Roman house

The early Roman house had little to do with the images of it as we know it. The first Romans lived in ordinary huts, and their houses were made of simple materials (wood, clay), with a thatched roof and a central opening through which smoke escaped from the hearth.

With the growth of the state and the increased incomes from trade, houses evolved – they became bigger and got decorations. The Romans also began to follow the example of Greek and Etruscan culture. A typical urban Roman house, in the late republic and empire, had one-story or two-story buildings and was built on a rectangular plan.

Layout of typical domus

Entrance doors and tabernae (shops)

The entrance door to the house (ostium) was usually double-leaf and opened inwards; There was also a knocker on the door. In addition to the main entrance in the house, there was an additional door (posticum), which served slaves and domestic help. Sometimes the master of the house used them, wanting to go for a walk, without risking surveillance by other household members.

In front of the house, there could also be shops (tabernae) that were leased to other citizens.

A model of a Roman two-story house.

Vestibule

Upon entering the house, the visitor first crossed the vestibule (vestibulum), today’s vestibule. Sometimes, on the floor of the vestibule, the host greeted the guest with an additional warning “beware of the dog” (cave canem), or he announced his joy to visit his house with the words “be well” (salve). Everything was naturally made with small pebbles (tesserae) in the form of a mosaic.

Atrium – representative room

Atrium it was a central rectangular room around which living rooms were arranged. Most of the hole in the roof (compluvium) and the tank for rainwater (impluvium), which was later replaced in the time Republic fountain.

From the corridor, there was a direct entrance to the atrium, as I mentioned in the introduction. It derives its name from the word – ater, meaning “black”, which was due to the smoky walls; the blackness came from the hearths in the altars placed in this room. Originally, the atrium served as a mater familias bedroom. There was also a sanctuary for the Lares (lararium) and sometimes a bust of the master of the house, as well as ancestral masks (imagines maiorum).

The central place in the atrium was occupied by an impluvium, a shallow depression in the floor filled with water. There was a roof over the atrium, in the middle of which there was an opening (compluvium) through which rainwater ran directly to the impluvium. This water was then channeled to an underground cistern, where it was collected for personal hygiene, or directly to the road.

Depending on the structure of the roof and the number of columns used, the following types of atrium were distinguished:

• Tuscanium – did not have any columns. The weight of the ceiling was held by the rafters. Despite its high cost, it was the most widespread.
• Tetrastylum – had only one column at each corner of the impluvium
• Corinthium – similar to a tetrastyle, but with a larger roof opening and more columns
• Displutaviatum – it had a roof sloping towards the side walls
• Testudinatum – it had no roof opening and was found in small houses