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The roof cover would have been held by wooden beams meeting in the centre at the vertex and supported by one or more trunks standing in the centre of the hut. A hole in the roof allowed smoke from the internal fire to escape. Ancient Rome was the first civilization to have glass windows. It discovered the technology of mixing sand and other component materials and heating the mixture so it could be pressed and cast into small pieces that were formed into panes. The three types of architecture used in ancient Roman architecture were Corinthian, Doric and Ionic. The cubicula or cubicolo is a small room in the Roman house intended as a bedroom, generally flanked by other similar ones and located around the atrium.
Prior to this, ancient Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Etruscan architecture relied on heavy support on the interior of buildings which meant small rooms and limited design on the interior. The insulae had shops that would face the street, bakeries, taverns, workshops, etc. There was a lot of traffic on the street, horse or donkey carriages, people rich and poor walking, etc. The workers or the owners would live above and behind these shops. During the early days of Roman Republic, the wife was not allowed to appear in public but this changed as time passed.
Wealthy Roman homes
This would have been a residence for wealthier inhabitants. The grandeur of the palaces of ancient Roman emperors increased with the passage of time after the founding of the Roman Empire. The primary residence of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar, was called the ‘House of Augustus’ situated on the Palatine Hill. At the initial stages, it was a modest residence but increased in size and grandeur over the reign of the subsequent emperors.
The wealthy lived in single family homes called domus of various sizes depending on how rich they were. Roman town planners are also famous for having invented the first apartment blocks, called “insula” or “insulae”. Some examples of these apartment buildings can still be seen in cities such as Rome or Ostia (Rome’s harbour). Interestingly they are not to be found atPompeiiwhere the highest building had something like three floors and the norm was just a single floor. Insula could be built very tall, but five to seven stories would have been the norm due to the laws regulating their height. The largest, most expensive apartments would have been located on the ground floor, facing the courtyard that dominated the center of the insula.
Roman Sites and Ruins in Germany
Other rooms such as bedrooms, dining room, and kitchen might be off to the sides of the atrium. Rich people and wealthy freedman had elaborately constructed large houses while the poor people lived in small quarters or apartments. People from the upper classes were known as Patricians while those belonging to the lower classes were called Plebeians. The patricians lived in grand houses with impressive architecture while the plebeians lived in simple houses and homes.
Clearly such a situation tends to raise the value of each square meter of land, providing an incentive to build higher buildings which can utilise such investment to the full. From the residential point of view and Roman housing this is particularly evident in the development of multi-storey apartment buildings. The earliest Romans living on the Palatine hill were essentially farmers and shepherds, wearing animal skins as clothing and building their abodes of whateverconstruction materialswere readily available. Archeological digs on the hills of Rome have brought to light a number of clues as to what these huts were like and when they were built. The earliest homes around the 7th Century BC were simple cattle farmer wooden structures with mud walls and thatched roofs. Ancient Romans used the arch to create bridges and aqueducts that let them spread their culture across Europe and the Middle East.
Roman House Layout
This was often the most impressive and decorated room of the house in order to impress guests that were dining over. The atrium typically had an open roof and a small pool that was used to collect water. You can also understand the strength of the Roman Empire as an organisation to maintain this long wall and resist the numerous attacks from the barbarians.
The domus as a general architectural type is long-lived in the Roman world, although some development of the architectural form does occur. When creating wall paintings, ground-up pigment was applied directly onto the wet plaster of the walls. The fragments here likely decorated the walls of a private house. While most surviving Roman sculpture and architecture is white or terracotta colored, much of it was originally brightly painted. One of the most well known features of the decoration of a Roman house is wall painting. However, the walls of Roman houses could also be decorated with marble revetment, thin panels of marble of various colors mortared to the wall.
Roman Domus: Ancient Roman Houses
They used the arch to create dome roofs and vaulted ceilings for larger, stronger, and more spacious public buildings that could holds hundreds of people. Old Roman arches were created with a very durable type of concrete that was made from a mixture of volcanic sand and lime. This ancient concrete was able to support large amounts of weight, and as a result, it enabled people to build larger and more variable types of buildings, like the aqueducts we discussed above. The house type referred to as the domus (Latin for “house”) is taken to mean a structure designed for either a nuclear or extended family and located in a city or town.
These early suburban villas, such as the one at Rome's Auditorium site or at Grottarossa in Rome, demonstrate the antiquity and heritage of the villa suburbana in Central Italy. It is possible that these early, suburban villas were also in fact the seats of power of regional strongmen or heads of important families . A third type of villa provided the organizational center of the large holdings called latifundia, that produced and exported agricultural produce; such villas might be lacking in luxuries. More detail of the Roman houses at ancient Pompeii have been assembled in the essay about thearchitecture of ancient Pompeii. The first has a simple garden whilst the second has a peristyle around a pool and various other extra rooms.
Extremely rich Roman families would have a large number of slaves for a variety of tasks in the home, including one to tell you the time. The finds at sites such asPompeiiand Ostia have enabled a great deal of information to be derived about the types and varieties of such Roman homes. Windows were generally larger on the top floors than the lower ones. Windows were particularly popular on the side of the house facing onto the garden. Their manufacture was greatly owed to the advancements made inRoman glass production methods.
The most important materials used in the construction of most Roman homes were brick and concrete. Both were strong, easy to make, and resilient to the elements. Brick was used to build the actual structure, while concrete served as the foundation. Wooden beams and trusses occasionally served as supports for the building. Marble was extremely expensive but provided a beautiful veneer for a domus.
The ancient Roman houses of wealthy Romans were called ‘Domus’ and were found in almost all the major cities throughout the empire. Additionally, rich families generally had a country home as well which was known as villa. The Domus of the rich people consisted of multiple large rooms in addition to indoor courtyards and gardens.
Archaeologists working on Rome's Metro C line uncovered the second century AD residence, or domus, adjoining a military barracks excavated in 2016. The richly decorated dwelling is complete with a well-preserved geometric design mosaic, marble floors and frescoed walls. But this kind of housing was sometimes constructed at minimal expense for speculative purposes, resulting in insulae of poor construction.
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