Stage 2: in villā

Cultural context material (pp. 27–33)

A description of daily life for the different members of the household including meals, dress, and work. Dinner parties are treated in their own section.

Enquiry

Further reading on teaching similarity and difference can be found on the Historical Association’s webpage “What’s the wisdom on… Similarity and Difference” here: https://www.history.org.uk/secondary/categories/653/resource/9917/whats-the-wisdom-on-similarity-and-difference

How did Caecilius’, Metella’s and Grumio’s daily activities reflect and reinforce their social status?

This Enquiry targets the second order concept of similarity and difference. Not only is this concept important for good historical understanding, it also enables better reading of the stories, and (later) Latin literature, by highlighting the numerous experiences of people in the past. This question also offers opportunities to investigate the power dynamics at play in the Roman world. Students should come away from this section with a better grasp of the relative statuses of men, women, and enslaved people.

When setting the task for this Enquiry, consider how it might be integrated into comprehension of the stories; all the stories in this Stage lend themselves to discussion of daily lives and status. Could material from the stories be used to form a more creative response to the Enquiry? Possible tasks:

• Diary entries. Have students write a diary or schedule for each of the three characters. They might consider how to reflect the characters’ attitudes towards themselves and others to explore their relative statuses; this is a good opportunity to develop students’ creative writing skills.
• Cartoon strips. A set of perhaps four drawings to show what each character is doing at each point in the day. This might be annotated with comments about status or (if the students are particularly creative) this might be portrayed through the cartoon itself.
• Compare and contrast table. Create a table with three columns, one for each character, with rows labelled ‘clothing’, ‘food’, ‘work’ etc. You may wish to add in some rows which require students to look back to Stage 1 and review information from there, for example ‘names’. Alternatively, you could create one that tracks the daily schedule of each character. If integrating the stories, perhaps create a more complex worksheet which includes space for what the stories tell us about the characters and their positions in society.

Thinking points

Not all Thinking points need to be studied. Select those most relevant to your and your class’s needs and interests.

1. Think about the stories and cultural background material you have read and the pictures you have seen. What do you already know about daily life in Caecilius’ household?

This opening question asks students to recall past information before considering the new. Stage 1 alone contains a great deal of information from which students might infer things about daily life. For example, they may mention things they have seen members of the household doing in illustrations and stories, how they dress, and information from the cultural background about how Caecilius made his money.

2. Look at the statue of a Roman wearing a toga and think about Caecilius’ description of getting dressed. What do you think it would be like to wear one for a day? Why do you think male Roman citizens went to the trouble of wearing them?

This is of course a very subjective question, but it is likely that many students will be grateful for their far lighter and less complicated modern clothes! The reason for such trouble was the status symbol of the toga, a sign that one was free and probably wealthy. You may wish to extend this discussion to clothing from other cultures or time periods – clothing which might not be the easiest thing to wear, but has important social connotations.

3. Why do you think Roman women a) wore the palla over their heads and b) used powder to whiten their skin?

As is the case in many cultures today, covering the head was a sign of modesty and respect. Roman women therefore covered their head and hair in public if they wanted to convey a sense of respectability. This might be an interesting point to talk about the ways in which different cultures respond to women’s bodies; what this tells us about Roman expectations of women; how this all fits in with the other things they have learnt about the status of Roman women (for example naming and marriage conventions mentioned in Stage 1).

The fashion was also for whitened skin (reflected in the Course illustrations in which women like Metella are markedly paler than others) probably because it suggested the individual was wealthy and did not have to do hard labour outside in the hot sun. You may draw a contrast with 20th and 21st century, western fashions for suntanned skin (and the popularity of fake tan), due to the implication that tanned people could afford expensive holidays. Conversely, many women in Korea lighten their skin due to their cultural context.

It is important to challenge any assumption that lightening the skin was racially motivated. This is an opportunity to stress that Roman thinking about skin colour is completely different to modern thinking; the Romans did not have a concept of white or Black ‘races’ the way we do today (although they could be deeply xenophobic, including about the appearances of people from other cultures). Whiteness (as we would use the term today) did not denote Romanness; Barbillus in our stories has black skin but this would have had no impact on whether or not people saw him as Roman.

4. What do you think was the purpose of the salutatio? How did both the clients and the patron benefit from this relationship? Do you think they benefited equally?

The salutatio was all about reinforcing the status of the patrons and clients, a daily reminder of who held the power. Clients got protection, support, potentially wealth and better standing in society. Patrons got support for their endeavours, favours, and the status that comes with being patron to many and/or impressive clients. Students may debate who benefited more in real terms as long as they recognise the power imbalance between the parties.

5. Based on the descriptions of Caecilius and Metella in Stages 1 and 2, which character’s daily life is more appealing to you? Why?

This discussion should be carefully framed to take account of the different statuses of these characters, as well as what they do with their day. Student responses will vary considerably based on their own preferences and experiences, but the discussion should be carefully framed to make sure students understand that Metella may not work outside of the house, though her contribution and responsibilities would still have been considerable. Students can sometimes simplify the situation to “Metella doesn’t do any work” which is an inaccurate presentation of her life.

6. How typical of Roman women do you think the character of Metella is?

The answer to this question should be ‘it depends on the type of women’. Metella is a fairly typical upper class, wealthy woman. She is not, however, typical of the vast majority of women in the Roman world who would have been far less affluent and often working to contribute financially to their households.

7. Look at the diagram showing the arrangement of the couches. Where would Caecilius have been seated? What position might a good friend be given? If she attended, where might Metella be?

As the host, Caecilus would be seated in Position A on the low couch. A good friend with good social standing, or someone Caecilius wanted to impress, might go in Position B. You can see from the arrows how this position is closest to the host and if they are all lying on their left sides, Position B is facing towards Position A, allowing for easy conversation. If there was someone more important present, then a friend might join Caecilius on the low couch. It is likely that this would be where Metella would recline as well.

8. Why might some hosts have given different food to different guests?

Answers may include because they can’t afford for everyone to have the very best food or because they want to emphasise the social status of their guests, reminding those of lower status of ‘their place’.

Further information

The times of meals and work during the Roman day were earlier than ours. This information could provoke discussion of the effect of the Mediterranean climate on daily life then and now, and of the absence of strong artificial light in the ancient world. The use of sundials (see image of Anaximander on p. 161) might raise questions about how accurately and how often the Romans needed to tell the time. The Romans divided the daylight time into twelve hours. If one is using a sundial to keep track, then an hour (i.e. one-twelfth of the period of daylight) could be forty-five minutes in midwinter, seventy-five in midsummer.

You might want to prepare by consulting McLeish or the British Museum blog for Roman recipes (both can be found in the select bibliography at the end of this Stage guide).

Informal family meals including iēntāculum (breakfast) and prandium (lunch) were eaten standing or sitting; reclining on one’s elbow was a formality generally practised at the cēna (dinner), especially when guests were present. As mentioned in the textbook, not everyone would have attended formal dinners and only wealthy people had ground floor homes with kitchens and triclinia. A poorer household may well have had had no kitchen at all. This is naturally linked to the amount of thermopolia and bakeries found in Pompeii.

It is important to ensure that students realise that formal dinner parties in lavish dining rooms were not everyday occurrences even for the rich. The average Roman would probably have never attended one at all. It is also important to stress that all the cooking, serving, and caring for guests would have been done by enslaved people. These people can be identified in frescoes (for example p. 33) by their size; they are shown considerably smaller than the others present. You may wish to ask students to comment on this as part of the discussion about the statuses of enslaved people and those who held them in slavery.

Reclining to eat, while possibly an odd notion for us, was not unique to the Romans. Wealthy ancient Greek men also reclined for formal (men only) dinner parties in a similar manner. The practice may have been imported from cultures from further east. It was a popular practice in the Roman world from the second century BC, although we are not sure how widespread it was before this. Reclining at dinner does seem to have been common for the neighbouring Etruscans and is depicted in several sources including on pots and in wall paintings dating to the 6th and 7th centuries BC. It is likely that the Roman aristocracy adopted the practice around this time as well, and that patrician families continued the practice into the subsequent centuries. Over time, wealthy households with adequate space increased the number of couches and hosted bigger dinner parties. Eventually, the a semi-circular stibadium replaced the three couches. Literary references to reclining at dinner decreased in the 3rd century A.D., but dining rooms including couches for reclining continue to be a feature of wealthy households into the 6th century.

As mentioned above, the Greeks had a strict ‘no (respectable) women’ policy at their dinner parties. The only women who seem to have been in attendance were there to serve the food or provide entertainment. Some were sex workers. Respectable women sat upright on the rare occasion that they attended a formal meal, such as at a wedding. In contrast, the Etruscans often represented female diners in their artworks, and it seems that they were common guests at family, civic and religious banquets.  In the Roman world, we can clearly see women reclining alongside men in frescoes and other sources as standard by the time of the Emperor Augustus. The 1st century author Valerius Maximus (Of Ancient Institutions 2.1.2), however, stated that in previous times, while women may have dined sitting with men, only the men reclined.

Illustrations
p. 27
Roman statue of Augustus wearing a toga (Louvre Museum).
p. 28
Left: Statue of Livia Drusilla wife of Emperor Augustus from 14-19 AD. From Paestum (Italy) (National Archaeological Museum, Madrid, Spain)
Middle: 1st century BC marble bust of Julia, daughter of Emperor Augustus with a typical hairstyle from the Flavian period.
Right: Examples of Roman jewellery found in Pompeii, all now in the Archaeological Museum, Naples. Clockwise from top left: gold earring in the shape of a bulla; gold bracelet in the shape of a snake; pair of gold pins decorated with pearls.
p. 29
The doorway of the House of Menander in Pompeii showing the remains of stone benches on either side.
p. 30
Photograph of fresco of a female shopkeeper from the façade of the House of the Fullers of M. Vecilius Verecundus. The shopkeeper stands behind a wooden counter while a customer sits on a bench on the right chatting and gesturing.
p. 32
Top: mosaic detail with fish from House of the Faun, Pompeii. Pompeii had a lively fish trade and produced and exported fish sauces (garum).
Middle: wall painting of a larder (Naples, Archaeological Museum).
Bottom: fresco detail of a bowl of fruit from the villa of the Poppaei family at Oplontis. Note the artist’s skill in showing transparent glass.
p. 33
Fresco from the House of the Triclinium depicting a dinner party. The smaller figures are enslaved people and in the right-hand lower corner is a man vomiting.
p. 34
Bronze vessels from the kitchen of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii.

Further activities and resources

1. Imagine you are a cliēns of Caecilius and write an account of your morning visit to Caecilius’ house. Include a description of your surroundings and the conversations that occur.

2. Design an invitation to a Roman dinner party, with the menu and a description of the entertainments.

3. Sample some Roman dishes or simulate a Roman dinner party. Stuffed dates, ham and figs, and pork and apricots are easy. Pickled eggs, alcohol-free wine, olives, grapes, and almonds can be bought from any supermarket. Extra resources on Roman dining include: 

• The blog “Cook a Classical Feast” from the British Museum (2020) available at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/cook-classical-feast-nine-recipes-ancient-greece-and-rome 
• Video of Last Supper in Pompeii curator Dr Paul Roberts speaking about Roman dining: https://www.ashmolean.org/article/dining-in-pompeii

4. Look at the examples of wall paintings in the first four Stages. Then design a simple wall panel and colour appropriately.

5. Make an illustrated diary of a day in the life of Caecilius, Metella and Grumio. Set them side by side so that they can be compared.