Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

143

DOMUS.

lowing rooms were accordingly added :— this purpose. In the kitchen of Pansa's

■—C. Fauces appear to have been passages,
which passed from the atrium to the peri-
stylium or interior of the house.'—7. Peri-
stylium was in its general form like the
atrium, but it was one-third greater in
breadth, measured transversely, than in
length. It was a court open to the sky in the
middle ; the open part, which was surrounded
by columns, was larger than the impluvium
in the atrium, and was frequently decorated
with flowers and shrubs.—The arrangement
of the rooms, which are next to bo noticed,
varied according to the taste and circum-
stances of the owner. It is therefore im-
possible to assign to them any regular place
in the house.—1. Cubicula, bed-chambers,
appear to have been usually small. There
were separate cubicula for the day and night;
the latter were also calleddormitoria.—2. Tri-
clixia are treated of in a separate article.
[Triclinium.]—3. Oeci, from tire Greek
o'/cof, were spacious halls or saloons borrowed
from the Greeks, and were frequently used as
triclinia. They were to have the same pro-
portions as triclinia, but were to be more
spacious on account of having columns, which
triclinia had not.—4. Exedrae were rooms
for conversation and the other purposes of
society.—5. Pinacotheca, a picture-gallery.
—6, 7. Bibliotiieca and Balineum are treated
of in separate articles.—8. Culixa, the kitchen.
The food was originally cooked in the atrium :
but the progress of refinement afterwards led
to the use of another part of the house for

house at Pompeii, a stove for stews and simi-

x

Kitchen of the House of Pansa at Pompeii.

lar 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 frying-pan with four spherical cavities, as
if it were meant to cook eggs.—9. Coena-
cula, properly signified rooms to dine in ;
but after it became the fashion to dine in the
upper part of the house, the whole of the
rooms above the ground-floor were called
coenacula.—10. Diaeta, an apartment used
for dining in, and for the other purposes of
life. It appears to have been smaller than
the triclinium. Diaeta is also the name given
by Pliny to rooms containing three or four
bed-chambers (cubicula). Pleasure-houses
or summer-houses are also called diaetae.

Atrium ot" the House of Ceres at PompeiL

—11. Solaria, properly places for basking in
the sun, were terraces on the tops of houses.
The preceding cut represents the atrium of a
house at Pompeii. In the centre is the im-
pluvium, and the passage at the further end
is the ostium or entrance hall.—The pre-

ceding account of the different rooms, and
especially of the arrangement of the atrium,
tablimun, peristyle, &c., is best illustrated
by the houses which have been disinterred at
Pompeii. The ground-plan of one is accord-
ingly subjoined. Like most of the other