Essay On Ancient Roman Houses

Describe the layout and function of the various kinds of dwellings used by the Ancient Romans in the cities and countryside.

Dormus

In ancient Rome there were several categories of houses; depending on his social status, someone can live in a special type of house. As examples, we can cite the Domus, the Villa and the Insula.

The Dormus

The word Dormus comes from the Greek “Domi” which had a relative meaning to the structure which was the standard type of housing in ancient Greece. The richest families had not only a Formus in the city but also a country house known as the Villa. The houses are built with decorations of marble panels, with costly paintings and frescoes.

The Domus was composed of several rooms, there were courtyards, gardens

These are blocks of apartments on several levels, a high and narrow construction, without convenience. These buildings (insula) were similar to those we still know today, with floors, windows on the street and courtyard, an entrance door and a staircase, landings and apartments. The richest were housed on the first floors, the poorest at the top of the building and under the roofs.

In Roman architecture, an insula was a kind of residential building that housed most of the urban population of ancient Rome, including ordinary people of lower class or the average (the plebs) and all but the richest of the middle class. The ground floor of the insula was used for the tabernes, shops and businesses, with the living space upstairs. Like modern apartment buildings, an insula could have a name, usually in reference to the owner of the building. Traditional Insula

In apartment houses an entire family (grandparents, parents, and children) could all be tight in a room without running water. They used public facilities. Fire was a very real threat because people cooked meals in congested quarters, and many of the flats were made of wood. They did not have a toilet. They had to use public latrines