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Thermopolia and inns.

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Roman Termopolia
“Termopolia” were present in all the Roman Empire, thus they existed also at Pompeii, Herculaneus and Ostia; they were the pubs or, if you prefer, the bars of the antiquity. At Pompeii there was one of them at every corner and it was in front of their counters that the Pompeians interrupted their hasty walk through the lively streets at the feet of the Vesuvius while also at “termopolia” the citizens of Ostia going toward the harbour took a refreshing pause
Visiting these ancient towns we see many of these pubs. Their counters, some time straight and sometime made as an L, are set along the front of their shops and have always one of their short side connected with the pub’s wall. Here, on some little stands made as steps, series of cups were displayed, ceramic and also the glass ones made with the worst kind of glass of their times, the one that, taken in hand, feels just as modern plastic. On the surface of the counter, reveted by irregularly cut pieces of marble, one still see the intact the mouths of the huge ceramic “dolia” that were cemented inside the bank and contained wine for the clients. The number of the dolia indicated how many qualities of wine could be found in the tavern. The clients, who, as ours contemporaries in a modern bar, stood in front of the counter, made their choice, according to their tastes and their money. They could order whatever they liked, red or white, Falerno’s or Sezze’s and they also knew that, when they were pressed hard up, they could always find there a low cost, but not so bad wine on which to fall back.
In nearly all of those “termopolia”, while one of the counter’s extremity started from a wall of the pub, on the opposite side there was a small stove with two side stands that held a water cauldron. There, during all winter, water boiled and boiled hard. Then when the icy blow of the north wind, that at Pompeii came violently down the snowy Vesuvius’ heights, or when at Ostia the east wind rushed in bringing the cutting cold of the Appenninic mountains, there the passers-by stopped and asked for a cup of wine diluted with a good ladleful of boiling water, a piping hot and slightly alcoholic drink that would hearten them for the rest of their day.
Some of these bars offered also selected rooms where their clients could sit down and drink at their ease and one could find them also in the more modest taverns places normally patronized by workman, carters or wayfarers who sitting down around rickety tables drank, chatted and played dices. However some times the clients wanted less innocent pass-times. Thus in one of these taverns, Asellina’s one, where, apart of some nice household’s goods of ceramic and bronze, there was also a large boiler with its lid well closed and ready to be put again in function at the first winter cold, we found scratched on the building front names of girls. Aglae, Maria and Smyrna. Not Roman names. Probably strangers and maybe slaves who, after having served around the drinks, supplemented their master earnings with all sorts of personal performances. That cancel any doubts we could have on the kind of reputation this tavern had.
However there were other places that were very nice and very straight laced ones; inns where honest family fathers could rent private rooms and where he could not risk to meet Aglae, Maria and Smyrna. In them what the client would find were only “triclinia” with masonry couches, dining rooms where he could offer a real banquet to his relatives and his friends. Nearby on a block of masonry, he could display all the carafes, the bottles, the glasses and the ladles necessary to prepare and serve the opportunely diluted wine that would be offered either through the banquet, or directly after for the “symposium”.
An inn of this kind had been arranged in the so called Sallustius’ domus, a building set along the road that entered Pompeii from the Herculaneus gate. Directly on the front of the building a large opening gave access to its “termopolium”, one of the finest found in this town, while in a garden at the back of the inn a place had been organized for dining under a pergola; a masonry triclinium, with a small round stand for the trays between the couches. At the dinner’s end a pipe, still in the stand, would send high a spurt of water and the place would transform itself in a nice garden where to pass the time around a fountain.
For what we can see this seems to have been the only “triclinium” existing in Sallustius’ domus, but other elegant inns as the luxurious Giulia Felice’s praedium, that stood near the amphiteater and the Sarno’s gate, had many of them. Here on a slab of marble set near the entrance one could read whatever he would find in the place. Thus we know that in its beautiful baths there were both freshwater and sea water pools and that many “triclinia” were at the disposition of the clients who wanted to rent one.
The first and the more modest one of them was in a tavern set at the entrance of the “praedium”. It was a place where, after having been through the “thermae”, the clients could decide to stop and, sitting around square tables on masonry narrow benches, have a quick snack, just the equivalent of our fast food. They could however chose to have a normal dinner reclining on the masonry couches of a bulky “triclinium” that occupied half of the tavern.
Of course if they wanted to give a proper and elegant banquet they could rent one of the house’s luxurious triclinia. The nicest of them was arranged in an exedra open on a fine porch held by svelte white marble pilasters. In the exedra’s back wall water, slid on the steps of a marble stairlike appliance set in a niche and fell in a canal that circled around the tricliniar white marble couches. Up to a certain height all the exedra’s three walls were lined with marble but the rest was covered with frescoes of the kind called Nilotic, where Pigmies, porpoises and crocodiles were painted over a light azure background. It was really a very pleasant place.
Of course this was the more original and nice of Giulia Felice’s triclinia: a summer garden triclinium looking on the flowerbeds and the long euripus that crossed all the plot of ground, a place rich of water that, as Vitruvius advised for this kind of summer arrangements, would freshen the air with all its spurts. The others Triclinia were more conventional ones, and were set in normal rooms. In one of them, a two couches “biclinium”, their places was marked by two low platforms; in the others there were not even these. Of course the furniture, must have been wooden one, but, due to the character of the place it must also have been very elegant.
As we have just seen both Sallustius’ house that Giulia Felice’s praedium were set near the city gates. Many were the inns, modest or elegant as they were, that thronged this area and the most of them were nearby the theatres, the circus and the amphiteaters. The spectacles offered in these places by wealthy men and politicians lasted many days and many were the peoples who came to assist to them. Of course after the spectacles, the races, and the fights all this people rushed to the inns and taverns. Many of them came from other towns and did not dispose of a house of their own, while it was evident that at the end of the afternoon many of them wanted to celebrate with their friends the victory of their favorite gladiator or the triumph of their colors in the circus race and they had to go to the inn they usually patronized. And not only them rented those “triclinia” because clients of the inns were also those Pompeians who had houses too small and no triclinia to receive their guests. Thus whenever they had to entertain relatives and friends the had to rent an adequate place. And this was one of the reason for which in all Roman Empire owners of inns and taverns thrived.

Bibliography
A dossier on Archeo
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, Cibi, cucine e triclini in L'alimentazione nel mondo antico. I Romani: etá imperiale, Rome 1987. pp. 70-140
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, Dossier: L'arte del bere nell'antichità in Archeo, nº 81, November 1991, pp.62-105