The sleeping rooms about the peristyle were much lower, and the front opened by means of a broad door in its whole, or almost its whole, width upon the colonnade. These rooms could frequently be entered also through a small side door from a dining room, or a narrow recess opening on the peristyle ([Fig. 146], x). The design of the arrangement is obvious. In summer the inconvenient large door could be left open day and night, a curtain being stretched across the space; in winter it would be opened only for airing and cleaning, the small door being used at other times.
The place for the bed was sometimes indicated in the plan of the room. In a bedroom of the house of the Centaur, of which an end view is given in [Fig. 122], a narrow alcove was made for the bed at the left side; the floor of the alcove is slightly raised, and the ceiling, as often, is in the form of a vault, while the ceiling of the room is higher and only slightly arched. A similar arrangement is found in several other rooms decorated in the first style. In several houses, as in the house of Apollo, there is a sleeping room with alcoves for two beds.
In bedrooms with a mosaic floor the place for the bed is ordinarily white, being separated from the rest of the room by a stripe suggestive of a threshold. A similar division is often indicated in the wall decoration, particularly that of the second style; the part designated for the bed is set off by pilasters on the end walls, and differently treated both in respect to the decorative design and in the arrangement of colors.
Fig. 122.—End of a bedroom in the house of the Centaur, decorated in the first style. At the left, alcove for the bed; above, two windows.
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VIII. Dining Rooms
As long as it was customary to sit at meals any fair-sized apartment could be used as a dining room. When the early Italic house was extended by the addition of a peristyle, and the Greek custom of reclining at table was introduced, it became necessary to provide a special apartment, and the Greek name for such a room with the three couches, triclinium, came into use. For convenience in serving, the length of a dining room, according to Vitruvius, should be twice the width. At Pompeii, however, the dimensions are less generous; with an average width of 12 or 13 feet the length rarely exceeds 20 feet. In many cases one end of the room opened on the peristyle, but could be closed by means of broad doors or shutters.
