Post on 05-Jan-2016
Roman Houses
Affordable Housing
• “Insulae”: apartments that took up a city block• Often 3-4 stories• Bad construction could lead to collapse and fire• Usually had a shared courtyard, sometimes
running water• The plebs (commoners) and equites (middle
class) often lived in insulae
Insulae, continued
• Insulae ranged in price and apartment size• Usually utilized public latrines• Cooking was discouraged; most bought ready-
made food from alocal thermopolium.
Toilets!!!
Toilets Again!
Don’t forget your
sponge-on-a-stick!!!
Domus
• Wealthy city home: domus• Wealthy country home was called a villa• Small country house: casa• Homes for patricians and senatorial class
citizens (upper class folks)• Best-preserved examples are in Pompeii and
Herculaneum
Shops (tabernae)Shops opened to the street---paid rent to the homeowners.
VestibulumPrivate Entryway
Culina:Kitchen (only in wealthy homes!)
Atrium:an open, central courtyard, often used as a “living room” or reception area
Bibliotheca
• Library• Some homes had 2 libraries: one for
Latin books and one for Greek books
Compluvium and ImpluviumRain comes through the compluvium and is stored in the
impluvium.
Tablinum:the main office/study, usually behind the atrium
Tablinum cont’d
Peristylium:a garden (hortus) surrounded by a columned porch; a patio
Triclinium:Dining room
Cubiculum:small bedroom
Other Rooms…
• Some large homes had their own private bath suites, or balneum: warm bath, hot bath, cold bath (most people used the wonderful public baths, balneae or thermae)• Toilet: latrina (like our word “latrine”)
Domus Mea!• Draw or sketch your house and label the
rooms. Include enough detail in the rooms (furniture, etc.) that I can tell you are using the correct Latin room name.
• If you’d like to draw your “dream home” instead of your real home…that’s OK, too!
• Rubric: (70)All rooms labeled with Latin names (10) Unlined paper
(10) Outlines and labels in dark marker (10) Neat and legible