a considerable distance. The Romans' aqueducts were among their most stupendous and most successful works of engineering. Mains were laid down the middle of the streets and from these the water was piped into the houses. There was often a tank in the upper part of the house, from which the water was distributed as it was needed. It was not usually carried into many of the rooms, but there was always a jet or fountain in the court (--202), in the bathhouse, the garden, and the closet. The bathhouse had a separate heating apparatus of its own, which kept the room or rooms at the desired temperature and furnished hot water as required.

--220. Decoration.--The outside of the house was left severely plain, the walls being merely covered with stucco, as we have seen (--212).

The interior was decorated to suit the tastes and means of the owner, not even the poorer houses lacking charming effects in this direction.

At first the stucco-finished walls were merely marked off into rectangular panels (_abaci_), which were painted deep, rich colors, reds and yellows predominating. Then in the middle of these panels simple center-pieces were painted and the whole surrounded with the most brilliant arabesques. Then came elaborate pictures, figures, interiors, landscapes, etc., of large size and most skillfully executed, all painted directly upon the wall, as in some of our public buildings to-day. Ill.u.s.trations of these decorations may be found in Baumeister II, L, and LI, and in colors in Gusman IX-XI, Kelsey XI. A little later the walls began to be covered with panels of thin slabs of marble with a baseboard and cornice. Beautiful effects were produced by combining marbles of different tints, and the Romans ransacked the world for striking colors. Later still came raised figures of stucco work, enriched with gold and colors, and mosaic work, chiefly of minute pieces of colored gla.s.s which had a jewel-like effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 67. MOSAIC THRESHOLD]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 68. CARVED DOORWAY]

--221. The doors and doorways gave opportunities for treatment equally artistic. The doors were richly paneled and carved, or were plated with bronze, or made of solid bronze. The threshold was often of mosaic (see the example from Pompeii in Fig. 67). The _postes_ were sheathed with marble elaborately carved, as in the example from Pompeii, shown in Fig. 68. The floors were covered with marble tiles arranged in geometrical figures with contrasting colors, much as they are now in public buildings, or with mosaic pictures only less beautiful than those upon the walls. The most famous of these, "Darius at the Battle of Issus," is shown in black and white in all our reference books (best in Baumeister under _Mosaik_, Fig. 1000, and in colors in Overbeck after p. 612). It measures sixteen feet by eight, but despite its size has no less than one hundred and fifty separate pieces to each square inch. The ceilings were often barrel-vaulted and painted brilliant colors, or were divided into panels (_lacus_, _lacunae_), deeply sunk, by heavy intersecting beams of wood or marble, and then decorated in the most elaborate manner with raised stucco work, or gold or ivory, or with bronze plates heavily gilded.[2]

[Footnote 2: The magnificence of some of the great houses, even in Republican times, may be inferred from the prices paid for them.

Cicero paid about $140,000 for his; the consul Messala the same price for his; Clodius $600,000 for his, the most costly known to us. All these were on the Palatine Hill, where ground was costly, too.]

--222. Furniture.--Our knowledge of Roman furniture is largely indirect, because only such articles have come down to us as were made of stone or metal. Fortunately the secondary sources are abundant and good. Many articles are incidentally described in works of literature, many are shown in the wall paintings mentioned above (--220), and some have been restored from casts taken in the hardened ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In general we may say that the Romans had very few articles of furniture in their houses, and that they cared less for comfort, not to say luxurious ease, than they did for costly materials, fine workmanship, and artistic forms. The mansions on the Palatine were enriched with all the spoils of Greece and Asia, but it may be doubted whether there was a comfortable bed within the walls of Rome.

--223. Princ.i.p.al Articles.--Many of the most common and useful articles of modern furniture were entirely unknown to the Romans. No mirrors hung on their walls, they had no desks or writing tables, no dressers or chiffoniers, no gla.s.s-doored cabinets for the display of bric-a-brac, tableware, or books, no mantels, no hat-racks even. The princ.i.p.al articles found in even the best houses were couches or beds, chairs, tables, and lamps. If to these we add chests or cabinets, an occasional brazier (--218), and still rarer water-clock, we shall have everything that can be called furniture except tableware and kitchen utensils. Still it must not be thought that their rooms presented a desolate or dreary appearance. When one considers the decorations (----220, 221), the stately pomp of the _atrium_ (--198), and the rare beauty of the peristyle (--202), it is evident that a very few articles of real artistic excellence were more in keeping with them than would have been the litter and jumble that we now think necessary in our rooms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 69. THE LECTUS]

--224. The Couches.--The couch (_lectus_, _lectulus_) was found everywhere in the Roman house, a sofa by day, a bed by night. In its simplest form it consisted of a frame of wood with straps across the top on which was laid a mattress. At one end there was an arm, as in the case of our sofas; sometimes there was an arm at each end, and a back besides. It was always provided with pillows and rugs or coverlets. The mattress was originally stuffed with straw, but this gave place to wool and even feathers. In some of the bedrooms of Pompeii the frame seems to have been lacking, the mattress being laid on a support built up from the floor (--205). The couches used for beds seem to have been larger than those used as sofas, and they were so high that stools (Fig. 69) or even steps were necessary accompaniments. As a sofa the _lectus_ was used in the library for reading and writing, the student supporting himself on the left arm and holding the book or writing with the right hand. In the dining-room it had a permanent place, as will be described later. Its honorary position in the great hall has been already mentioned (--199).

It will be seen that the _lectus_ could be made highly ornamental. The legs and arms were carved or made of costly woods, or inlaid or plated with tortoise-sh.e.l.l or the precious metals. We even read of frames of solid silver. The coverings were often made of the finest fabrics, dyed the most brilliant colors and worked with figures of gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 70. THE SELLA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 71. CURULE CHAIRS]

--225. The Chairs.--The primitive form of seat (_sedile_) among the Romans as elsewhere was the stool or bench with four perpendicular legs and no back. The remarkable thing is that it did not give place to something better as soon as means permitted. The stool (_sella_) was the ordinary seat for one person (Fig. 70), used by men and women resting or working, and by children and slaves at their meals as well.

The bench (_subsellium_) differed from the stool only in accommodating more than one person. It was used by senators in the _curia_, by the jurors in the courts, and by boys in the school (--120), as well as in private houses. A special form of the _sella_ was the famous curule chair (_sella curulis_), having curved legs of ivory (Fig. 71). The curule chair folded up like our camp-stools for convenience of carriage and had straps across the top to support the cushion which formed the seat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 72. THE SOLIUM]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 73. CATHEDRA]

--226. The first improvement upon the _sella_ was the _solium_, a stiff, straight, high-backed chair with solid arms, looking as if cut from a single block of wood (Fig. 72), and so high that a footstool was as necessary with it as with a bed (--224). Poets represented G.o.ds and kings as seated in such a chair, and it was kept in the _atrium_ for the use of the patron when he received his clients (----182, 198).