Roman Housing, the Home and Family Life

The building is the household

Your specification asks about Roman housing and about the Roman family in the same breath, and it is worth asking why those are the same topic rather than two. The answer is that a Roman house is a household drawn in stone. Look at the plan of a grand town house, a domus of the kind preserved at Pompeii, and the first thing you meet after the front door is a large open hall. That room is not there for the family. It is there so that the man of the house can receive people, in numbers, every morning, in a ritual with a name. Now look at an insula, one of the blocks of flats most Romans actually lived in, and there is no such room, because its residents had nobody to receive and nowhere to receive them. So the difference between rich and poor housing is not simply that one is bigger. It is that one kind of building is designed around a social relationship and the other is not. Hold that idea and the details in this topic stop being a list to memorise and start explaining each other.

Words for the house and the household

Six terms your specification names. Notice that three of them describe rooms and three describe people, and that the two sets explain each other.

Match the room to what happened in it

Why the atrium was open

The atrium of a domus was open to the sky in the middle, with a shallow basin below the opening. What is the best explanation of that arrangement?

• It let light into a house with few outward-facing windows and collected rainwater, in the room where visitors were received
• It was purely decorative, to impress visitors
• It was required so that household worship could take place under the open sky
• It was the only way to keep the house cool in summer

Two ways to live in one city

Your specification asks you to contrast rich and poor living conditions. Do it by explaining the difference rather than listing it: each row below follows from who lived there and what they needed the building to do.

Which two describe an insula

Select the TWO statements that describe an insula rather than a domus.

• Several households lived in the same building, paying rent to a landlord
• Residents on the upper floors carried water up from a public fountain
• The building was arranged around an atrium open to the sky
• A garden surrounded by a covered walkway lay at the back

The morning queue

Here is the ritual the atrium was built for, and it is the single fact that makes Roman housing make sense. Early each morning, a man of standing received his clients at home. They came to greet him, to ask for help, to be seen supporting him in public life; he gave money, food, legal help or influence, and expected loyalty and public support in return. This was a formal relationship with obligations running in both directions, not charity and not friendship, and a man’s standing could be read from how many people came. So the grandest room in the house, the first one a visitor entered, existed to hold a queue. One thing must be said plainly rather than left out: a wealthy household also ran on the labour of enslaved people, who lived in the house and over whom the paterfamilias held authority. Their legal position, their work and the routes by which some gained freedom are examined elsewhere in this course, and that is where you should study them properly. For this topic, what matters is that the household you are picturing was larger than the family, and that the building was designed around the family’s public life rather than around the people who made it run.

The household in words

The male head of a Roman household was the _____, who held legal authority over its members. A man of standing received his _____ each morning in the _____, the hall inside his front door, and in return for their support gave help, money or _____. Most Romans, however, lived in an _____ rather than in a house of that kind, and had no such room and no such queue.

Order the stages of education

A wealthy Roman boy’s education came in named stages. Put them in the order he would meet them, from earliest to latest.

• At home in early childhood, taught by his mother or by a household teacher
• With the litterator, learning to read, write and count
• With the grammaticus, studying literature, poetry and correct language
• With the rhetor, training in public speaking and argument
• Entering public life, where that training was actually used

The claim that goes too far

Four sentences about Roman education. Select the ONE that claims more than the evidence supports.

• A wealthy boy might pass from the litterator to the grammaticus and then to the rhetor.
• Training with a rhetor prepared a young man for speaking in public life.
• Every Roman child completed all three stages of this education.
• Pupils wrote on wax tablets with a stylus, which could be smoothed and reused.

A house read as evidence

A question shows you the plan of a house excavated at Pompeii and asks what it tells us about the family who lived there. Here is an answer that would score well. The plan is of a domus, a single-family town house, so the family was wealthy: most people in a Roman city rented rooms in an insula instead. The house turns inward. There are few windows onto the street, and light comes instead from the opening above the atrium and from the peristyle garden at the back, which suggests both a noisy street and a desire for privacy from it. The atrium is large and sits immediately inside the entrance, and a small room opens off it at the far end. That arrangement fits the morning reception of clients: visitors could be admitted as far as the hall, while the head of the household received them formally in the smaller room beyond. The garden lies further in still, which suggests the family’s private life was kept furthest from the door. So the plan shows a household whose public standing mattered and was managed at home. Notice how that answer works. It names what the building is, uses the words the specification uses, and then reasons from the layout to the way of life. It says suggests and fits rather than proves, because a floor plan is evidence rather than testimony.

Reading a floor plan

You are shown the plan of an excavated Roman building and asked what kind of household lived there. Take the decisions in order.

• The building has several storeys, rooms opening onto the street, and shops at ground level. What is it?
• A second building has a large hall inside the door, open to the sky, with a small room beyond it. What does that suggest?
• You want to say something about the people who did the household’s work. How far should you go here?
• How should you phrase your conclusion about the family?

Say what the layout shows

Assemble a sentence that reasons from a building to a way of life without overstating it.

Explain what a house shows

Explain how Roman housing and Roman family life fit together, using the terms from this topic. Contrast the domus with the insula and explain what each tells us about the household that lived in it.

• Describe the main features of an atrium-style domus, naming at least three rooms
• Describe an insula and say who lived in one
• Explain two differences in living conditions between them, giving a reason for each
• Explain who the paterfamilias was and what his position meant
• Explain the patron and client relationship and what each side gave the other
• Explain why the atrium was the room that relationship needed
• Name the three stages of a wealthy boy’s education in order, and say who received it
• Finish by explaining what a house plan can and cannot tell us about the people who lived there