ISBN: 9780217768498

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not … More...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE AND EVERY-DAY LIFE. The ordinary Roman dwelling-house had always been, even to the scholar, somewhat of a mystery, until the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii, in the middle of the eighteenth century, suddenly threw a good deal of light upon its construction and arrangements. The silent testimony of those partially ruined and long buried homes was all the more valuable because, in Pompeii, especially, they represented the average middle-class dwellings of a provincial town, commodious and even elegant as compared with the farm-houses and cottages of the rural poor, cramped and insignificant beside the costly city mansions, and the yet more extensive and extravagant mountain and seaside villas of the wealthy nobles. The one essential feature of all these houses, the central point and distinctive mark of the Roman dwelling in all its developments, that which distinguishes it from the Greek and the houses of the farther East on the one hand, and, on the other, allies it with the houses of our own race, was the atrium, long the common living-room of the entire family. The earliest Roman houses may indeed be said to have been all atrium. Here, within the same four walls were assembled the family hearth and altar, the family portraits in wax and the marriage bed, here the meals were cooked and served, the men lounged after labor, and the women span; the very name is probably derived from the black (titer) color imparted to the room, and its contents generally, by the circling smoke of the hearth fire, which had to find its way out by open door or perforated roof, since it is certain that down to comparatively modern Koman times chimneyflues were unknown. The houses thus occupied were small and detached even in the more... Harriet Waters Preston, Books, History, The Private Life Of The Romans Books>History, General Books LLC<

2012, ISBN: 0217768490

[SR: 8235946], Paperback, [EAN: 9780217768498], RareBooksClub.com, RareBooksClub.com, Book, [PU: RareBooksClub.com], 2012-10-12, RareBooksClub.com

2012, ISBN: 9780217768498

Paperback, Neubuch, [PU: RareBooksClub. com]

ISBN: 0217768490

ISBN: 0217768490