LATEST ANTIQUES ARTICLE______________________________

Back to the Classics
by Bob Brooke

The Romans based their furniture on earlier models that the Greeks based on mathematically expressed laws of proportion that they applied not only to buildings as a whole but also to much of their interior decoration.

Roman furniture makers used stone, wood, or bronze to create their pieces. Since villas were largely open to the air and stone benches and tables were common. Buffets with tiers of shelves were used to display silver. Tables were often made of exotic woods and veneers, with ivory, bronze, or silver trim. Tortoiseshell veneers were popular. The dining couches, which replaced chairs, were richly decorated, often with gilded silver or bronze. Chairs followed earlier Greek forms, and while no fixed upholstery was provided, cushions were plentiful.

Roman furniture makers used many different materials, including reeds, wood, stone, metals, straws, and ivory. They also decorated their pieces by covering them with upholstery. Finials were also common, as were inlays of contrasting woods and ivory.

It was common for Roman furniture decoration to have religious or symbolic purposes. Sometimes the way the furniture was decorated depended on wealth.

Archaeologists derived their knowledge of Roman furniture from depictions in frescoes and representations in sculpture, along with actual pieces of furniture, fragments, and fittings, several of which the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE preserved in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Roman Chairs
The sella, or stool or chair, was the most common type of seating in the Roman period, probably because of its easy portability. The sella in its simplest form was inexpensive to make. Both slaves and emperors used it, although those of the poor were plain, while the wealthy had access to precious woods, ornamented with inlay, metal fittings, ivory, and silver and gold leaf. Bronze sellae from Herculaneum were squares and had straight legs, decorative stretchers, and a dished seat. The sella curulis, or folding stool, was an important indicator of power in the Roman period. There were sellae resembling both stools and chairs that folded in a scissor fashion to facilitate transport.

The Roman cathedra was a chair with a back, a later version of the Greek klismos, which was never as popular as its Greek predecessor. A Roman school teacher often used a cathedra as their pupils sat around him in this chair while he taught them. It showed who held the seat of power in the classroom.

Historians consider the Latin solium to be equivalent to the Greek term thronos and often translate it as "throne." These were like modern chairs, with backs and armrests.  Historians believe a throne with a high back and arms, resting upon a cylindrical or conical base, derives from Etruscan prototypes.

Roman Couches
Imagine a dinner party at a wealthy Roman’s home, with guests lounging in a semi-recumbent position on triclinia, or dining couches, on which diners lay on their left side on cushions while household slaves served multiple courses which they brought from the culina, or kitchen while others entertained guests with music, song, or dance.

Each triclinium had three sides that sloped away from a low square table called a mensa delphica. The fourth side of the table was left free, presumably to allow service to the table. Usually, the open side faced the entrance to the room.

Dining was the defining ritual in Roman domestic life, lasting from late afternoon through late at night. Typically, the host invited nine to twenty guests, arranged in a prescribed seating order to emphasize divisions in status and relative closeness to the dominus, the owner of the house. Romans decorated their dining rooms lavishly, with complex perspective scenes in paintings and mosaics―Dionysus, Venus, and still lifes of food were popular subjects. Middle-class and elite Roman houses usually had at least two triclinia and sometimes find four or more.

The Romans used smaller triclinia for smaller dinner parties. Decoration of these triclinia was almost as elaborate as that in the larger ones. After the Romans introduced round tables of citrus wood, they replaced the three couches with one of crescent shape, called a sigma from the form of the Greek letter, which usually they only intended to hold five persons. The two corner seats, or cornua, were the places of honor that, on the right, were considered superior. The remaining seats from left to right indicated the least important seat on the left side of the most important.

Wealthy Romans used beds for sleeping in the lectus cubicularis, or bedroom. Those that were less well off might have used the same piece of furniture for both functions. The two types might be used interchangeably even in richer households. The most common type of Roman bed took the form of a three-sided, open rectangular box, with the fourth or long side, of the bed open for access. While boards framed some beds, others had slanted structures at the ends, called fulcra, to better accommodate pillows. The fulcra of elaborate dining couches often had sumptuous decorative attachments featuring ivory, bronze, copper, gold, or silver ornamentation.

The subsellium, or bench, was an elongated stool for two or more users. The Romans considered benches to be "seats of the humble," found in peasant houses, farms, bathhouses, lecture halls, and in the vestibules of temples. They also served as the seats of senators and judges. Roman benches, like their Greek precedents, were practical for the seating of large groups of people and were common in theaters, amphitheaters, odeons, and auctions. The scamnum, related to the subsellium but smaller, was used as both a bench and a footstool.

Roman Tables
Types of Roman tables include the abacus and the mensa. The term abacus referred to work tables, such as those for making shoes or kneading dough, as well as high-status tables, such as sideboards for the display of silverware. A low, three-legged form of table was the mensa delphica, a round tabletop supported by three legs configured like those of a tripod.

The ruins of Herculaneum contain the remains of wooden furniture. The pyroclastic flows from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius engulfed the town, ultimately preserving the wooden furniture, shelves, doors, and shutters in carbonized form. Upon excavation, archaeologists conserved much of the furniture with paraffin wax mixed with carbon powder, which coated the wood and obscured important details such as decorations and joinery.

The Romans got their furniture decoration inspiration from the Greeks, whose motifs became part of classical ornamentation. The acanthus leaf was the most common motif. The Greek acanthus leaf was stiff and formal; while the Roman form was more natural. The vine-leaf and grapes motif was also common. Festoons, garlands, and swags of laurel were common decorative elements, as were the “Cable,” or “twisted rope,” a kind of plaited ornament. Roman furniture makers frequently used rosettes—stylized simple roses with equally spaced petals.

Furniture makers used the lion, especially the mask and paws, over a long period, as a furniture ornamentation or as a door knocker or handle. Mythological animal forms included the griffin and the chimera, and the sphinx. The head of the ram, a sacrificial animal, commonly ornamented altars and candelabra. The ox skull and horns also occur during Roman times. The eagle, representing Jupiter, was the symbolic motif of the Roman legions.

Equally popular were the ornamental motifs known as grotesques because they were found below ground in a “grotto.” Roman grotesques were fantastic figures, human and animal, that terminated in an acanthus leaf or in a fishtail, in conjunction with floral and foliage ornamentation and arabesques.


< Back to Antiques Archives