16. Plan of a typical Roman town house

(From Antony Kamm, The Romans: an Introduction, Routledge 1995)

In about the second century BC, the Greek influence began to be felt. The main doors from the outside were usually set back from the street and approached through the vestibulum (A). The atrium (B) with its impluvium (C) and the little rooms remained, but now opened into a larger extension, the peristylium (E), a garden court (sometimes with a fountain in the middle) surrounded by a colonnaded passage off which were further rooms. Between the atrium and the peristylium, and opening into both, was the tablinum (D), which had various uses: dining-room (especially in summer, when it would be the coolest place in the house), reception room, or office for the head of the household. Other rooms might comprise a hall furnished with seats (or drawing-room), exhedra, the main dining-room, triclinium, and space set apart for the kitchen, culina.