571. The Roman Banquet- Katherine Dunbabin. There are interesting things here. Eating was not just eating to the Romans. There are no images of the Emperor dining. The lectisternium where images of gods reclined on couches at banquet are not pictured. Mythological banquets are rare except showing Hercules or Dionysus. Images which do show banqueting do not show people eating. It may not have been acceptable to show such things. I have noted that people do not like to be photographed eating. It does reveal sort of a down side to someone- sort of a guttony. The Colosseum was used for banquets. This is mentioned in a poem by Statius.
The basic image of banqueting shows someone reclining, leaning on left elbow, torso is upright, legs are out to the side and the right knee is often slightly bent.
This position is a mark of power and priveledge.
So the image we see are those of wine consumed during the meal or the leisurely drinking which took place after the meal, while discussion took place.
Wine was offered throughout the meal. It was often mixed on the spot to the taste of each guest. There was often a device for heating used to warm it up.
Banquets are often found on tombs.
The convivium was not a private affair but public. The traditional set up was three couches going clockwise- the imus, medius and then summus. Host sat at head of imus, main guest sat at medius. The table, mensa, was in the middle in easy reach of everyone. It was close knit. All could hear. No one had a bad seat.
I have a suggestion here. I found this book useful but to get a more complete picture, I suggest reading Linda Farrar’s Ancient Roman Gardens. She talks of dining in terms of how much Romans loved plants, flowers, birds and nature. Too often Dunbabin assumes that the Romans just copied the Greeks. Farrar suggests that Roman house design was directed by Roman love of plants and that this determined how rooms were arranged and the views that they had. Greeks had very few plants in their homes. This would tend to put a new twist on how much Romans actually borrowed from the Greeks. Dunbabin does mention fountains but this is only part of the story.
Nine guests were common, maybe, because this may reflect 9 Muses, but houses in Pompeii often show triclinia which held more than nine people. Seems silly to me that if someone had ten friends, one could not come. They simply invited guests,9, 10, 14. Whatever.
At religious ceremonies there were feasts. In front of temples, the Senators would dine. Crassus’ feast had 10,000 lecti for diners. There were feasts at triumphs and on other occasions. These all had, ones at home too, a religious tone to them. Representations of public feasts are nonexistent, except for one. This sounds suspicious to me. I suspect early Christianity had something to do with this. There is a relief at the Capitoline Museum showing the Vestals at a banquet.
Tombs show the hosting of banquets on the dead person’s birthday. These in a way were public. Some reliefs show diners reclining higher than others. This shows their higher status or importance. Italic/plebeian art is at work here.
There were triclinia for rent at inns. I wonder if friends sometimes met at half way points to enjoy each other’s company. There is a triclinium in Pompeii located in a vineyard. (Romans loved nature.)
The idea of banqueting with the dead has something to do with honoring the dead person, of course, but also to remind the living of the need to live, enjoy life.
Dunbabin suggests that the kline lids on sarcophagi are adaptations of banquets. Kline is the term for a reclining figure. Even when they are just sleeping. Often a woman, wife, is shown sitting on a chair beside a man reclining with a cup. May reveal how banquets were set up- woman in chairs, men on lectus. But there does not seem to be the case that art shows this set up all of the time. I wonder if it seemed a tad tacky to show a wife, who was not dead, yucking it up with her hubby who is. Sarcophagi often show full banquet in progress. Servants are bringing food, wife plays music, lids often show husband and wife reclining.
The fact that Romans in these banquets hold scrolls, writing tools, bowls, drinking vessels, mirrors, fans, fruit, flowers demonstrates that, as Farrar suggests, Romans used more the Greek name/term for something than actually borrowing Greek style. As the Romans did with hippodrome. For the Greeks it was a race track, to the Romans it was a garden. Romans liked to use Greek words for things. It was the in thing to do.
There is a triclinium at the tomb of Cn. Vibrius Saturninus at Pompeii. Offering of food during Roman times is a fact. There are places in a tomb to send the dead food. Often during the Parentalia, the living would dine with the dead. Sounds like a nice thing to do to me. I admire Roman honesty about death.
Skeletons are sometimes shown drinking and reclining. It is a reminder of death but refers to the pleasures for the living.
Dunbabin says that Romans learned to dine outside from the Greeks. I wonder if Roman love of plants drove such activity. Funerary banquets among pagans linked life and death.
Servants are not shown til later Roman art. This may be due to earlier period of Roman art during which Hellenistic art held sway but as Italic art gained ground the wealthy began to find this acceptable for their own needs. So as time goes by the relief of tombs has more and more detail which is a characteristic of Italic art.
Stibadium, a large curved seating arrangements for large parties. There is a real neat one at Hadrian’s Villa. There is also one near the arch of Titus.
In the Christian period rooms with numerous apses were designed in which each apse was a stibadium. This tended as it seems to me to limit communication and stratify the guests to a high degree for one set of guests could not see or communicate with a number of the other guests located in other apses. Roman dining arrangements gave place to those of importance but all were included and could listen.
St. Ambrose discouraged funeral feasts as too much like the Parentalia, a pagan festival. So as time went by funeral feasts disappeared. I suspect that this accounts for absense of art showing public banquets. Pagan dining was too closely connected with religion for early Christianity’s taste. Even reclining was discouraged. Sitting was more humble. So today we sit, we do not recline.
In the catacombs there are people of different religions buried in the same catacomb. Isn’t this interesting?
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