A ''triclinium'' (: ''triclinia'') is a formal

dining room A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually next to the kitchen for convenience in serving, though in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with ...

in a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

building. The word is adopted from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

()—from (), "three", and (), a sort of

couch A couch, also known as a sofa, settee, chesterfield, or davenport, is a cushioned piece of furniture that can seat multiple people. It is commonly found in the form of a bench with upholstered armrests and is often fitted with springs a ...

, or rather

chaise longue A chaise longue (; , ) is an upholstered sofa in the shape of a chair that is long enough to support the legs of the sitter. In modern French, the term ''chaise longue'' refers to any long reclining chair, such as a deckchair. In English, ...

. Each couch was sized to accommodate a diner who reclined on their left side on cushions while some household slaves served multiple courses brought from the ''culina'', or

kitchen A kitchen is a room (architecture), room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...

, and others entertained guests with music, song, or dance. The ''triclinium'' was characterized by three '' lecti'' (singular ''lectus'': bed or couch), called ''triclinares'' ("of the ''triclinium''"), on three sides of a low square table, whose surfaces sloped away from the table at about 10 degrees. Diners would recline on these surfaces in a semi-recumbent position. The fourth side of the table was left free, presumably to allow service to the table. Usually, the open side faced the entrance of the room. In Roman-era dwellings, particularly wealthy ones, ''triclinia'' were common and the hosts and guests would recline on pillows while

feast A banquet (; ) is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes inc ...

ing. The Museum of

Archeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeolo ...

in Arezzo, Italy and the House of Cairo in

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

offer what are thought to be accurate reconstructions of ''triclinia''. The custom of using ''klinai'' ("dining couches") while taking a meal rather than sitting became popular among the Greeks in the early seventh century BC. From there, it spread to its colonies in southern Italy (

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

) and was eventually adopted by the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( ) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in List of ancient peoples of Italy, ancient Italy, with a common language and culture, and formed a federation of city-states. Af ...

. In contrast to the Greek tradition of allowing only male guests into the formal dining room, called '' andrōn'', while everyday meals were taken with the rest of the family in the ''

oikos ''Oikos'' ( ; : ) was, in Ancient Greece, two related but distinct concepts: the family and the family's house. Its meaning shifted even within texts. The ''oikos'' was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states. For regular Attic_G ...

'', the Etruscans seem not to have restricted the use of the ''klinē'' to the male sex. The Romans may have seen the first dining ''klinai'' used by the Etruscans but may have refined the practice when they later came to closer contact with the Greek culture. Dining was the defining ritual in Roman domestic life, lasting from late afternoon through late at night. Typically, nine to twenty guests were invited, arranged in a prescribed seating order to emphasize divisions in status and relative closeness to the '' dominus''. As static, privileged space, dining rooms received extremely elaborate decoration, with complex perspective scenes and central paintings (or, here, mosaics).

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

, and

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

s of food were popular. Middle-class and elite Roman houses usually had at least two ''triclinia''; it is not unusual to find four or more. Here, the ''triclinium maius'' ("big dining room") would be used for larger dinner parties, which would typically include many clients of the owner. Smaller ''triclinia'' would be used for smaller dinner parties, with a more exclusive set of guests. Hence, their decoration was often at least as elaborate as that found in larger ''triclinia''. As in the larger ''triclinia'', wine, food, and love were always popular themes. However, because of their association with patronage and because dining entertainment often included recitation of

highbrow Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, "highbrow" is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The term, first recorded in 1875, draws its metonymy from the pseud ...

literature like

epics Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

, dining rooms could also feature more "serious" themes. As in many houses in Pompeii, here the smaller dining room (''triclinium minus'') forms a suite with the adjoining ''

cubiculum A ''cubiculum'' (: ''cubicula'') was a private room in a ''domus'', an ancient Roman house occupied by a high-status family. It usually led directly from the atrium, but in later periods it was sometimes adjacent to the peristyle. It was used f ...

'' and bath. In later republican times, after the introduction of round tables of

citrus wood ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. ''Citrus'' is native to Sou ...

, the three couches were replaced by one of crescent shape (called ''sigma'' from the form of the Greek letter), which as a rule was only intended to hold five persons. The two corner seats () were the places of honor that, on the right, were considered superior. The remaining seats were reckoned from left to right so that the least important seat was on the left side of the most important. The use of the ''sigma'' continued until the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

References

External links

Triclinium
(Plan of a Roman House by Barbara McManus)
Galleries and plans of Roman triclinia (German)
*{{EB1911, wstitle=Triclinium, volume=27, pages=266–267, short=x Rooms Couches Culture of ancient Rome

See also

References

External links