IMPERIUM.
This was a power to command the armies, and to exercise judicial functions conferred upon a magistrate (Dictator, Consul, or Praetor) by a special law passed by the Comitia Curiáta. The Imperium could be exercised only outside of the city walls (pomoerium), except by special permission of the Senate for the purpose of celebrating a triumph. The one receiving the Imperium was called IMPERATOR.
POTESTAS.
This was the power, in general, which all magistrates possessed.
CHAPTER XLVI. HOUSES, CUSTOMS, INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
The private houses of the Romans were poor affairs until after the conquest of the East, when money began to pour into the city. Many houses of immense size were then erected, adorned with columns, paintings, statues, and costly works of art. Some of these houses are said to have cost as much as two million dollars.
The principal parts of a Roman house were the Vestibulum, Ostium, Atrium, Alae, Tablínum, Fauces, and Peristylium. The VESTIBULUM was a court surrounded by the house on three sides, and open on the fourth to the street. The OSTIUM corresponded in general to our front hall. From it a door opened into the ATRIUM, which was a large room with an opening in the centre of its roof, through which the rain-water was carried into a cistern placed in the floor under the opening. To the right and left of the Atrium were side rooms called the ALAE, and the TABLÍNUM was a balcony attached to it. The passages from the Atrium to the interior of the house were called FAUCES. The PERISTYLIUM, towards which these passages ran, was an open court surrounded by columns, decorated with flowers and shrubs. It was somewhat larger than the Atrium.
The floors were covered with stone, marble, or mosaics. The walls were lined with marble slabs, or frescoed, while the ceilings were either bare, exposing the beams, or, in the finer houses, covered with ivory, gold, and frescoing.
The main rooms were lighted from above; the side rooms received their light from these, and not through windows looking into the street. The windows of rooms in upper stories were not supplied with glass until the time of the Empire. They were merely openings in the wall, covered with lattice-work. To heat a room, portable stoves were generally used, in which charcoal was burned. There were no chimneys, and the smoke passed out through the windows or the openings in the roofs.