Like today, even in the times of the ancient Romans houses were where people spent their private life. For this reason, the houses reflected not only the personality, but above all the wealth of their owners, a typical aspect of the culture of ancient Rome.
The houses generally had two entrances: the first, the ostium, overlooked the main street and through a corridor led to the atrium, the inner courtyard with the actual entrance that had an impluvium in the centre to collect water.
From here you could access the typical rooms of a Roman dwelling, which had access directly from the courtyard and from here took in light through the compluvium, an opening on the roof that also allowed water to be collected in the impluvium below.
The beating heart of the domus was the tablinum, a place used for receiving guests, designed to amaze visitors as soon as they entered: it was tradition to furnish it with images of ancestors and
sumptuous objects
.
The atrium also gave access to the triclinium, the most famous space of the Roman domus in the collective imagination, where the family would drink and eat lying on the characteristic beds, the triclini; and to the cubicula, the bedrooms. A fundamental element was the lararium, the place dedicated to the worship and prayer of the
Lares
.
The remains of internal staircases have also been found in some domus, showing how the buildings developed vertically over several floors.
