A patrician was wealthy enough to own a private house called a domus. Usually this type of house was built around an open square called an atrium which had a small pool (impluvium) to catch rainwater. The bedrooms (cubicula) and kitchens (culina) were located around the atrium. Most of these houses also had a peristylium, a small garden with columns and shrines to the family’s favourite gods. The walls were decorated with frescoes and mosaics. If the patrician was very wealthy he might also have a villa (large house) in the countryside.
The plebeians or poorer classes lived in insulae (apartment blocks) sometimes five or six storeys high. Families lived either in one room of an apartment or else they had an entire floor of the block, depending on their wealth. The sanitation was poor in these insulae and most waste was simply thrown out the window onto the narrow streets below. In the winter these buildings were kept warm by wood-burning stoves. As a result, there was always a risk of fire and in AD 64 most of Rome burnt down in a blaze.
2. Clothes
Men, women and children all wore a short-sleeved, knee-length garment called a tunic. Over this tunic wealthy Roman men wore long pieces of material called a toga. Important politicians such as senators or consuls wore white togas with a purple trim. Women also wore ankle-length dresses called stolas and then wrapped shawls called pallas around themselves.
Palla Stola Tunic
Fig 2.11 A Roman insula.
3. 1. 2. Fig 2.12 How to put on a toga – Stages 1 to 3
Fig 2.13 Different garments worn by men and women in Rome.