Inside a Rich Roman's House: What Wealth Bought in Ancient Rome
Before the Machine
1,916 views
In the Roman world, wealth showed first as a house. In this calm, three-hour documentary we walk slowly through one, room by room: the street door and the hall with its square of open sky, the garden with its thin jet of water, the dining room with three couches, the kitchen and the stores, the lead pipe that brought water in, the bath with a floor standing on brick pillars, the glass panes and clay lamps, the painted walls, and then the villa in the country. Most of the rooms that still stand are in Pompeii and the towns near it, not in the city of Rome, and the video says so. Along the way a keeper of accounts sets each comfort against a day of work, and leaves the line blank where no figure survives. Where the evidence is uncertain, we say so.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome
(chapters to be added from the final audio: The Street Door and the Atrium · The Garden and the Dining Room · The Kitchen, the Stores and the Water · The Bath, the Warm Floor, Glass and Lamps · Walls, Floors, the Private Rooms and the Household · The Country Villa and the Long Quiet)
Main sources
1. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture 6.3 (proportions of the principal rooms), tr. M. H. Morgan: https://lexundria.com/vitr/6.3/mg
2. Vitruvius 5.10 (baths and the hanging floor), tr. Morgan: https://lexundria.com/vitr/5.10/mg
3. Vitruvius 8.6 (aqueducts, lead and clay pipes), tr. Morgan: https://lexundria.com/vitr/8.6/mg
4. Frontinus, The Aqueducts of Rome, book 2 (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
5. Pliny the Younger, Letters 2.17 (the Laurentine villa): https://romanletters.org/letters/plin...
6. Pliny the Younger, Letters 5.6 (the Tuscan villa): https://romanletters.org/letters/plin...
7. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36, second part (houses, window stone, floors, glass, lime), Attalus.org: https://www.attalus.org/translate/pli...
8. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 33, second part (silver, pigments), Attalus.org: https://www.attalus.org/translate/pli...
9. Seneca, Moral Letters 86 (the old bath and the new): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_...
10. Varro, On Agriculture, book 3 (LacusCurtius): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
11. Cato, On Agriculture (LacusCurtius): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
12. Parco Archeologico di Pompei (official site) — House of the Faun: https://pompeiisites.org/en/?p=3360
13. Parco Archeologico di Pompei — House of the Menander: https://pompeiisites.org/en/?p=3252
14. The Metropolitan Museum of Art — essay "Roman Housing": https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/roma...
15. UNESCO World Heritage List — Villa Romana del Casale (no. 832): https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/832/
16. English Heritage — History of Lullingstone Roman Villa: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/v...
Visual credits
All scenes, reconstructions and the thumbnail are AI-generated artistic illustrations created for this video. They are not photographs of the sites, and details such as furnishings, wall colors and clothing are interpretations where the evidence is uncertain.
Inside a Rich Roman's House: What Wealth Bought in Ancient Rome
Before the Machine
1,916 views
In the Roman world, wealth showed first as a house. In this calm, three-hour documentary we walk slowly through one, room by room: the street door and the hall with its square of open sky, the garden with its thin jet of water, the dining room with three couches, the kitchen and the stores, the lead pipe that brought water in, the bath with a floor standing on brick pillars, the glass panes and clay lamps, the painted walls, and then the villa in the country. Most of the rooms that still stand are in Pompeii and the towns near it, not in the city of Rome, and the video says so. Along the way a keeper of accounts sets each comfort against a day of work, and leaves the line blank where no figure survives. Where the evidence is uncertain, we say so.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome
(chapters to be added from the final audio: The Street Door and the Atrium · The Garden and the Dining Room · The Kitchen, the Stores and the Water · The Bath, the Warm Floor, Glass and Lamps · Walls, Floors, the Private Rooms and the Household · The Country Villa and the Long Quiet)
Main sources
1. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture 6.3 (proportions of the principal rooms), tr. M. H. Morgan: https://lexundria.com/vitr/6.3/mg
2. Vitruvius 5.10 (baths and the hanging floor), tr. Morgan: https://lexundria.com/vitr/5.10/mg
3. Vitruvius 8.6 (aqueducts, lead and clay pipes), tr. Morgan: https://lexundria.com/vitr/8.6/mg
4. Frontinus, The Aqueducts of Rome, book 2 (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
5. Pliny the Younger, Letters 2.17 (the Laurentine villa): https://romanletters.org/letters/plin...
6. Pliny the Younger, Letters 5.6 (the Tuscan villa): https://romanletters.org/letters/plin...
7. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36, second part (houses, window stone, floors, glass, lime), Attalus.org: https://www.attalus.org/translate/pli...
8. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 33, second part (silver, pigments), Attalus.org: https://www.attalus.org/translate/pli...
9. Seneca, Moral Letters 86 (the old bath and the new): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_...
10. Varro, On Agriculture, book 3 (LacusCurtius): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
11. Cato, On Agriculture (LacusCurtius): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
12. Parco Archeologico di Pompei (official site) — House of the Faun: https://pompeiisites.org/en/?p=3360
13. Parco Archeologico di Pompei — House of the Menander: https://pompeiisites.org/en/?p=3252
14. The Metropolitan Museum of Art — essay "Roman Housing": https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/roma...
15. UNESCO World Heritage List — Villa Romana del Casale (no. 832): https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/832/
16. English Heritage — History of Lullingstone Roman Villa: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/v...
Visual credits
All scenes, reconstructions and the thumbnail are AI-generated artistic illustrations created for this video. They are not photographs of the sites, and details such as furnishings, wall colors and clothing are interpretations where the evidence is uncertain.