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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.
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