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!!!

Public Fountains

Thermopolium

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

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Domus_romana.png

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