Excursus II - The Triclinium

Summary

THERE do not seem to have been any special eating-rooms, or triclinia, in the old Roman house, but large apartments for general use answered the purpose; in the city, the atrium, and in the country, the cors. Varro, in Serv. on Virgil, Æn. i. 637, in atrio epulabantur antiqui. Varro (De Vit. Pop. Rom.) is not so clear; but at the period, with the manners of which we are more acquainted, the houses had more than one triclinium, and also large halls (œci) for the same purpose; for an account of which, see the article on The Roman House.

The word triclinium did not originally signify the room itself, but the couch on which they took their seats at the table. (Biclinium, Plaut. Bacch. iv. 4, 69, 102, refers to the particular case when two paria amantum were together, and for two or three persons, of course only one lectus was required). These couches were not known in the earlier ages, in which they used to eat sitting, a custom to which the women adhered after the men had adopted that of lying. Isid. Orig. xx. 11, 9. We find this exemplified in many monuments. August. 151; Pitt. d'Ercol. i. 14; Zahn, Ornament. 90.

The word signifies not the single lectus tricliniaris, but a conjunction of three such, with three persons on each, so that the triclinium comprehended nine persons.