Fig. 121.—Atrium of the house of Cornelius Rufus, looking through the tablinum and andron into the peristyle.
In the foreground, the impluvium, with the carved supports of a marble table; at the left, between the entrances to the andron and the tablinum, the herm of Rufus.
The posts at the entrance were usually treated as pilasters, joined above by a cornice; architecturally the front of this room formed the most impressive feature of the atrium. Between the pilasters hung portières, which might be drawn back and fastened at the sides. In the house of the Silver Wedding the fastenings were found in place,—bronze disks from which a ship's beak projected, attached to the pilasters.
In early times the tablinum ordinarily had an opening at the rear also, but this was not so high as that in front, and could be closed by broad folding doors. In winter the doors were probably kept shut. In summer they were left open and the room, cool and airy, served as a dining room, a use which harmonizes well with a passage of Varro explaining the derivation of the name. "In the olden time," says this writer, "people used to take their meals in the winter by the hearth; in summer they ate out of doors, country folk in the court, city people in the tabulinum, which we understand to have been a summer house built of boards." The derivation of tabulinum, of which tablinum is a shortened form, from tabula, 'a board,' is obvious.
The period to which Varro refers antedates that of the oldest houses at Pompeii. The room which we call tablinum was then a deep recess at the rear of the atrium, open at the front, as now, but enclosed by a wall at the rear; against this wall was a veranda opening into the garden, toward which the board roof sloped. People took their meals in the veranda in summer, and to it the name tablinum was naturally applied. In the recess at the rear of the atrium, corresponding to the later tablinum, was the bed of the master of the house, called lectus adversus because 'facing' one who entered the front door. As late as the reign of Augustus, long after it became the custom to set aside a closed apartment for the family room, a reminiscence of the ancient arrangement still remained in the couch which stood at the rear of the atrium or in the tablinum, which was called lectus adversus, or even lectus genialis.
The removal of the hearth and the bed from the atrium must have taken place when the small hole in the roof was replaced by the compluvium. A broad opening was made in the rear wall, and the place where the bed had been was turned into a light, airy room; this was now used as a summer room instead of the veranda, the name of which was in consequence transferred to it.
Even in later times, when the houses were extended by the addition, at the rear, of a peristyle with its group of apartments, the tablinum may often have been used as a summer dining room; but the tendency now was to withdraw the family life into the more secluded rooms about the peristyle. The tablinum, lying between the front and the rear of the house, was used as a reception room for guests who were not admitted into the privacy of the home; and here undoubtedly the master of the house received his clients.
In the house of the Vettii the tablinum is omitted on account of the abundance of room; but at the rear of the atrium there are wide openings into the peristyle ([Fig. 158]).
IV. The Alae
The alae, the 'wings' of the atrium, were two deep recesses in the sides ([Fig. 115]). They were ordinarily at the rear, but were sometimes placed at the middle, as in the house of Epidius Rufus ([Fig. 149]). Vitruvius (VI. iv. 4) says that where the atrium is from 30 to 40 feet long, one third of the length should be taken for the breadth of the alae; in the case of larger atriums the breadth of these rooms should be proportionally less, being fixed at one fifth of the length for atriums from 80 to 100 feet long; the height at the entrance should be equal to the breadth.