meganwhalenturner: I learned something on this trip about Roman dining. I’d seen rooms l
meganwhalenturner:I learned something on this trip about Roman dining. I’d seen rooms labeled “triclinium” before in archeological sites and I knew that was where people ate and had a vague idea that people were lined up on three sides of the room. I’d seen pictures and was imagining something like the image above.Then in Pompei, I saw this called an “open air triclinium.”I don’t know if you can tell from my crummy pictures, but it’s a rectangular space with a waist high wall around three sides and the walls are banked toward the ground around the outside.So this is the triclinium in the Villa Poppaea at Oplontis. I had taken triclinium to mean the room, but that was only because the room was named after the thing in it. The triclinium is the built in furniture, like conversation pit of the Roman Empire, where everyone would lay down with their heads together and eat and talk.I have no idea why they felt like it was a great idea to lie down to eat. Just looking at them makes my shoulder hurt. -- source link
#ancient rome