Ostia: Aspects of Roman City Life

Ostia Aspects Roman City Life by Gustav Hermansen

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This and a few similar apartments are interesting in that in size and plan they are little different from the later domus of Ostia see p. A matter which could be debated is whether III ix 3 is a private residence or the seat of some organization. The inter- nally connected rooms do not belong in private houses. They seem to be a characteristic feature of guild-owned tabernae.

An Unorthodox Apartment. Region V xi 2 In the east wing of the collegiate property behind Divus Per- tinax's temple there was a row of rooms in the original Hadrianic building, each with its own entrance from the angi- portus. To judge from the original door openings in the part of the wing that is still open for examination, there must have been ten rooms, and to these must be added one room, now buried under the insula on the Decumanus.

At a later time, not later than Gallienus,31 the whole wing was remodelled and the ten rooms distributed in four apart- ments. The remodelling could have been done when the insula on the Decumanus was built, but it must have been done at, or before, the time of Gallienus: one door in the northernmost apartment supplies backing for a partition wall which has been decorated in a style characteristic of Gallienus's time. As an example of these apartments the second apartment from the north will serve fig. One enters the medianum 3 from the angiportus.

The medianum is paved with brick in the herringbone pattern and right inside the door is a drain-hole with a pierced travertine cover, all of which shows that there was a skylight in the roof.

Holdings: The Roman inns and the law. The inns of Ostia

On the north wall there is plaster with stylized architectural framework and there are garlands and rosette in red paint on a white background. Counting from the bottom, the second course of brick in the platband of the opus mixtum on the east wall shows traces of red paint, which is discussed on pp. Apartment 8. The northern room 1 is the exedra, the biggest room of the apartment 4,95 by 6,43 metres , paved in white mosaic with a black border following the walls. Most of the north wall, which is preserved to the height of over three metres, is plas- tered and has red decorations masks and the like on a white background; there are small patches of plaster on the east and west walls, with traces of red paint.

Room 2 is a cubiculum with a white mosaic floor and black borders along the walls. The south wall has a spare, schematic architectural framework with stylized floral motifs on a central panel and a mask in red on a white background on the centre of the side panels. Room 4 is the smallest of all rooms 4,17 by 2 metres ; all three partition walls have disappeared but have left their imprints on the floor.

The room has a 1,metre window opening in the west wall; the window is twisted toward the south so as to collect more sunlight. There is no floor covering left in this room. Room 5 the other major room, opposite the exedra 1 , occupies the narrow end of the wedge-shaped apartment. The north wall of room 1 is 4,95 metres as opposed to the 4,17 metres of the south wall of room 5. The width of the room, the north- south extension, is 4,75 metres. It has the white mosaic floor with a black border that was seen in rooms 1 and 2. On the south and west walls is some plaster with traces of red lines.

The remodelling of the east wing presumably happened in the third century, most likely when the decorating was done. Gallienian or in any other place of Themistocles's house.

313638571-OSTIA-Gustav-Hermansen-Ostia-Aspects-of-Roman-City-LIFE-1982-pdf.pdf

The remodelling was done at a time when Ostia was in full decline, and, as the decreasing population moved to Portus or else- where, it handed over more space to those who stayed behind. One observes the same trend that is so obvious in the new domus: insulae were acquired and with the magic of marble and fountains transformed into luxurious single-family homes. If it is correct that the Caseggiato del Temistocle was the property of the fabri tignuarii, it is clear that the few builders who were left in a decaying city must have made the best of it.

Apartment Living and Its Influence on the Late Domus Architecture The new architectural element which appears in the apart- ments is the central room, which undoubtedly must be called the medianum. It is not central in the same sense as the atrium in the domus because the medianum, placed on the one side of the house, looks out on to the street or the inner courtyard of the insula, while the atrium is introspective and turns its back on the world.

Its function is also different from that of the atrium. It is characteristic of the apartments of Ostia that, with two exceptions, they completely lack kitchens. Of those two excep- tions one is the kitchens on the first and second floors in Casa delle Volte Dipinte, which more likely was a hotel than an ordi- nary residential building, and the other is behind the Casa degli Aurighi and must have served an association or orga- nized group of people.

Description:

The lack of kitchens—or of rooms which by the presence of a fireplace have been formally appointed as kitchens—led for some time to the belief that inquilini in Ostia must have eaten out in bars and restaurants. The smoke, which the Romans found so disturbing, came from the braziers behind the windows of the mediana of the lower floors. A look at some of the mediana should show how well they served the purpose.

313638571-OSTIA-Gustav-Hermansen-Ostia-Aspects-of-Roman-City-LIFE-1982-pdf.pdf

The sizes of the ones which have been described above vary from 15 by 4,5 metres to 6,50 by 3 metres. The Romans did not necessarily have to lie down at table—a triclinium, stibadium, or sigma were not necessary; the triclinium was more aristocratic and festive, but many illustrations show common Romans sitting at tables to have their meals. The mediana were large, pleasant rooms with lots of air and light in comparison with the darkened rooms behind them, and it is natural to expect that much of the family's activity took place in the medianum.

The new house plan apparent in the apartments influenced the design of other structures. The long, narrow dining-room was adopted in places where there was no need to introduce it. Some of the meeting places of the guilds have an aisle of their peristyles equipped as banquet rooms. This was done in the so-called Tempio Collegiale I x 4, fig. In the latter case the eastern aisle of the peristyle is about twice as wide as the western aisle, and, to demonstrate the purpose of the room further, many fragments of terracotta and vases were found here during excavation.

In the Domus di Amore e Psiche I xiv 5 there is a medianum stretched in front of three rooms; at the far end of the medianum is the stateroom of the house exedra , and outside the medianum, corresponding to the street in the ordi- nary insula apartment, is the nymphaeum garden. All ideas of the old-fashioned atrium domus have been abandoned.

About the Book

A simi- lar plan is seen in the Domus del Ninfeo. Even where a domus is built in accordance with the ortho- dox atrium plan, of which there are examples in Ostia, there is influence from the medianum apartment. It is classed as a domus; it is built with an atrium with a water basin in the middle, with a tablinum?

The west wing, with four rooms and a hypo- causis room in a row and with entrances to four of the rooms from the peristyle, must be classed as the living quarters: the rooms could be heated and the marble pavement is luxurious. And the aisle of the peristyle on this side is twice as wide as the peristyle on the east side, 3,20 metres versus 1,76 metres, so that the builder in this western unit has created a medianum apartment within the domus.

October Meeting

The lopsided peristyle with a wide aisle combined with the living quarters is a new concept of liv- ing. At night the family would retire to the inner rooms, the exedra with ihezotheca, if any, behind it, or else to a different room off the medianum, which had been appointed as bedroom, as seen in the first room of the Insula del Sofh'tto Dipinto where the pavement indicates the place- ment of a bed.

Similar books and articles

Here, of course, we are considering the middle- to-upper-middle-class people who lived in Ostia. The people who lived in the taberna had only the cenaculum above or behind the taberna for privacy. About apartment living and the hardships of the apart- ment dweller we have the well-known testimonies from Mar- tial and, especially, Juvenal. There is also a vivid description of the experience of the apartment dweller by Seneca, who lived above a bath in Rome Ep.

A variety of sounds came up to him from that bath on the ground floor: the grunts of the exer- cising bathers in the palaestra and the cries of the hawkers and of the ball players must all have come up from the outdoors, as well as the splashes of those who jumped into the pool. But the noise generated by the masseurs and by those who sang in the bath or had their armpits plucked must have penetrated the concameratio, which possibly separated Seneca's apartment from the balneum, if concamerationes already were the usual thing. What more could be asked of a Stoic philosopher?

Another letter of Seneca's Ep. It is about people who turn night into day, the lychnobii. Pedo Albinovanus lived above Sp. Papinius37 and tells us that Papinius was awake and around at night and that through the night Albinovanus had to listen to the noises of Papinius's domestic activities: how he received the household accounts; at midnight he did his voice practices; in the small hours he went out for a carriage ride; and at day- break he had his supper. One tends to overlook the fact that apartment living in Rome was not just for humble people. The Roman apartment is best known to us through the Roman legislation that governed the conflicts arising among apartment dwellers who shared apartments or who violated the by-laws of the city.

Indirectly, the provisions of the law describe the apartments to us. But somebody in Seneca's circumstances was not a humble person, and an apartment like that which is described above III ix 3, see p. With all his appre- ciation of animal comfort he would not be without his coquus or pistor oratriensis or what other slaves he must have had around him Ep.

Seneca would have had plenty of accommoda- tion for a numerous familia even though his attitude toward slaves was more humane than that of some of his fellow- Romans compare Ep. The other, less humanely treated slaves? Their quarters are not clearly defined; a person does not need much space to sleep. Columella tells of how slaves should use the kitchen for a living-room. The indus- trial slaves were accommodated informally somehow on or near the job, and some of the sites of the professional guilds have space for many slaves—the House of Themistocles and the so-called Basilica are examples of this.

The domestic slaves were accommodated equally informally somewhere in the house. The subscalaria saw heavy use in antiquity and show it in Ostia; there is most likely an old tradition behind the legend of St. Alexius, who slept under the stairs in his father's house when he returned without being recognized.

A Survey of Medianum Apartments in Ostia If a medianum apartment is defined as an apartment with a cen- tral hall from which one gains access to the various rooms, and if the medianum has to be located in such a way that its windows open on to the street or the courtyard, a list of medianum apart- ments in Ostia would include the following, listed by region, isolate, and house number: 1.

Calza NSc, , finds indications of three apartments on the ground floor and two on the third floor. I iv 3 Insula di Bacco Fanciullo, and 3.

I iv 4 Insula dei Dipinti are both built A. Insula di Bacco and Insula dei Dipinti both have the classi- cal arrangement with a major room at each end of the medianum; they both have zothecae behind one of the smaller rooms at the end of their mediana, and the zothecae are con- nected with the room in front of them through a door and a window, their source of light. There is a passageway from the zotheca through the neighbouring cubiculum, so that the zotheca is connected with the main entrance to the apartment. I viii 3 Horrea Epagathiana about A. An upstairs apartment with seven rooms of rather small dimensions.

The whole character of the apartment sug- gests a dormitory. The south wall is not preserved to a height that is sufficient to indicate the placement of windows. I xiv 4 fourth to fifth century, ScO I consists of three rooms and a medianum, arranged in an atypical pattern. II iii 3 has been described on page II iii 4 is slightly longer, and, by utilizing the space which is taken up by a staircase in II iii 3 and by reducing the size of the rooms behind the medianum, as compared to the four rooms plus medianum and zotheca in II iii 3. II vi 3 is an orthodox apartment, consisting of four rooms and a medianum and inside stairs leading to an upper floor.

II vi 6 fol- lows the same pattern; the first room off the medianum has the place of the bed marked in the mosaic floor. Here, too, are inside stairs to the upper floor. The exedra has been bricked off at a later time and is not part of the apartment in its present state. II viii 8 Hadrianic, ScO I is a building with two small apartments, both self-contained and each with two rooms.

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