2 Archaeology of Roman Retail Outlets - The Structure and Shape of Shops and Bars - Oxford Scholarship

The Archaeology of Roman Retail Outlets
The Roman Retail Revolution: The Socio-

Economic World of the Taberna
Steven J. R. Ellis
Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780198769934
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198769934.001.0001

The Structure and Shape of Shops and Bars
Steven J. R. Ellis
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198769934.003.0002
Abstract and Keywords

This chapter begins with a brief overview of the ways in which shops and,
especially, food and drink outlets have been identified on Roman archaeological
sites. It then provides a detailed account of the archaeological remains of food
and drink outlets, with a particular focus on the shop counters and the
architectural and spatial configurations of the properties themselves. A typology
of food and drink outlets is proposed, one that is necessarily flexible but which
also allows for a series of questions and observations to be made about the types
of buildings in which we find bars, and of the availability of various spatial and
structural resources to their retail networks.
Keywords: property identifications, property typologies, textual sources, thermopolium, popina, bars,
masonry counters, artifact assemblages, tabernae, shops
If we want to learn something from their forms, locations, and currencies, then
our first step in a study of the Roman retail outlet is to at once establish some
means for identifying them and their various types. At the most basic level, a
taberna is typically identified as a street-front property, whether of one room or
many, that was fronted by a wide, open entrance to expose its contents and
activities to passers-by.1 Countless shops have been identified in this way, more
or less adhering to Isidorus’ description:2 “Tabernae…referred to the small
buildings belonging to the common people, humble and simple neighborhood
buildings that could be closed by planks and boards.”3 Of these taberna forms,
the food and drink outlets can be further distinguished by the addition of a
Page 1 of 50
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masonry sales counter (see Fig. 1.2). In actuality, the identification of shops and
bars has proven to be a more complicated affair than finding street-side rooms
with wide entrances with or without a counter. The point of this chapter is to
delve deeper into the identification of their structural forms. But the immediate
problem lies in the fact that there were clearly various types of retail space that
remain identifiable in the archaeological record, as well as a range of Latin
words that relate in various ways to retail activities: how to effectively reconcile
the textual and archaeological information is the challenge.
(p.30) What follows is a brief but necessary critique of the traditional yet
ongoing ways that retail spaces are identified in Roman cities. Beyond
differentiating bars from shops, I develop a typology of Pompeian food and drink
outlets from a detailed analysis of the principal material remains: from their
masonry counters and hearths to their doorways and spatial configurations. This
typology does not simply compartmentalize each property based on the quality
and state of information that survives the archaeological record, but aims to
identify functional distinctions that might have been recognizable in antiquity. It
is only through a detailed account of the material remains of Roman retail
outlets that patterns in their structural form, over time and space, can be
connected to broader and richer questions of Roman urbanism. For example,
why should the shops of Lambaesis and Volubilis and Tiddis, but not Timgad or
Djemila or Ephesos, be so similar in form to those of Glanum, Saepinum, or
Butrint? Why was there a kind of “blueprint” for the construction and
configuration of Roman tabernae that was followed in some cities but not others?
And what difference could a century, even a generation, make in the
development of their forms? So while the focus of this chapter is mostly fixed on
Pompeii, because of the quantity and quality of the surviving evidence, it hopes
also to serve some of the discussions found in the following chapters by
establishing the archaeological shape of the Roman shop and bar from which
broader regional and chronological trends in retail space can be revealed.
Identifying Tabernae
Before we can deal more thoroughly with the archaeological remains of Roman
shops and bars, we first have to consider how they can be identified in the first
place. This is a matter that has dominated the study of retailing,4 particularly the
validity of identifying shops and their types based on the various Latin labels
that have been pinned to so many (but mostly Vesuvian) properties upon their
first discovery; the most commonly used were tabernae, cauponae, popinae, and
(p.31) thermopolia.5 To some degree the practice of assigning Latin words to
archaeological spaces makes sense; there is of course good value in finding
more ways to integrate, rather than marry, both textual and archaeological
material, and the opportunity to do so with sub-elite subjects all the more so.
The lure of embedding the often lifeless, homogenized remains of tabernae into
the rich world of Roman literature has a special appeal. The problem, however,
is that the focus on determining which Latin words once described retail outlets
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has not really brought us much closer to identifying their various types in the
archaeological remains. At issue is not so much the Latin word itself—labels are
helpful, indeed essential—but rather our expectation that these labels alone
accurately reflect functionally different types of retail outlets.
The privileging of ancient labels over the surviving structures to identify types of
Roman buildings and their parts has a long and entrenched history in Roman
scholarship.6 But if the related practice of attaching Vitruvian descriptions to
parts of the Roman house is at least debatable,7 then it is all the more so for the
retail outlets of the Roman world. There is no Vitruvian manual on commercial
space that gets us even close, while the archaeological remains themselves are
barely skeletal by comparison to the rich(er) body of archaeological information
on Roman houses. Still we now have hundreds of properties across Pompeii and
elsewhere that are identified as tabernae, popinae, cauponae, and thermopolia.8
The attachment of these labels to Pompeian buildings, and moreover the
activities associated with them, long pre-dates any systematic study of the
activities (now) associated with each term and thus of their validity in defining
the use of urban space. And while Tönnes Kleberg’s seminal study brought us a
general sense of how each of the words used to describe Pompeii’s commercial
spaces were used in the literary realm, there is no such consistent corroboration
between those general meanings, the activities they suppose, and the
archaeological remains of the buildings to (p.32) which they are now fixed.9
Now often regarded as the definitive typology of Pompeian retail and hospitality
buildings,10 his study was instead focused on the semantic use of these labels in
their written form, and especially their etymology, rather than a critique of their
validity in identifying so-named spaces in Pompeii.11
Kleberg’s literary survey of the various terms associated with retailing has now
reified into an archaeological typology of Pompeian shops, with tabernae
considered, very generally, as shops and taverns; cauponae as restaurants and
hotels; popinae as restaurants and bars; and thermopolia as bars.12 Indeed there
is some resonance between these functional categories and the texts where we
find them. The taberna, although used more often than any other term to
describe retailing activities,13 and maintained as it has been through various
languages into the present,14 was for Kleberg more ambiguous and complicated
than the others.15 While it conveyed a general sense of being a shop, typically
modified by an adjective,16 increasingly over time it evolved toward something
more like a twentieth-century tavern (his “auberge” or “cabaret”).17 The word
caupona is a bit more (p.33) specific, carrying a sense of having provided not
just food and drink, but also accommodation. Much of this comes from the many
derivatives of the word, especially Caupo, that refer to the owner or manager of
such an establishment.18 Indeed of the thirty-eight times it is found in literature,
some nineteen of them refer directly to the provision of lodging, or expressly to
an innkeeper.19 Popinae are found to refer more directly to the retailing of food
and drink than (also) accommodation.20 We read, for example, of Vitellius’
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gluttony in scoffing down the food at “the popinae along the road, food smoking
hot or even those left over from the day before and partly consumed.”21
Excepting the more generic taberna and its necessary modifiers, the term popina
is found more than any other to refer to the retail sale of food and drink.22
Thermopolium, on the other hand, is the least commonly used term in any form
of the written word, found only—and astonishingly, given its broad use to
describe so many buildings—three times in the world of Roman literature and
epigraphy, and only in Plautus.23 As rare as its usage may have been in antiquity,
still its use by Charles Mazois to describe a “café,”24 or August Mau to
confidently inform us that “[i]n view of the provision for heating water, we are
safe in calling this [the bar at VI.10.1] a thermopolium, a wineshop which made
a speciality of furnishing hot drinks” is to some degree unsurprising.25 Plautus
was, after all, the “man of the streets” and wildly popular among our earliest
Pompeianisti for colorfully illustrating the social fabric of the city; one of the
earliest guidebooks to the city, William Gell’s Pompeiana of 1817, cites the
comedies of Plautus more often than any other ancient author.26 But what did
the word mean to (p.34) Plautus? And why do we only find it in his works? If he
is our colloquial, urban voice, why do we never find his thermopolium scratched
among the thousands of street-side graffiti? Does his use of thermopolium simply
pre-date Pompeii’s retail landscape? As we will see in Chapter 5, the advent of
specialized bars is a development that comes almost two centuries after Plautus.
If his thermopolium relates to the retailing of food and drink, then it is to a form
of retail outlet that is not yet distinguishable. Otherwise it is the transmission of
the term from Greek into Latin that is generally taken to explain its rarity, even
if the union of “thermos” and “polium” is not even known in Greek.27 In any
case, Plautus’ three instances of the term indeed reference the consumption of
hot drinks at some kind of establishment: “[fellows] you can always see drinking
in the thermipolium when they’ve stolen something; with their heads covered
they drink hot drinks [calidum bibunt]”;28 and, “Did you really forget your ring in
the thermopolium after you’d warmed your throat with hot drinks
[thermopotasti]?”29 Thus, when Gell came to label the property at VI.5.12,
conspicuous by its service counter with attached hearth, he named it the “House
of the Thermopolite, or Seller of warm Drinks.”30
If our man of the streets is of little help, can a wider epigraphic survey of those
streets serve us any better? The only known inscriptional evidence that might
have described the physical features of a bar—in this case a hospitium—was
found on the front entrance to a retail outlet at VII.1.44–45. The graffito,
hospitium hic locatur/triclinium cum tribus lectis/et comm(odis) (CIL IV 807),
advertised the provision of a triclinium with three couches at a hospitium.
Fiorelli believed that this hospitium, generally interpreted as an inn, could be
identified as the building onto which the sign was painted, even though no
triclinium can be recognized in what remains of the premises.31 Two other
notices were painted onto the street-side walls of the so-called Praedia Iuliae
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Felicis (II.4; CIL IV 1136) and Insula Arriana Polliana (VI.6; CIL IV 138), and
advertised the rental (p.35) of tabernae cum pergulae.32 Although
distinguishing these tabernae only by the upper storeys/apartments that are
found in most every other shop across the city, Felix Pirson has argued that
these advertisements describe the actual buildings on which they were posted;33
we will return to these in Chapter 3.
It should probably come as little surprise that the written record failed to define
clear and descriptive definitions of the considerable variety of shop types. The
range of retail spaces must surely have eclipsed any interest, whether in
practical terms or as a literary device, in rigidly defining the many and various
shop types with strict names.34 But the more problematic outcome of
indiscriminately and inconsistently applying these kinds of labels to properties is
that misleading information about specific activities—such as the provision of
food and/or accommodation—now determines the functional and economic
shape of the city. This perpetual privileging of circular, unsubstantiated property
identifications over engagement with the archaeological evidence means that
most listings of retail and hospitality businesses are drawn from the gazetteers
of Kleberg and Eschebach, as if each was itself a form of primary evidence.35 At
a singular level the misidentification of one taberna in a city full of them
probably matters little, as when the property at I.2.29 with its counter and
attached hearth is now counted as a thermopolium, but not equally the property
with similar fixtures at I.10.13.36 Or when the Consorzio Neapolis database lists
I.3.2 and VII.7.3 as thermopolia when both were clearly without cooking
arrangements.37 But collectively we risk not just a lack of concordance between
Eschebach’s count of sixty-nine Pompeian thermopolia and the figure of eighty-
nine (p.36) thermopolia derived by the Consorzio Neapolis database,38 but
more troublingly an inability to properly understand the real role—physical,
social, economic—of one type of business or the next.
The Archaeology of Tabernae

It remains now to demonstrate how shops and bars might be more reasonably
identified from the archaeological remains, and what the material evidence can
suggest about different activities and types of establishment. In their most
common form, what usually survives is barely three walls of a rectilinear space
and a wide, independent street-front entrance, often, but not always, marked by
a stone threshold (Fig. 2.1).39 While there is some variation in the widths of
retail entrances—with those at Pompeii averaging 3.2m, Lucus Feroniae about
5.1m, and Musti just 1.55m—still these retail entrances were for each city
noticeably wider than those that gave onto houses.40 These open doorways thus
served a critical role in identifying the function, type, and something of the
status of the space they controlled. In this way shop thresholds were highly
charged spaces, their openness interconnected with the activities of the street
yet also representing a liminal barrier under the watch of Janus, god of
entrances and exits, beginnings and endings.41 If they are readily identifiable
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today it is because they were to be readily identifiable then as veritable

showcases.
(p.37) Once inside, most

tabernae comprised two
ground-floor rooms, but larger
and more complex layouts
survive. The vast majority of
shops etched into the Severan
marble plan, for example, were
of two rooms (Fig. 2.2).
Regardless of the number of
rooms and spatial complexity,
the street-front room was
normally 20–25m2, typically—
but notably—the largest such Fig. 2.1. An example of all that typically
space that opened onto a street. survives of a Roman taberna; this one at
It is only through the limits of Lambaesis.
evidence that tabernae are Photo: S. Ellis.
normally identified as ground-
floor spaces, although we might
expect that commercial activities—from production to storage and sales—
occurred on upper floors; some 40 percent of Pompeian tabernae retain evidence
for staircases to an upper floor.42 The evidence is equally often absent, or even
misleading, with regard to the spatial relationship between the identified shop-
front and any neighboring—directly connected or otherwise—properties; the
typology I propose below will return us to this discussion on the (p.38) spatial
relationship between shops and other property types, especially houses.
Given that for so many shops

across the Roman world we are
left with little more than some
ankle-high walls enclosing
empty spaces, it is the street-
front thresholds that are vitally
important to their identification
as retail spaces. While several
types survive across the Roman
world, certainly the most
common and identifiable are
shuttered thresholds well
known from Pompeii and Ostia,
and many other places besides
(Fig. 2.3); we will turn our focus
from these to a second, later
Page 6 of 50
form—the double-door—in Fig. 2.2. Fragments from the Forma

Chapter 6. These shuttered Urbis Romae showing a neighborhood
thresholds were formed from filled with tabernae (FUR 496ab).
one or more stones, usually
Photo courtesy of the Stanford Digital
locally mined, into which a
Forma Urbis Romae Project and Roma
distinctive groove was cut
Antiquarium Comunale.
across much of their frontage.43
The groove held the wooden
shutters that were slid into place at the close of business (Fig. 2.4). At one side
of the threshold (p.39) (p.40) the groove opened toward the interior to
accommodate a swinging door. In many examples the socket hinges for these
doors, the pivot shoes, are marked by bowl-shaped depressions and surviving
bits of iron or iron staining. That this arrangement allowed for access to the
taberna once the main entrance had been closed has led to it being termed a
“night-door.”44 The cuttings for the shutters and door correspond in the vertical
jambs at each side, and were also mirrored in the (very rarely surviving) lintel,
above. The tabernae at Musti offer something of a textbook example of what can
survive of this more complete arrangement (Fig. 2.5); various complicated
arrangements for locking the doors from the inside attest to what must have
been rather serious security concerns. What survive of these arrangements are
the cuttings for wooden beams to slide into place horizontally across the door
and shutters. In some cases iron bars were used. At Pompeii, U-shaped door-
stops carved from lava were located about 1.5m behind the swinging door; a
wooden beam would be wedged into the socket and up against the door to
prohibit any forced entry from outside. A plaster cast of this system was made at
I.7.10 (Fig. 2.6). As one of the largest structural elements of a building, stone
thresholds must have had considerable value: several of those at Minturnae
show evidence for having been flipped and reworked, once worn down, to
economize their replacement (Fig. 2.7).
Fig. 2.3. A shuttered threshold with

“night-door” giving entry onto the shop at
VIII.7.4, Pompeii.
Page 7 of 50
Photo courtesy of the Pompeii

Archaeological Research Project: Porta
Stabia.
Fig. 2.4. Plaster casting of the shuttered

door at IX.7.10, Pompeii.
Photo: S. Ellis.
Fig. 2.5. Threshold and lintel

arrangement of a shop at Musti.
Page 8 of 50
Photo: S. Ellis.
Fig. 2.6. Plaster cast of door-block

system at I.7.10, Pompeii. Inset: in situ
block at I.1.2, Pompeii.
Photo courtesy of Christopher Motz; inset
photo courtesy of the Pompeii
Archaeological Research Project: Porta
Stabia.
Page 9 of 50
From Shops to Bars: The Fig. 2.7. Shop threshold at Minturnae

Counters
with evidence for recutting.
From the thousands of
examples of this generic Photo: S. Ellis.
taberna type, the only more
specialized form of recognizable
retail space is the food and drink outlet, typically identified by the inclusion of a
masonry sales counter: 260 examples survive in one form or another (Figs. 2.8
and 2.9). Built to facilitate the production, display, and retail sale of goods, its
specialized form was for the most part limited to food and drink. Little wonder
this fixture served as the signature symbol of retailing activity on the majority of
shop-front scenes produced from especially the early second century CE.45 The
surviving (p.41) examples of those images come almost exclusively from Ostia
and Gaul, and were in every case carved for funerary monuments. The well-
known scene of a “poultry-seller,” found as it was—notably (p.42) not in situ—
on the via della Foce in Ostia, has long been interpreted as a shop-sign (Fig.
2.10; Museo Ostiense inv. 134);46 the interpretation is based entirely on the fact
that shops and insulae were (p.43) (p.44) located nearby.47 If the relief was
indeed recovered from such an immediate context, it would be the only
identifiable shop-sign of this type yet known; in reality, the relief conforms to the
sizeable body of (p.45) examples from funerary art. These types of scenes were
intended to be immediately recognizable, essentially believable: from the types
of food on display to styles of clothing, even body-language, these scenes
illustrate with veristic detail the action of retailing.48 The scenes are thus
accurate more than precise illustrations of retailing, the principal aim being to
represent—surely proudly, given the funerary context—the livelihood of retailing
as a profession. As valuable as that statement alone should be to us, for the
moment it is the attention given to the detail that is informative: thus it was not
by coincidence that the vast majority of shop-scenes with counters show us the
retailing of food and drink.
Fig. 2.8. Counter in the bar at I.2.5,

Ostia.
Page 10 of 50
The strongest evidence that Photo: S. Ellis.

counters were more often
associated with the retailing of
cooked food and drink can be
found in the fact that the
majority (some 133, or 82
percent) of masonry counters at
Pompeii were serviced directly
by a hearth; these were either
built directly into the counter or
in direct association with it.49
Nevertheless, drawing such
conclusions from these numbers
demands some flexibility. We
Fig. 2.9. The stub of masonry, bottom-
can be sure that a small handful
left, is all that survives of a shop counter
of the counters at Pompeii, after
at Seripola.
all, went without hearths and
instead retailed in other kinds Photo: S. Ellis.
of products (for example:
pottery and lamps, metal
objects, bone and ivory, and
olive oil).50 Moreover, we can be
equally sure that the retail sale
of food and drink occurred in
some cases without any form of
counter; this leaves us with
some important questions about
the value in investing in such a Fig. 2.10. Poultry-seller relief from the
permanent fixture and why via della Foce, Ostia (Museo Ostiense inv.
counters might have been no. 134).
installed in some outlets of Photo: S. Ellis.
some cities across some
regions, yet not in others.
There is also the question of those shops or bars that operated not with masonry
counters, but wooden ones that do not normally (p.46) survive in the
archaeological record. Does their necessary absence from a survey of shops with
counters negatively impact this study? Certain though we can be that they were
once a feature of retail spaces, still beyond the rarest of exceptions their
identification and currency is mostly a mystery. The best evidence for them is at
Pompeii, even if here it barely exists as negative scarring where some flooring
and wall treatments once lipped up against now-lost wooden structures; the
most striking of the (just) three surviving examples at Pompeii, from some 600
shops, is the scar of an L-shaped counter at I.6.8.51 Herculaneum, normally
Page 11 of 50
renowned for its preservation of wooden remains, is of less help than we might
expect; known examples of wooden counters, such as that at Insula Orientalis II.
9, are conspicuous by their scarcity.52 If this is as good as the evidence can be
for the Vesuvian cities, we have only to guess at how many wooden counters we
are missing elsewhere.53
That number must surely have been many, given their prominence in Roman
retailing scenes found carved onto funerary monuments from the second century
CE. The wooden counter used by the Ostian greengrocer shows how temporary
these structures could be: it is a simple counter-top supported by two wooden
trestles that would have left no trace in the archaeological record (Fig. 2.11).54
Equally so the wall-painting, once outside the entrance to IX.7.7 at Pompeii, of a
woman selling shoes from a wooden structure.55 Surely the best-known of them
is the so-called bakery scene from the tablinum at VII.3.30 (see Fig. 3.9).56
Whether we are here witnessing a simple (p.47) bakery scene, or a more
complicated display of public munificence (on which see Chapter 3), still it was a
wooden counter that can be believably associated with the scene; indeed as far
as the archaeology shows, just two of the more than thirty Pompeian bakeries
utilized masonry counters (those at IX.1.3 and IX.3.10–12).57 The importance of
what these images of wooden counters suggests is not just their presence in the
city, perhaps even their commonality, but that they could illustrate the retail sale
of a variety of commodities: from shoes to bread to groceries.
These scenes may thus be

illustrative of the extent to
which, in reality, masonry
counters were more commonly
associated with the retail sale of
cooked, or at least heated, food
and drink, while wooden ones
serviced a more generic form of
retail sale. Certainly the
statistic (p.48) that 82 percent
of the masonry counters at
Pompeii included cooking
facilities is difficult to ignore. At
the most basic level, it is
probably an over-simplification,
if not a fundamentally incorrect
one, to argue that masonry
counters were necessary for
bars because of the activities
associated with liquids and Fig. 2.11. Vegetable-seller relief from
58 Ostia (Museo Ostiense inv. no. 198).
fire; we might more
reasonably assume that these activities were more controlled than chaotic. But
Page 12 of 50
what can we do with this Photo: S. Ellis.

information about the presence
and absence of a counter,
particularly given the patently different likelihood of survival for the masonry
and wooden versions? Their number, to be sure, can only in part be explained by
accidents of survival. For while the unique destruction of the Vesuvian cities
yields us their greatest number for the most obvious of reasons, still their (albeit
relatively limited) presence at more typical urban sites points toward some
complexity in the reasons as to why we find them where we do. Why can we
count no fewer than ten masonry counters at Lucus Feroniae when none survive
at the even better preserved sites of Juvanum, Egnazia, or Tharros? If we can
recover a single masonry counter at Olbia in Gallia Narbonensis (Fig. 2.12),
remarkably intact and of the type so common to the Vesuvian cities, why are
there none among the better preserved, contemporary, and much larger cities of
the Rhone valley?
These questions should at once

demonstrate that whether for
Pompeii, Italy, or for the Roman
world, we are not dealing with a
survey of retail outlets where all
things are equal. But therein
should lie our interest. At the
most practical level, the
masonry counter is a strikingly
useful identifier of the retail
sale of food and drink, then as
now, and so a meaningful object Fig. 2.12. The painted, L-shaped masonry
to help focus the study. But bar counter in insula XIX, Olbia.
while the record for them is Photo courtesy of M. Bats and the Coupry
seemingly messy and Archives.
indifferent, still it can reveal
some apparent, and sometimes
meaningful, statistical and cultural patterns.
The Location of Counters

One of the more distinctive, signature features of the shop counter was its
location, typically to one side or the other of the wide street-front entrance to
the shop (Fig. 2.13). A full 87 percent of the known counters of the Roman world
were placed here, matching the 90 percent of those at Pompeii alone. A
fundamental factor in the (p.49) (p.50) placement of counters at shop-fronts
was to maximize the visibility of shop-front displays and retailing activities, not
least for daylight hours; there survives much textual testimony for the extent to
which Roman architects accounted for sunlight and shade in the design of
buildings.59 But while Jeremy Hartnett has persuasively argued for direct
Page 13 of 50
sunlight being an important factor in the placement of street-front benches, it

could be argued that a good many shops are unlikely to have received any direct
and sustained sunlight at all, since the majority of Roman shops are found in
built-up areas—whether wide thoroughfares or narrow side-streets—that were
lined with multiple storey buildings and projecting balconies and awnings that
will have diffused much of the direct sunlight.60 Beyond visibility from the street,
the placement of the counters here meant that—regardless of the size of the
property and its internal amenities—customers need not have entered the
premises, recalling Martial’s ultimate relief once measures were made (under
Domitian) so that no longer did “the grimy cook shop [popina] monopolize the
whole street. The barber, the taverner, the cook, the butcher keep to their own
thresholds. Now it is Rome, it used to be a big shop.”61 The significance of the
placement of the counter is equally reflected in the placement of the household
shrines of many bars, with Mercury and the Lares ever presiding over commerce
and the production of food. Of the no fewer than sixty-nine Pompeian bars that
have a known shrine, thirty-eight (55 percent) were not just in the street-side
room, but thirty of these (79 percent) were installed directly behind the counter
so as to be visible from the street itself (see Fig. 2.13).62 The remaining shrines
reflect the pattern seen in houses, being scattered between the kitchens and
gardens.63
The exceptions to this spatial

pattern for the location of
counters are few. While some
were built up to a meter or so
behind the threshold, in part to
furnish a small, low-walled
basin in front of (p.51) the
counter, still their structural
and functional positioning was
in association with the front
entrance.64 The purpose of
these basins is unclear, but the Fig. 2.13. An L-shaped counter fronting
example at III.6.1 was thought the bar at IX.7.24–25, Pompeii. Note the
by its excavators to have served niche (lararium) cut into the wall behind
as some kind of cage for small the counter.
animals destined for the table;65 Photo: S. Ellis.
the image calls to mind the
“poultry seller” relief that we
have just seen, in which the wooden counter appears to have also served as a
cage (see Fig. 2.10; Museo Ostiense inv. 134).66 Just five Pompeian counters
were located far enough within the premises to be largely concealed from any
obvious view from the street;67 a single example is known from Ostia.68 Other
exceptions exist much farther east. At Dura-Europos and Scythopolis, for
Page 14 of 50
example, shop counters were typically located at the rear of a property.69 These
are very rare examples, and probably speak not just to a “geographical and
temporal” gap but also to fundamentally different cultural and social uses of
space, both public and private;70 we will explore some of these issues in Chapter
6.
The Structure and Shape of Counters

The structure and shape of the Pompeian counters display some patterns that
are equally met elsewhere. All of the Pompeian masonry counters were built of
fairly simple rubble-work (opus incertum) directly onto the floor without the use
of foundation trenches. The vast majority of these were L-shaped structures (72
percent), although some U- and I-shaped counters are also known (for example,
Figs. 5.9 and 5.11).71 The L-shaped counter ordinarily had one arm extending
from the far end of the doorway along the threshold, before then turning
approximately 90 degrees toward the interior of the property (see Fig. 2.13).
This L-shape facilitated the display of goods and their (p.52) sale to customers
on the street, as well as to those who had entered the establishment. The U-
shaped counters were larger in surface area because of the addition of a third
arm that ran along the inner wall of the room. There were close to as many L-
shaped as U-shaped counters at Herculaneum; six L-shaped, five U-shaped, and
one of an unknown form.72 Less common shapes occur, but rarely.73 The smallest
counter forms were I-shaped, usually just a single arm built parallel to the
entrance.74 Small though the sample size may be, that two of the counters in the
Porta Stabia neighborhood originated as I-shaped forms raises questions as to
whether these were something of an early prototype in counter shapes.75
Notably none are known among the later settlements, like Ostia. The average
height of the Pompeian counter was in the 70–90cm range; those at Lucus
Feroniae were similarly sized, while the counters at Ostia were higher, if not by
much, with an average height of 1m.
Many of the counters were fitted with display shelves and inset storage vessels.
The shelves were typically a three-stepped structure located at the end of the
counter, against the wall.76 These stepped shelves were likely for the display of
items for sale, or for the storage of cups, plates, or smaller vessels, as we see on
the renowned sarcophagus relief from the Isola Sacra at Ostia (Fig. 2.14).77 They
are more often associated with L-shaped counters; seven examples are known to
have been fitted to (the eighteen examples of) U-shaped counters. Most of the
stepped shelves were built directly over a rectangular or arched storage niche
below (twenty-nine of forty-three examples); such in-built storage voids were
accessible only from behind the counter.78
Page 15 of 50
(p.53) Among the more

notable storage features of the
Pompeian shop counter were
the inset ceramic vessels that
were built into at least ninety-
two (57 percent of) Pompeian Fig. 2.14. The tavern sarcophagus from
counters (see Figs. 1.2, 2.17, Tomb 90 of the Isola Sacra, Ostia (Museo
and 5.16).79 While a variety of Ostiense inv. no. 1340).
vessel forms appears to have Photo courtesy of the American Academy
been adopted, most were in Rome, Photographic Archive.
dolia.80 The evidence from our
excavations at the Porta Stabia
shows that they were typically set into the ground first, with the masonry
counters then built around them; in this way the counter might be seen as
something of a secondary development to the subterranean storage dolia (the
dolia defossa) known throughout urban and rural contexts in both the Greek and
Roman worlds. When fitted with these vessels, the number was normally limited
to three or fewer (65 percent), although the U-shaped counter at I.8.8 had as
many as thirteen. In the earliest known description of a counter (at
Herculaneum), Venuti described such vessels as being closed by lids: “I
perceived on the top, some round stones or stopples of marble, which being
removed, I found were the covers of some great earthen jars set in with mortar,
the necks of which were enclosed just within the bench.”81 Just a single example
of a lid is now known, that which was chained to the counter-top at I.12.18–19.
It is a great misfortune that we can know so little of what these vessels held.
Mazois believed they held oil, wine, and comestibles based on analogy to the
retail counters of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century (p.54) Rome in which
the inserted vessels were sealed and filled with oil.82 James Packer was the first
to question the validity of these ideas.83 He suggested the vessels were ill-
equipped to contain liquids because of their porous linings and unsuitable shape
for cleaning and preserving.84 Even if sealed with beeswax, gum, or pitch, the
fixing of these vessels into a counter meant that any left-over liquid could not
easily be drained.85 It is possible these vessels served as storage bays for more
portable and smaller vessels filled with liquids, though very few were reported in
the excavation records as having done so. Another possibility is that skins were
placed inside as a non-porous lining, but again no evidence is forthcoming. It is
more likely that the inset containers were reserved primarily for dried goods,
and that liquids were kept in nearby portable amphorae; we at least see
amphorae stored near counters at IX.11.2 in Pompeii and in Room Y of the bar at
Pollentia.86 Archaeological evidence for the types of goods held by the inset
vessels is rare, but usually consists of dried foods. Some inset vessels at
Herculaneum contained grains, nuts, legumes, beans, and chickpeas;87 a fuller
discussion on food in bars is reserved for the final chapter. At Pompeii, Jens-Arne
Page 16 of 50
Dickmann and Felix Pirson discovered, at the bottom of one of the containers in
the counter at VIII.4.40–40a, a small bowl which they believed was used to scoop
such contents.88 Alternate finds to foodstuffs include three bronze vessels at I.
3.28; a glass bottle at II.1.1; coins at IX.11.2; and a large “hoard” of coins at I.
8.8.89
(p.55) While the shape of the dolium—wide mouthed and voluminous—was

suitable for fixed storage, their considerable cost suggests something of the
investment, indeed confidence, in this fixed form of retail activity. Even if they
were recycled, which must often have been the case, there was at least an
opportunity cost in using them in this way.90 And even if the presence of dolia
among most of the counters at Pompeii and Herculaneum indicates their value
as storage containers, the complete absence of them from the Ostian counters
suggests their utility may have ultimately been limited. While the counters at
Lucus Feroniae and Velleia Romana were fitted with these vessels, the
approximately contemporary counters at Ostia seem to have replaced this
storage fixture with the now quintessential basin that is found in most of the
Ostian counters; no fewer than twenty-nine (about 88 percent) of the Ostian
counters were fitted with these basins. The Ostian basins were rectangular with
an arched covering, sometimes marble-lined, and were accessible from each side
of the counter. While their precise function remains unclear, the general
consensus is that they held water.
The Cooking Hearths of Counters

The association between masonry shop counters and cooked food and drink is a
strong one.91 Indeed, the association between counters and hearths is what
underpins the identification of bars from shops more generally. While I use the
generic term “hearth,” this is mostly out of convention; they might have been
called foculi or fornelli in antiquity.92 The extent to which more portable cooking
structures (the clibanus) were used, such as braziers and cooking stands, cannot
be known but should be expected.93 And just as the masonry counter has come
to represent a certain confidence and commitment to the (p.56) retailing of
food and drink, naturally so too should the associated masonry hearth be seen as
a more significant investment in these activities than the portable brazier.
The Pompeian cooking hearths were either built into the counter itself (eighty-
two examples, or 62 percent), such as at IX.11.2, which was found with a
cooking pot (allegedly) in situ, or located within a short (and most likely
associated) distance (fifty-one examples).94 The connection of the hearth to
counter is all the more underscored by the fact that only twenty-four (18
percent) Pompeian bars had hearths located in rooms other than that of the
counter, and almost all of these were in the nearest room to that with the
counter. All but one of the eighty-two attached hearths were built into the end of
the inner arm; the single exception at I.11.16 (Fig. 2.15) was built at the junction
of the front and side arms of the counter. The fire or, more likely, glowing
Page 17 of 50
charcoal was normally set on a reused roof-tile, enclosed within a horseshoe

shaped walled formation that could support a metal grill or tripod for the
cooking pot. In some cases (as at I.11.16) this heat chamber was entirely
enclosed, with a window for fuel and oxygen.
A good number of in-built

hearths included a flat masonry
platform that could be used for
food preparation or as another
cooking surface. These
platforms varied considerably in
size, and were sometimes
surrounded by a curved edge
(see Fig. 2.15). The hearths and
their platforms were either
aligned with the inner arm of
the counter, or projected inward Fig. 2.15. The counter with in-built
(about 90 degrees) to enclose hearth at I.11.16, Pompeii.
the work-space. In a few Photo: S. Ellis.
unusual examples the hearths
and platforms projected
outward into the room, and so presumably the cooking activities might have
jostled with customers for the use of that space.95
In at least fifty-one of the Pompeian food and drink outlets the hearths were built
separately from, but in a functional relationship with, the counter. Their
construction was typical of those found among the domestic kitchens of Pompeii.
Some consisted of a simple masonry platform with a reused roof-tile cooking
surface surrounded by low support walls for the cooking vessels. This was in the
form of a horseshoe shape similar to those burners found in the hearths of
counters; the hearth at I.3.28 had a double-burner. Some of these included a
square or arched niche at ground level for the storage of (p.57) fuel.96 The
isolated hearths were mostly built against an exterior wall and close to a
window.97 Two of them retain the ceramic tubing that penetrated the wall,
evidence for a chimney flue so that smoke and accompanying smells could waft
onto the street.98 These smoke-windows and chimneys were provided in spite of
the fact that most of these examples, except those at I.12.12–13 and VII.15.5,
had their hearths either directly adjacent to or near the wide entrance from the
street. This statistic raises queries about those hearths built into the ends of
counters, and thereby some 2–3m from the open street-front, and the extent to
which no greater effort seems to have been expended on reducing smoke
pollution within the premises. Of the eighty-two hearths attached to counters,
only one retained some sign of an attached chimney. A small terracotta tube,
described by its excavators as a chimney, was found protruding from the top of
the in-built hearth of (p.58) the counter at IX.11.2.99 It is possible, however,
Page 18 of 50
that this terracotta tube was used to smoke foods. While roof-tiles with flues are
known to have ventilated some domestic kitchens,100 almost all of our bars were
beneath at least a second storey. The use of charcoal and olive pomace cakes
must have minimized, if only to a degree, Ausonius’ complaints about smelly and
smoky popinae.101 Apart from producing less smoke, charcoal and pomace
occupy comparatively little space, burn easily and without a draft, and also allow
for a more controllable and longer-lasting heat source.102 Because the evidence
of either is so scant, especially within bars, it is difficult to know which fuel—
charcoal or olive pomace—was preferred; pomace at least burns at a higher heat
than charcoal, and produces less smoke.103
The Decoration of Counters

As the show-pieces of these properties, bar counters were eye-catching
structures, proudly and richly decorated. The external, display faces of the
counters, as well as their upper surfaces, were finished with (usually decorated)
plaster or a (sometimes patterned) revetment of recycled pieces of marble. Many
were painted red with bordered panels that framed scenes and floating motifs
such as birds and plant life, recalling elements known from the Fourth Style
wall-paintings more usually associated with houses (Fig. 2.16). The counter at
Olbia, in Gaul, was decorated with garlands and floral motifs on a white
background with red borders (see Fig. 2.12).104 The decoration, as the counter
itself (with a poorly preserved hearth), is everything one might expect to see at
Pompeii, yet is the only one of its kind known in Gaul.105 Some of the Pompeian
designs were more vivid with hunting scenes (IX.6.b), a glass jug filled with wine
(I.6.5), and even a large ejaculating phallus flanked by two masturbating men
(VI.16.32–33); none survive. Theater masks were painted onto the counter at I.
8.1, (p.59) perhaps in imitation of the marble reliefs of masks said to have been
found embedded into the fronts of four other counters.106 The painted imitation
of marble roundels and triangles is also known.107
Many of the Pompeian counters,

some seventy of the total, were
covered in (reused) pieces of
marble (Fig. 2.17). While it
might never be known how
many more of the now bare
masonry counters were once
revetted this way, because of
the stripping of them in the
earliest years of excavation, at
Fig. 2.16. Painted decoration on the
least the twentieth-century
counter at I.12.3, Pompeii.
reconstructions seem to have
Photo: S. Ellis.
been as faithful to the originals
as possible.108 Nevertheless,
the pattern seems to indicate
Page 19 of 50
that marble was favored at least for the top surface (sixty-eight counters).109
There is at once a utilitarian value to facing the upper surface with pieces of
marble. Its durability must have facilitated any number of production and retail
operations. More than a functional surface, however, polychrome fragments
were set onto the exterior (p.60) vertical surfaces of at least twenty counters,
sometimes in geometric patterns and designs such as roundels and diamonds.110
The use of polychrome marble,

in addition to the whites and
greys, reflects the availability of
different types of marble from
across the Mediterranean
region. The recent survey of
some of these pieces by Clayton
Fant and his colleagues found
that some 50 percent were
pieces of white marble,
probably Luna, 20 percent were
grey, and 27 percent Fig. 2.17. The (reconstructed) remains of
polychrome.111 They found that marble that once decorated the counter
three of the counters at Pompeii at VI.3.18–20, Pompeii.
and Herculaneum had marbles Photo: S. Ellis.
so rare that they are completely
unknown among the finest
houses of these cities, and are even rare for Rome: these include Bekhen stone
from Wadi Hammamat on the counter at V.9–10 at Herculaneum; a green-grey
granito della sedia di San Lorenzo from Wadi Umm Wikala used on the counter
at VI.10.1/19, Pompeii; and a black Aswan granite disc featured on the Pompeian
counter at VII.15.5. Surely off-cuts from the construction or dismantlement of
other (p.61) buildings, the extent to which these pieces of marble can reveal
important elements of Pompeii’s building industry is yet to be fully realized.
While a fuller discussion about the reuse of these marbles is better suited for
Chapter 5, a few more observations can suit our current interests.
Some marble fragments retain bore marks, sometimes set at regular intervals,
that may be related to the use of the counter itself.112 Others reveal wear-marks
from earlier and patently unrelated purposes. The door-hinges found worn into
two marble fragments on the counter at IX.9.8–9 are an obvious example. Along
the inner arm of the counter at V.4.6–8 was a piece of white marble with a
sepulchral inscription;113 another was once attached to the counter at VI.2.5 but
did not survive the reconstruction efforts.114 The reasonably widespread use of
marble also highlights the relative absence of tile, broken or otherwise, as a
surface material for counters. This might be surprising, given tile’s utility and
easy availability. Reused roof-tiles were otherwise the primary material for
common fixtures such as toilets and waste removal chutes, drains, and especially
Page 20 of 50
cooking surfaces. It was not uncommon for the bases of lararia shrines to be
made from these tiles. Yet only a very few Pompeian counters had an upper
surface of reused tile, which might be explained by a preference for both the
decorative and functional (p.62) properties of marble fragments;115 the poorly
preserved counter at Monte Iato is described as having been partly formed of
tile.116
The Main Types of Bars

Once we move inside the Pompeian properties that had shop counters it
becomes increasingly apparent that they could be diverse in size, fixtures, and
spatial configuration. Some were small, one-room joints of little more than 10m2,
others large, multi-roomed complexes of close to 300m2 (1.5 times the size of an
average urban plot).117 Some were physically independent properties, others
surely connected to houses and other kinds of buildings. This variety in
structural layout, and by proxy the provision of fixtures and facilities, demands
that we find ways to distinguish one type of bar from another. But what are the
most meaningful criteria for identifying distinctions between one type and the
next? And if we are right to respect the flexibility and multi-functionality of retail
space, can strict material or spatial distinctions reflect genuine differences in
how those properties might have operated? Even if a typology were possible,
and ideally one that might even have been recognizable in antiquity, can it be
shown to reflect the socio-economic conditions of the Roman retail landscape?
Good lessons can be learned from earlier efforts to sort Roman shops into a
basic typology. These have normally—and necessarily—drawn from structural
and spatial criteria such as the number of rooms, the provision of a mezzanine
level, and the type of buildings to which the shops were attached. Chief among
these is the typology devised by Giancarla Girri, who outlined four types of shop
at Ostia. The identifications of these types were initially based on their wide
shuttered threshold, then sorted into: a single-room shop of variable size; a
single-room shop with a mezzanine; a shop with a back room (p.63) (the
retrobottega); and a shop with a back room plus a mezzanine level.118 Most of
the later attempts to create typologies of Roman shops have involved variations
on the same theme to sort the hundreds of very standardized second- and third-
century CE Ostian and Roman shop types.119 Similar criteria have been applied
to the retail outlets of Pompeii,120 combined with efforts to (positively)
complicate the broad, structural types by sorting them by the kinds of graffiti
that survive on a wall or by the precise number of dolia found in a counter.121
Our expectations for what the abundance of available information can tell us
about types of tabernae, however, should remain anchored to reason: for
example, that we might be able to distinguish a bar that served drinks, but not
food, is much too hopeful.122
Page 21 of 50
Rather than categorize the bricolage of surviving features, the typology below
instead draws on certain criteria that more likely influenced the use of the
establishment in antiquity.123 After all, the bar counter at I.6.5 had no dolia built
into it, but earthenware containers for food were found nearby and the counter
itself was equipped with a hearth. The presence of several storage amphorae
found in situ behind the counter at IX.11.2, even though the counter (p.64)
itself had four storage containers, reminds us to consider multiple arrangements
for the storage and provision of food and drink.
Much more relevant to identifying significant distinctions between one bar and
the next are their structural and spatial configurations. Although the counter
defines the property, its associated activities will have been conditioned—
economically as much as socially—by the establishment’s immediate spatial
resources. These spatial criteria can be slippery. After all, the structural and
spatial arrangements of bars very often represent earlier architectural layouts of
distinctly different types of properties and activities: say, former residential or
production spaces, as we will see. The more familiar architectural typologies of,
for example, houses,124 villas,125 and temples126 of the Roman world begin from
the (often correct) presumption that such buildings were originally constructed
as such, but with various later reconfigurations. Even just counting the spaces or
measuring their limits can be tenuous. The presence of a doorway between one
room or property and the next does not guarantee that passage was made
between the two, or that a room “belonged” to one activity or another; there is
thus some danger in looking too closely, or in defining limits that are too sharp
or inflexible.127 Whether a room functioned only, or more often, with the shop or
the house will normally never be known. Some flexibility is again essential. In
this we do better to learn from the overall patterns rather than to get snagged
on the inevitable exceptions. The two-room shop at VII.6.13–14, for example, had
a doorway into the two-room shop at VII.6.15, which fronted onto a different
street. That the doorway suggests some kind of passage between each is most
certain, and a sharing of resources all the more likely. Yet their separate
frontages, as well as their own bar counters onto two different streets, indicate
some degree of independence in their operation. The spatial configuration is
thus something of a sub-type, or variant, to the typology, but a critical one all the
same.
The typology that follows is thus a necessarily simple one. The criteria are
intended to provide a general, big-picture view of the types of bars, again
focused for the most part on those at Pompeii where the (p.65) distinctions
between them are significant yet flexible. The intention here is not merely to
mirror those shop typologies already established at Ostia, but rather to show
how certain criteria might have conditioned the actual operation of the food and
drink outlet, as well as reveal information about its retail network. Three broad
types of food and drink outlet are evident:
Page 22 of 50
Type A: Counter associated with a cooking facility (133)
Type B: Counter without a known cooking facility (21)
Type C: Counter with no remaining evidence to confidently suggest the

presence or absence of a cooking facility (9)
Within these types (but with a more meaningful accounting for A and B), sub-
types were distinguished by their spatial configuration:
Sub-type 1: one-room establishment (20)
Sub-type 1.H: one-room establishment attached to a house (12)
Sub-type 2: two-room establishment (36)
Sub-type 2.H: two-room establishment attached to a house (11)
Sub-type 3: three-room establishment (27)
Sub-type 4: large, multi-room establishment (four or more rooms) (48)
Thus a shop that had a counter with a cooking facility, a single room, and was
attached to a house, is classified as Type A.1.H, whereas a two-room shop with a
counter but no evidence for a cooking facility is a Type B.2 (Table 2.1 and Fig.
2.18). Because most of our properties with counters have hearths, and not least
because of our overall interest in food and drink, most of the following
discussion focuses on the Type A properties: they make up at least 82 percent of
the Pompeian properties with counters. Type C is generally excluded from both
the discussion and the accounting of numbers that follow. And while the
availability of data at Pompeii will keep our attention there—and so the numbers
of examples assumes Pompeii, unless otherwise noted—still the handful of
examples from other cities fit into the same typology. All of the ten tabernae with
counters at Lucus Feroniae, for example, retain evidence of an attached hearth,
or of one very close by (nine of them are Type A.4; one is A.1). Whether for
Pompeii or elsewhere, the ultimate aim of this typology is to analyze any
patterns in their material remains to prompt fuller discussions of retailing
activity, of the motivations to invest in urban retail, and of the (shared) use of
spatial resources as well as broader retail and economic networks.
(p.66)
Table 2.1. List of the 163 Pompeian properties, with evidence for
bar counters, and an indication of their “type.”
Page 23 of 50
Property Type
I.1.1/10 A.4
I.1.2 A.3
I.1.4–5 B.2
I.1.9 A.2
I.2.1/30–32 A.4
I.2.7–8 A.2
I.2.11 B.2
I.2.13–14 B.3
I.2.18–19 A.4
I.2.20–21 A.4
I.2.29 A.1.H
I.3.2 B.1
I.3.5–6 A.2
I.3.11 A.2
I.3.21–22 A.1.H
I.3.28 A.1
I.4.3 A.1.H
I.4.11 A.4
I.4.27 A.2
I.6.5 A.2
I.6.8 A.4
I.7.8 A.3
I.7.13–14 A.4
I.8.1 A.2.H
I.8.8 A.4
I.8.15 A.4
I.9.4 A.2.H
I.9.11 A.4
I.10.2–3 A.2.H
Page 24 of 50
Property Type
I.10.13 A.1
I.11.1–2 A.4
I.11.10–11 A.4
I.11.16 A.4
I.12.3 A.4
I.12.5 A.4
I.12.12–13 A.2
I.13.10 A.3
I.13.13 A.1.H
I.14.15 A.4
I.19.2 C
I.20.2 B.2
I.21.4–5 B.1.H
II.1.1/13 A.4
II.1.6 A.2
II.2.1 B.2.H
II.2.3 B.2.H
II.3.5 A.2.H
II.4.5 A.2
II.4.7 A.4
(p.67) II.5.1 C
II.8.2–3 A.4
III.6.1 A.2.H
III.7.2 C
III.8.9 A.1.H
III.10.6 A.4
III.11.5 A.1
V.1.1/32 A.4
V.1.13 A.4
Page 25 of 50
Property Type
V.1.14 C
V.2.13 A.3
V.2.19 A.4
V.2.b A.4
V.4.6–8 A.4
V.6.18 C
VI.1.2 A.4
VI.1.5 A.4
VI.1.17 A.3
VI.1.18/20 A.3
VI.2.1/32 A.3
VI.2.5 A.1
VI.3.18–20 A.4
VI.3.23–24 A.3
VI.4.1–2 A.3
VI.4.3 A.2
VI.4.8–9 B.2
VI.5.12 A.1.H
VI.8.8 A.4
VI.8.9 A.4
VI.10.1/19 A.4
VI.10.3 A.1.H
VI.13.17 A.1.H
VI.14.35–36 A.3
VI.15.15 A.2.H
VI.15.16 A.2
VI.16.1–2 A.4
VI.16.12 A.4
VI.16.20–24 A.4
Page 26 of 50
Property Type
VI.16.32–33 A.4
VI.16.40 A.4
VI.17.2 A.2
VI.17.3–4 A.4
VI.17.31 A.3
VII.1.1/62 A.1
VII.1.32 A.3
VII.1.38–39 A.4
VII.1.44 A.4
VII.2.15 A.2.H
VII.2.23 A.4
VII.2.26 B.2.H
VII.2.32–33 A.1
VII.3.1/40 A.4
(p.68) VII.3.4 A.4
VII.3.9 A.3
VII.3.13 B.1
VII.3.23 A.2.H
VII.3.27–28 A.2
VII.4.4 A.4
VII.5.14 A.3
VII.5.17 A.3
VII.5.28 C
VII.6.1–2 A.1
VII.6.13–14 A.2
VII.6.15 B.2
VII.6.20 A.2
VII.6.23–24 A.1
VII.6.26 A.3
Page 27 of 50
Property Type
VII.7.3 B.1
VII.7.8–9 A.2
VII.7.11 B.3
VII.7.18 A.3
VII.9.22 A.1
VII.9.30–31 A.2
VII.9.49 B.2
VII.9.50 A.3
VII.9.54–55 B.3
VII.9.56 B.2
VII.9.57 A.3
VII.11.7–8 A.1
VII.12.15–16 A.3
VII.13.20–21 A.3
VII.13.24 A.2
VII.15.5 A.4
VII.16.2 A.1
VII.16.7–8 A.2
VIII.2.24 A.3
VIII.2.35 A.1
VIII.3.22 A.1
VIII.3.23 A.2
VIII.3.29 A.1
VIII.4.17–17a A.4
VIII.4.25 B.2
VIII.4.40–40a B.1
VIII.4.51–52 B.3
IX.1.3 A.4
IX.1.6 A.2
Page 28 of 50
Property Type
IX.1.8 A.3
IX.1.13 A.1
IX.1.15–16 A.2
IX.2.25 A.2
IX.3.10–12 A.2
IX.6.b A.2
IX.7.13 A.2
IX.7.21–22 A.4
(p.69) IX.7.24–25 A.1.H
IX.9.1 A.1.H
IX.9.8–9 A.4
IX.11.2 A.1.H
Via dei Sepolcri SW 7 C
Via dei Sepolcri SW 14 C
Via dei Sepolcri NE 10 C
Via dei Sepolcri NE 16 B.2
Porta Marina 4 A.4
Scavo Matrone 7 A.1
Page 29 of 50
(p.70) Types A.1 and A.1.H: The

Single-Room Bars
Fig. 2.18. An example of each of the
various spatial “sub-types” of Pompeian
The smallest of our types are
bars.
naturally those that consisted of
a single room, whether attached
to a house or structurally
independent;128 they had an average ground-floor area of 24m2, with the
smallest being barely 15m2.129 The actual availability of space must always have
been greater, as access to an upper storey or mezzanine level is known for every
example. Moreover, the (Type A.1) bar at III.11.5 could access two neighboring
retail outlets at entrances 4 and 6; such groups of retail outlets are likely to have
been under single ownership. Of twenty-seven examples for this single-room
group, eleven (41 percent) retained direct physical access to an attached house
via a doorway (A.1.H). It is naturally impossible to determine whether such
doorways were permanently locked or frequently passed through. These
doorways often belonged to an earlier and functionally different spatial
relationship, such as a so-called cubiculum attached to the atrium of a house;
indeed, seven of the eleven Type A.1.H properties were formerly cubicula. VI.
13.17 was converted from a rear (but street-side) room of the house at VI.13.16,
and its separation was further emphasized by the blocking of visual access (i.e.
the blocking of a window) to the adjacent garden. In other cases it was the side
garden or neighboring but open spaces that were converted to retail outlets,
such as at I.3.21–22 which had originally been accessible from the atrium of I.
3.19–20. While in most of these houses the part converted was that most easily
accessible from the street, in others the complete house was given over to retail
and commercial space (VI.2.5).
Regardless of whether these single-room bars retained spatial access to the

house (A.1.H), or were physically disconnected, it is likely that they all operated
in a close social and economic relationship with their associated properties.
While the nature of those relationships is the principal subject of Chapter 3, still
our present discussion of shop types can reveal some important patterns in the
sharing of resources—such as space and facilities—between the (p.71) various
types of bars and their attached properties. As we will see, it was the combined
use of resources that was a critical factor in urban retail investment. The two
single-room bars at I.4.3 and IX.7.24–25, for example, were likely to have used
the cooking hearths located in the central courtyards (atria) of their attached
houses (Fig. 2.19).130 Access to other resources that were common to both the
bar and the adjacent house includes water supplies and the storage of
commodities and equipment, though access to the latter is less detectable
because of our difficulties in retrieving the necessary finds records.
Nevertheless, that these properties, and especially those with direct access to a
house, shared facilities is reflected in the average sizes across the types. The
Type A.1.H are notably the smallest of any Type A food and drink outlet,
probably because they could more readily draw on the spatial resources of the
Page 30 of 50
attached property; these properties average just 22m2, while both I.4.3 and IX.
7.24–25 (see Fig. 2.19) were each just 13m2. A comparison with the average size
of Type A.1 properties, at 26m2, points toward the sharing of facilities and
resources as having compensated for the lack of space given over to the retail
activities of Type A.1.H bars; a comparison between the average sizes of Type A.
2 and A.2.H bars, outlined in the following sub-section, shows a similar
correlation (A.2.H are 40m2; A.2 are 45m2). The Type B.1 properties were all
smaller still, averaging about 21m2, with just one of the five examples retaining
a doorway through to a house (I.21.4–5, measured at 17m2).131
Types A.2 and A.2.H: The Double-

Room Bars
The provision of a second room,
whether adjacent to or directly
behind the street-side room
with the counter, was a common
arrangement; thirty-five
examples are known.132 The
floor area for Type A.2 (p.72)
bars ranged from 25m2 (II.1.6)
to 78m2 (IX.3.10–12), with an
average size of around 44m2.
Again the forms and provisions
of these types of Pompeian bars
were directly contingent upon
the property in which they were
established. Twenty-seven had
two rooms with no (p.73)
immediate access to another
property (Type A.2), while
another eight had some direct
Fig. 2.19. Indication of the spatial
spatial connection through an
relationship between the hearth (masonry
interconnecting door (Type A.
platform at edge of central basin) in the
2.H).
atrium of a house and its attached bar at
While only three of the one- I.4.3, Pompeii.
room bars maintained access to Photo: S. Ellis.
a non-domestic building, half
(thirteen of twenty-seven) of the
Type A.2 bars had access via an internal doorway to a small, seemingly non-
domestic property, as at I.2.7–8, or to much larger complexes as at I.1.9 and VI.
17.2 (see Fig. 2.18). Sometimes these related properties shared garden spaces,
such as at II.1.6 and IX.7.13. Such properties with shared internal access
probably utilized a range of the same resources and were under the same
ownership. This sharing of facilities and resources among differing retail outlets
Page 31 of 50
might explain why we see considerably fewer of the two-room bars attached to
houses (twenty-seven A.2, but only eight A.2.H), as compared to single-room
bars, which were likely to have been more reliant on cooperative resources
(sixteen A.1, whereas eleven A.1.H). This statistic implies that the owners of
such houses were generally less inclined to set aside two rooms for retailing
activities, and instead chose to share their facilities and space. For example, the
many amphorae found stacked under the staircase in the atrium of the house at
I.8.2 were likely the empties from the bar at I.8.1.133 The bar at VII.3.23 is
another noteworthy example that utilized the cooking facilities of a kitchen in
the house.
A comparison between ground-floor areas of the one- and two-room bars that
had access to a house with those that were independent reveals a consistent
trend of slightly less floor space being utilized by Types A.1.H and A.2.H. But it
was not just less space in terms of square-meterage that we see being given to
the bars attached to houses, but rather fewer rooms; after all, the entire room/s
were likely converted, rather than just parts of them. These spatial trends
emphasize the extent to which fewer rooms were set aside for retailing because
the shops could retain access to shared resources. So unprepared were the
owners of these properties to set aside more rooms than absolutely necessary
that we do not see any Pompeian houses maintaining access to (their?) adjacent
food and drink outlets of three or more rooms. That is, the bars that had more
than two rooms occur only as physically independent establishments, albeit still
relying on shared resources.
(p.74) Type A.3: The Triple-Room Bars

The provision of a third room characterizes the Type A.3 properties, of which
there were twenty-three known Pompeian examples.134 Consequently the
average size of this type increases to 57m2, with the range from 38m2 (I.7.8 and
VII.9.50) to 87m2 (VII.3.9). While just four of this type maintained internal
access to a neighboring property (15 percent), strikingly none of these were to
domestic residences. Other notable differences between Type A.3 bars and the
smaller types are found in the spatial organization of certain fixtures and
facilities. The inclusion of a third room naturally opened up opportunities for
additional facilities, either for the customers’ direct use or to aid in the
production and retailing of goods and services. Cooking facilities are a primary
example, with the hearths of ten of the Type A.3 bars being located toward the
rear of their premises, surely to make more space available in their frontages for
retailing rather than production (three of these bars also had a cooking facility
in the front room: V.2.13; VI.1.17; VI.4.1–2). And while there are no definitive
signs among the Type A.3 bars of rooms or spaces specifically set aside for the
consumption of food and drink by customers, the tendency toward the
acceptance of customers into the premises of this size (at least) and (certainly)
larger types seems more likely.
Page 32 of 50
One of the more noteworthy characteristics of this type of bar was the provision
of a toilet, often in close proximity to the cooking hearths found in rear rooms.
Toilets were registered in twenty of the A.3 bars, 87 percent in all. This is in
stark contrast to the one- and two-room types; toilets were rare among all single
and double-room properties (11 percent and 20 percent respectively), and
completely absent from any of the bars attached to houses. Again it is the
likelihood of access to facilities—including toilets—that appears to be an
important characteristic of the smaller premises. On the other hand, the
provision of a toilet might not have been considered a necessary service of the
smaller outlets. Public facilities were available elsewhere, whether as public
multi-seat toilets, or amphorae located on several streets for urine collection;135
if not a facility per se, even graves and statues are known to (p.75) have
gratified the needy (Trimalchio was concerned that his own tomb would be
defiled this way).136 Of course it cannot be determined whether or not a toilet in
a back room would have been reserved exclusively for the staff member/s and
their family.137 In only one example of the Type A.3 bars are two toilets located
on the ground floor. The bar at I.11.10–11 had a toilet accessible from inside the
property, and a second that was adjacent to the first, but entered from the
garden that would have been used by customers.
Type A.4: The Multi-Room Bars

A good number of the Pompeian bars were of four or more rooms (the most
being eleven), here classified as Type A.4 (forty-eight known examples).138 While
several of these had considerably more rooms than others, they are here treated
as a single type given that in spite of their room and size ranges (from 43m2 to
292m2), they all appear to have shared similar features and characteristics; the
average size of Type A.4 properties was 127m2.139 Moreover, all bars of this type
operated as food and drink outlets for both street-side retail as well as
consumption within their premises; in the modern vernacular, as (also) “dine-in
restaurants.” Notably the identification of Type A.4 properties as a kind of
“complex” for food and (p.76) drink is supported by the striking statistic that
none of the Type B outlets—characterized by the (not always certain) absence of
cooking facilities—had four or more rooms. That Type B properties, because of a
lack of cooking facilities, had less need of the characteristic features of Type A.4
properties, is to some degree demonstrated by their consistently reduced, if only
slightly, ground-floor area.140
Recognizing the specific spaces associated with the consumption of food and
drink in each of the Type A.4 properties is of course difficult, given the relative
absence of recorded finds and decoration from most of them. Even so, the
location of “dining rooms” can for a good number of properties be surmised by
various fixtures and the architectural arrangement of space. For example, some
rooms were configured with a wide doorway onto a central courtyard, not unlike
known dining spaces in houses.141 Others faced, or were equipped with a large
window onto, a garden.142 The presence of fixtures associated with the
Page 33 of 50
consumption of food and drink, particularly triclinia offer a yet more certain
indication (see Fig. 7.6).143 Other arrangements for dining may have existed on
upper floors, now lost; Varro tells us that the consumption of meals on upper
floors was a developing phenomenon among Roman houses, thus already by the
first century BCE.144
Finds and Fantasies: Context and the Pompeii Premise

When it is asked, what is the instrumentum of a shop, it makes a difference
what kind of business is habitually carried on in it.
(Justinian, Digest 33.7.23)
The ways in which we can identify a shop or, more particularly, a type of bar
have been to this point structural and spatial. But what of the instrumenta
recovered from them? The artifactual assemblages of a (p.77) shop or a bar
should surely yield important information to help us identify one type from
another. Indeed there are a good many shops that have been reliably identified
this way: the shop at I.12.8 surely plyed a trade in garum, that at II.9.2 in gem-
stones, while another at VII.1.41 retailed (and repaired) shoes; high numbers of
finds associated with these trades were securely recorded at these outlets.
Various object assemblages have helped to identify certain broad types of shops
elsewhere; the goldsmith’s workshop in Scythopolis, the potter’s workshop at
Aquincum, and the pigment shop in the San Omobono site near the Forum
Boarium in Rome are just a few of many examples.145 In the archaeology of
Roman Gaul, the identification of food and drink outlets is typically based on
finds assemblages alone.146 Thus it should seem reasonable that if specific finds
assemblages can differentiate a perfume shop from a jewelry, a butchery from a
grocery, then we might all the more expect finds assemblages to help us identify
and further classify the various kinds of food and drink outlets at cities where
the evidence survives. Even the complete absence of finds in a property, a
situation not unknown in Pompeii (arguably because of post-earthquake
abandonment), could elucidate much about an establishment’s (in)operation.147
Nevertheless, these examples are, on the whole, wild exceptions. In reality, the
finds records are much too complicated to help us identify a type of retail outlet
with any degree of certainty. The problem is not even limited to a non-existent or
poorly formed finds record, whether as archival data or as (equally rare)
published catalogs from more recent excavations.148 Nor is the problem limited
to the fact that most Roman shops, at least those beyond the Vesuvian cities or
other rapidly destroyed settlements, were typically vacated and emptied long
before their transformation into something of an archaeological site; it is
actually rather rare for the first excavations at a given site to recover artifacts in
their systemic, occupation context. Rather, the (p.78) problem is that the
portable finds recovered from shops, and from many other architectural
structures besides, have been so readily and fundamentally misread. To be clear,
Page 34 of 50
two very different categories of portable finds are recovered from urban sites:
“stray” and “stratified” finds. The first of these are the objects recovered from
supposed occupation contexts, such as in the 79 CE destruction layer of Pompeii,
or from the abandonment layers at most other sites; the stacked garum storage
containers in the shop at I.12.8,149 for an example of the former, or the objects
smashed under a collapsed roof of an abandoned building for the latter.150 Even
the active destruction of a shop during times of invasion, rare though the
evidence is to recover, has accounted for the inventories of certain shops; the
sizeable stash of South Gallic Samian ware recovered from a shop at Aquincum,
for example, is owed to its destruction during the Marcomannic wars of the later
second century CE.151 Because it is commonly believed that these stray objects
were recovered from where they were last placed or used, the presumption is
that their principal function can help to attribute a known activity to that very
space. Penelope Allison pioneered a more critical analysis of the Pompeian finds
assemblages by ransacking the archives and excavation daybooks for thirty
Pompeian houses.152 One of the important results of her study was to dispel the
so-called “Pompeii premise”—the overly-optimistic expectation about what the
finds can tell us about the use of space in which they were recovered—by
revealing just how inadequate the records of these excavations actually were, as
well as the more complicated circumstances by which they are recovered.153 Of
the movable objects that were missed by looters in the aftermath of the eruption,
those that were recovered were inconsistently recorded, if at all, stolen and
often lost, and rarely ever preserved. As a consequence, Allison concluded that
the history of Pompeian archaeology produced a finds record that in many ways
was no different from most other urban sites.
(p.79) If relatively little can be learned from the finds assemblages of the thirty
best documented Pompeian houses, what hope might we have for the far less-
captivating shops? Even the most cursory glance of the original excavation
daybooks, as well as their published equivalents, returns conspicuously less
information about shops than houses.154 We should, of course, expect rather the
opposite: it would not be unreasonable to suppose, after all, that even the
smallest room given over to the selling of things should yield more objects than
the ideally uncluttered cubiculum, atrium, peristyle, or even entire house at
large. Of the eleven shops Allison included in her sample, only half of them had
any contents recorded, all in small quantities, and few of these were
“distinctively different” from assemblages found in the Pompeian houses.155
Some of the bars certainly do return fairly large inventories, and some of these
with exceptional or informative items. For example, Gennaro Matrone’s
excavation of the porticoed row of some fifteen tabernae to the south of the city,
near the Sarno river, returned many hundreds of coins, pieces of jewelry and
personal items, the majority of which came from the one bar among the line of
shops (Fig. 2.20). Invaluable though these particular assemblages are, closer
inspection shows that they were more directly associated with a group of fleeing
Page 35 of 50
victims than with the shops in which our unfortunates fell; of the twenty-two
individuals found in and around this particular bar, one of the most heavily laden
was a child, weighed down—if we can believe the reports—by a purse of 17 gold
and 580 bronze coins.156 Beyond the problems of such assemblages reflecting
portability of objects rather than the activities of space, long inventory lists can
also be invented. Some of the retail outlets that yielded suspiciously high
numbers of finds are the same as those that were excavated in the presence of
visiting dignitaries who were surely treated to staged excavations peppered with
previously uncovered, crowd-pleasing finds.157 Wallace-Hadrill has
demonstrated the extent to which the choreographed presentation of these sites
—from the (re-)placement of the most captivating objects into unrelated rooms,
(p.80) (p.81) to even the rebuilding of the structures themselves—makes
something of a mockery of our faith in the veracity of the archival records.158
Not everything in the daybooks

should be doubted, but enough
of their inconsistencies and
insufficiencies are now known
to question our continued faith
in them. It is of course not an
exclusively Vesuvian problem; Fig. 2.20. The row of shops to the south
closer scrutiny of the finds of the city; number 7 had the bar counter
records from shops at Olynthos (after NSc 1901, 424).
and Dura-Europos has proven
equally troublesome.159
Nevertheless, Nicolas Monteix has painstakingly assembled a record of 563 finds
for as many as 59 commercial properties at Herculaneum, believing that the
daybooks provide “objective” evidence for what was found and, all the more
hopefully, where.160 For Monteix, the barely ten artifacts per shop were enough
to confidently identify one specific type of commercial property from another.
His trust in the archive demands not just a confidence in the care given to
record-keeping,161 but an acceptance of the extraordinary taphonomic
circumstances under which some objects are said to have been found. In one
example, two glass vessels are believed to have been recovered from on top of a
shop counter; but for that to be so, we have to imagine that such fragile vessels
survived in-place, intact, while the multiple-storied building above them was
practically torn apart during the volcanic eruption and subsequently engulfed in
a landslide of volcanic debris. To complete the fiction, the same debris that in
some bars ripped marble from counters,162 and typically collapsed roofs and
walls, even entire buildings, in this case somehow gently blanketed these most
fragile, unfixed items in the very place where they were last set down. He is not
alone: Deiss similarly trusted that the excavators at Herculaneum found several
bowls on the counter at IV.17–18,163 still filled with walnuts, while the cups and
Page 36 of 50
plates (still found) on the counter at IX.11.2 in Pompeii are long thought to have
been uncovered in this way.164
(p.82) This brings us to the “stratified” finds, which are those objects typically
recovered from the layers that constitute the construction of these spaces. Can
these serve us any better for understanding the use of the retail spaces in which
they are found, to the extent that we might even identify one type of shop from
another? They have certainly been approached in the same way as the stray
finds, with similar fantasized expectations. For in spite of the many questions
about site formation processes and taphonomy being ironed out by Michael
Schiffer and his colleagues in the 1970s, their lessons have since been routinely
forgotten.165 For example, it is not uncommon for the things collected from the
sub-soil excavation of buildings—whether long-discarded coins or broken bits of
cooking pots—to be interpreted as the detritus of activities that occurred in
those developed spaces, rather than as waste items from other, relatively older
and potentially distant activities that had since been incorporated into
(imported) construction debris.166 Essentially, the objects that are recovered
from the making of a built space are then associated with the use of that space.
In this way space has come to trump context in the study of stratified finds: it is
increasingly common, for example, to come across artifact assemblages that
have been classified by the spaces in which they were found—say, domestic or
commercial—as though those designations reflect the actual formation process
that contains the assemblage. At the Porta Stabia excavation site, however, close
to 99 percent of the volumetric matrix of the site was made up of construction
contexts, not occupation ones, that were mostly filled with objects that came
from spatially dissociated activities via (extra-)urban dumps. Whereas the well-
known “Pompeii premise” has come to signify our struggles with reading stray
finds, we now have something of a “Stratified Assemblage Premise” whereby
imported waste materials used in construction are mistaken for house-floor
assemblages.167
Not all is lost in our (minimal) engagement with the finds from retail outlets. The
finds from the more meaningfully contextualized occupation deposits, like the
fills of drains and cesspits, for example, throw much light on the hyper-localized
activities of retail outlets; we will (p.83) return to these in the final chapter. But
in our identification of retail outlets, even their types, it is normal that more can
be gained from the structural remains. This is hardly a concession. Wallace-
Hadrill, after all, was able to construct an especially illuminating typology of
Pompeian houses without any recourse to their finds assemblages
whatsoever.168 His was a typology built on structure and shape, overtly simple
yet strikingly informative. It is an approach that at once makes more of the city
—indeed most every city—available to us through field survey and architectural
autopsy. It is through structure and space that we can delineate the actual shape
of urban retail, at a micro- and macro-level, chart its growth and decline, and
Page 37 of 50
begin to understand the motivations behind retail investment in the first place.
(p.84)
Notes:
(1) Principally Kleberg 1957, 19–23; Hermansen 1982, 191–5; Gassner 1986, 27–
30; La Torre 1988, 78; Pompili 2001, 129–30; Mac Mahon 2003b, 91–5; Ellis
2004a, 373–5; Monteix 2010; Holleran 2012, 100–13.
(2) Etym. 15.2.43. Cf. Ulp. Dig. 50.16.183.
(3) The translation follows Barney et al. 2006.
(4) All such surveys begin with Kleberg 1957, but worthwhile discussions can
also be found in Skiles 1941; Pompili 2001; Ellis 2004a; 2005; Monteix 2007;
2010; Grossi 2011; Holleran 2012; Le Guennec 2014.
(5) See, especially, Kleberg 1957 (19–23 on tabernae; 1–6 on cauponae; 16–18 on
popinae; and 24–5 on thermopolia).
(6) For my earlier arguments about this practice, focusing on food and drink
outlets: Ellis 2004a; 2005; 2008a. See also those of Leach 1997; Riggsby 1997;
Allison 2001; McGinn 2013.
(7) The strongest critique remains Allison 2001. See also Allison 2007 and, in
some degree a response, Wallace-Hadrill 2007, 279–80 (on each see Ellis 2008b,
453).
(8) Most notably Eschebach and Müller-Trollius 1993; also La Torre 1988.
(9) Kleberg 1957.
(10) These serve as the “Master List” in DeFelice 2001.
(11) Kleberg 1957, 20.
(12) Kleberg 1957 (19–23 on tabernae; 1–6 on cauponae; 16–18 on popinae; and
24–5 on thermopolia). Following Kleberg: Packer 1978; DeFelice 2001. For the
application of Kleberg’s typology classifications at Ostia, see Hermansen 1982,
191–5.
(13) Issues of word quantification aside, a search for the word taberna (and its
stem) in the Packhard Humanities Institute (PHI) Latin Database brings some
quantification to Kleberg’s study. The word is found in association with a
commercial property or activity on more occasions than any of the other terms.
Given the generic and ambiguous nature of taberna, this result is unsurprising.
Of the more than 200 passages, over 40 deal specifically with what may be
interpreted as bar-like activity: so, the provision of food and drink.
Page 38 of 50
To be clear, this kind of literature survey does not assume complete coverage,
given that the subjects themselves can have been written about without any
need to use one word (like popina) or another.
For a similar approach to Latin terms for spaces in Pompeian houses, see Leach
1997; Riggsby 1997. On text “ransacking” scholars, see Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 6.
(14) On the use of the word “tavern” throughout modern Europe, see Kleberg
1957, 21.
(15) Kleberg 1957, 19. Others have grappled with its meaning: see Gassner 1986,
1–7, who looked at the terminology of commercial properties, though she
restricted her search to taberna only. Felix Pirson appears more confident of its
meaning from a reading of the texts; Pirson 1997, 166.
(16) So, argentaria (banking), cretaria (ceramics), libraria (books), unguentaria

(perfumes), cauponia (accommodation), deversoria (accommodation), and vinaria
(wine).
(17) On the response of the jurists to the developing meaning of these kinds of
words, see Le Guennec 2014.
(18) On which see Kleberg 1957, 3. The derivatives include caupo (most
commonly adopted by scholars), cauponarius, cauponaticius, cauponatus,
cauponicula, cauponius, cauponium, cauponor, cauponula, caupuncula, and copa.
(19) Ellis 2005, 160–4 (Appendix A.2.1–26).
(20) Kleberg 1957, 16–18. Only one example of the 67 passages referring to
popinae mentions the provision of lodging (Plaut. Poen. 835), while around 20
referred specifically to the consumption of food and/or drink (Ellis 2005, 164–74,
Appendix A.3.1–55).
(21) Suet. Vit. 13.3.
(22) Ellis 2005, 164–74, Appendix A.3.1–55.
(23) For a discussion, see Kleberg 1957, 24. Of the hundreds of words relating to
urban commerce found in Plautus alone, none refer to physical descriptions of
the shops themselves; on this see Skiles 1941.
(24) Mazois 1824, Vol. 2, 43–4.
(25) Mau 1907, 394.
(26) Gell and Gandy 1817. In Bovie’s preface to Plautus: The Comedies Vol. 1, he
infers that this was Plautus’ background to writing plays. He was a “man of the
Page 39 of 50
streets” while working to save the money to stage his comedies. See Slavitt and
Bovie 1995, vii.
(27) Sturtevant 1925, 13 has argued that the use of Greek words like
thermopolium in vulgar Latin shows that Greeks themselves were petty traders
in Rome.
(28) Plaut. Curc. 292–3.
(29) Plaut. Trin. 1013–14. The third is found in Plaut. Rud. 529.
(30) Gell and Gandy 1817, 11.
(31) Fiorelli 1875, 175–6. See also De Marchi 1891, 797–8. On literary and
epigraphic evidence for hotels and hoteliers in Pompeii, see Gibert 1972.
(32) Parkins 1997, 100–4; Pirson 1997; 1999, 15–22 (for CIL IV 1136), 23–46 (for
CIL IV, 138); 2007, 468–71. Holleran 2012, 103 provides a good summary.
Otherwise, Allison 2001, 186–8 (contra Pirson); Robinson 2005, 89–90; Mayer
2012, 47–52.
(33) Pirson 1997; 1999. Allison 2001, 187 argues that this approach perpetuates
“unsubstantiated secondary sources, circularity, and analogical inference as
primary evidence.”
(34) Toner 2009, 109 draws the opposite conclusion, believing that there were so
many terms for a shop because of their “importance.”
(35) Not limited to Raper 1977, 189–221; Gassner 1986; La Torre 1988; DeFelice
2001. On similar problems of ambiguity encountered in the study of bars and
taverns in the Roman Levant (kapeleion, hanut, and beit kapilia), see Sperber
1998, 52.
(36) Eschebach and Müller-Trollius 1993, 19, 56–7.
(37) De Simone 1988, 106, 156. For the Consorzio Neapolis database, see De
Simone 1988.
(38) Eschebach and Müller-Trollius 1993, 453–64. For the count of the Consorzio
Neapolis database, see La Torre 1988, 78.
(39) On domestic doorways and thresholds at Pompeii, Ivanoff 1859; Hori 1992;
Lauritsen 2011; 2013; 2015; Proudfoot 2013. Good studies have been made on
those at Corinth (Broneer 1954, 48–59), Morgantina (Kyllingstad and Sjöqvist
1965), Olbia (Bouet 1994), and Ostia (Stöger 2007); a fuller survey of the
scholarship can be found in Lauritsen 2015, 299. On retail thresholds at Pompeii
and elsewhere, Mac Mahon 2003b, 91–9; Ellis 2011a.
Page 40 of 50
(40) On wide entrances as signifying retail space, see Girri 1956, 3; DeLaine
2005, 33; Holleran 2012, 113–16. Those onto Pompeian houses are typically
between 1m and 1.5m; a study by M. Taylor Lauritsen found the average to have
been 1.2m (I am grateful to Lauritsen for sharing this information with me).
Packer 1971, 21 measured Ostian domestic doorways to determine an average
width of 1.3m.
(41) On Janus and the threshold, Holland 1961. For the role of thresholds in the
establishment of ritual, Plummer 1993, 369. On the ways in which thresholds
could condition social behavior, see several contributions in Parker-Pearson and
Richards 1994. Also Mac Mahon 2003a; Ellis 2011a, 160–2.
(42) Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 80. On upper floors of Vesuvian cities more generally,
but with a focus on Herculaneum, see Andrews 2006.
(43) On the source availability of certain stone types at Pompeii, see Kastenmeier
et al. 2010.
(44) On the term “night-door,” see Packer 1971, 22; also Ellis 2011a, 164.
(45) On shop-front scenes in Roman art, the classic remains Kampen 1981. See
also the multiple volumes of Esperandieu 1907–66; Zimmer 1982; Langner 2001
(esp. 326–43 for the retail scenes and counters and tables); Clarke 2003, 123–5;
Olivito 2013. On so-called plebeian art more broadly, Petersen 2006; De Angelis
et al. 2012.
(46) See Kampen 1981, Cat. III.139.
(47) Kampen 1981, 59.
(48) On the “realismus” of these scenes, Langner 2001, 309–21. On the use of
body-language in the shop scenes, particularly the use of the right hand—never
the left—to signal speech (as in Figs. 2.10, 2.11, 2.14, 3.9, and 7.7 throughout
this book), Ellis 2011a, 167–9; see also Green 1999; Richter 2003. Cf. Holleran
2012, 212, who believes the raising of the right hand to be a simple gesture to
customers. On furniture, Richter 1966, 96–117.
(49) Just 11 Pompeian counters seem not to have had any direct functional
relationship to a cooking fixture; owing to a lack of evidence, some 13 could not
be known one way or the other.
(50) 1.20.2 is interpreted as a pottery or lamp shop (see Eschebach and Müller-
Trollius 1993, 80–1); VII.3.13 as a blacksmith (see Eschebach and Müller-Trollius
1993, 267–8); VII.7.11 as a shop for a craftsman of bone and ivory (see
Eschebach and Müller-Trollius 1993, 301–2); and VIII.4.51–2 as an olive oil
retailer (Eschebach and Müller-Trollius 1993, 379).
Page 41 of 50
(51) The other two are at IX.2.25 (known only from the description in Fiorelli
1875, 388) and II.2.3 (see NSc 1927, 100–1; but named under the earlier
convention of II.5.3).
(52) Nothing of this wooden structure is preserved today. The property was
brought to light by Amedeo Maiuri in December of 1936, and was more recently
restored in 1994. On the restoration see De Carolis 1996, 34–7. The fullest
overview of the property is in Monteix 2010, 413–14.
(53) The difficulty in recognizing impressions in the ground is that the floors of
so many Pompeian shops are now covered with protective gravel. Finding them
in the archival records is also difficult, not just because we might reasonably
expect such details to be missed in the recording, but because so often the
uppermost floor surfaces, especially the beaten earth examples so common to
shops, were frequently dug through by the first excavators; our excavations of
the Porta Stabia neighborhood show us just how frequent that was.
(54) Ostia, Museo Ostiense, inv. 198 (formerly 138a). Kampen 1981, 59–61, Cat.
I.4.
(55) Della Corte 1927, 9, fig. 3. See also Kampen 1981, Cat. III.42, fig. 46; Clarke
2003, 109–11, fig. 63.
(56) MANN, inv. 9071. The richest discussions are in Fröhlich 1991, 236–41;
Clarke 2003, 259–61. We will return to this scene in Chapter 3.
(57) The total number varies between (the more certain) 31 and 35. I thank Jared
Benton for discussing the number of Pompeian bakeries with me.
(58) For example, Hermansen 1982, 189.
(59) I.e., Vitr. De Arch. 1.2.7 and 6.6.6.
(60) Esp. Hartnett 2008, 115–17.
(61) Mart. 7.61.9–10.
(62) Ellis 2005, 65–8. For the catalogue of them, see Boyce 1937; expanded on by
Orr 1972; Fröhlich 1991. On the relationship between lararia, food production,
and eating space, see Foss 1994, 158–64.
(63) Foss found that lararia were more likely to be spatially connected to areas of
food production (particularly kitchens), than areas of consumption. Of his
sample of 55 houses that included evidence for a fixed shrine, 20 (36%) were in
association with the cooking area, while just 4 (7%) were in a dining area. See
Foss 1997, 202.
Page 42 of 50
(64) Twelve Pompeian counters were set slightly behind the threshold. The
counter at V.1.13, which took two bomb hits and is now a reconstruction, was
described by its excavators as having a basin (not included in the
reconstruction).
(65) The example at III.6.1 is said to have served as a cage; see NSc. 1936, 311.
(66) See note 46 in this chapter.
(67) I.8.15; I.11.16; VII.11.7–8, VII.15.5, VII.2.23.
(68) III.14.1. See Hermansen 1982, 159–60.
(69) Dura-Europos: Baird 2007, 425. Scythopolis: Khamis 2007; Agady et al.
2002.
(70) Baird 2007, 432.
(71) L-shaped = 118; U-shaped = 18; I-shaped = 12; and 4 “others” and 11
unknown.
(72) Almost all counters elsewhere—notably at Ostia and Lucus Feroniae, where
the numbers are significant—were L-shaped.
(73) The “T-shaped” counter at VII.15.5, for example, seems to have been
governed by the narrow threshold (just 1.68m wide) and a need to provide
greater mobility to customers and staff in the room.
(74) Eight of the twelve Pompeian I-shaped counters were built parallel along the
entrance.
(75) Those at I.1.2 and I.1.6–9.
(76) 43 of the 47 known counter shelves were located here. See Ellis 2005, 53–4.
(77) From Tomb 90, now in the Museo delle Navi, Fiumicino inv. no. 1340. See
Kampen 1981, 46–7; and Hermansen 1982, 190.
(78) The clearest examples are those found built into the counters at VI.3.18–20,
VII.2.32–3, and IX.7.24–5.
(79) This number might originally have been greater, but the data are unknown
for no fewer than 62 of the Pompeian counters. Our fullest account of these
vessels is now Monteix 2010, 89–132.
(80) On Roman dolia, White 1975, 1447; Annecchino 1982, 7568; Peña 2007, 46–
7 (194–6 on their reuse).
(81) Venuti 1750, 110.
Page 43 of 50
(82) Mazois 1824, Vol. II, 43–4, n. 3. Followed by Mau 1907, 394; Tanzer 1939,
42; and Ruddell 1964, 18.
(83) Packer 1978, 47–8.
(84) Peña 2007, 211–13 summarizes the process of, and evidence for, cleaning,
pitching, and resurfacing dolia.
(85) On the sealing of vessels, see Columella 12.18.5–7; Geoponica 6.3–8.
(86) For the example at IX.11.2, see NSc 1912, 111–20; for Pollentia, see
Doenges 2005, 29.
(87) See Maiuri 1958, 402 (beans and chick-peas in the counter at V.6); and 434
(grains and legumes discovered in the counter at IV.15–16). See also Packer
1978, 47–8; White 1975, 145; De Carolis 1996, 34–7.
(88) Dickmann and Pirson 2001, 347–8.
(89) For the bronze vessels at I.3.28: GdS NS 3, 46; Ellis 2005, 238–40. For the
glass bottle at II.1.1: NSc 1917, 249–54; Ellis 2005, 297–9. For the coins at IX.
11.2: NSc 1912, 28–9, 111–20; Ellis 2005, 505–7. The hoard of 1,385 bronze
coins found in an inset vessel in the counter of a bar at I.8.8 (the so-called
Thermopolium of L. Vetutius Placidus) represent the largest stash of coins found
at Pompeii. See, especially, Castiello and Oliviero 1997; also Castiglione Morelli
del Franco and Vitale 1989, 197; Hobbs 2013, 9, table 1; on the property itself,
Guirál Pelegrín et al. 1991–2.
(90) On the recycling of materials, see Chapter 5.
(91) On cooking facilities at Pompeii more generally, the seminal work remains
Fulvio 1879. For the best and most recent examinations, see Foss 1994, 78–84;
Monteix 2010, 97–102. See also, for Ostia, Riva 1999.
(92) Fiorelli 1875 adopted the term fornello for hearths attached to counters. For
some alternate terms, see Foss 1994, 62–9. On the Latin term foculus as a
symbol of “home life,” see Pieraccini 2003, 163.
(93) On the portability of charcoal-fueled braziers, Juv. Sat. 3.253; see also
Bagnani 1954, 24; Frayn 1978, 30. While a number of these have survived, such
as those found with the masonry ovens at I.10.13, II.1.1, VI.1.2, VI.15.15, and IX.
11.2, it can be supposed that many more have not.
(94) It is noteworthy that for all of the efforts to reconstruct counters in the
modern period, the attached hearths are often not reconstructed.
(95) I.9.11, I.11.16, and I.14.15.
Page 44 of 50
(96) Those with an arched storage niche include I.3.28; V.4.6–8; VI.14.35; VII.
1.32; VII.3.9; VII.9.30–31. Those built with a square shaped storage niche
include I.6.8; V.2.13; VI.10.1/19; VII.7.18. Those without storage include: I.3.28;
I.4.3; I.4.11; I.7.13–14; VII.3.4.
(97) Seven examples: I.3.28; I.12.12–13; V.1.13; VII.3.1/40; VII.9.30–31; VII.15.5;

IX.2.25; IX.7.22.
(98) VII.3.1/40 and IX.2.25.
(99) NSc 1912, 114.
(100) Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–80, 253–6.
(101) Aus. Mos. 123–4. On problems of smoke in houses from cooking, see Frayn
1978.
(102) On the use of charcoal as a fuel supply, see Bagnani 1954; Humphrey et al.
1998, 41–2; Rowan 2015.
(103) Rowan 2015, 476.
(104) For the counter, Bats 2007, 33–6, figs. 7–10, esp. plate X. See also Barbet
1992.
(105) The identification of the three counters at Fréjus remains insecure. They
are in any case low-walled structures and not as closely aligned to the Vesuvian
model.
(106) As at III.8.9; VI.1.2; VII.7.18; VI.16.12. None of the marble masks remain in
situ. Those at VI.1.2 were reported stolen as early as 1771 (I am grateful to
Hélène Dessales for sharing this information with me).
(107) The counter at I.19.2 was painted with roundels and triangles to imitate
marble-clad decorated counters.
(108) On the stripping of marble from Roman shop counters at Herculaneum, see
Venuti 1750, 111.
(109) Only 12 counters are known to have been topped with a plaster finish. As
many as 73 are unknown.
(110) The most noteworthy examples are those at I.8.8, I.11.1–2, V.4.6–8, VII.
2.32–33, and VII.15.5.
(111) Fant et al. 2013, 187.
Page 45 of 50
(112) For example those at I.8.8; V.4.6–8; VI.1.2; VI.1.17; VI.4.1–2; IX.9.8–9. Some
of these had traces of iron (V.4.6–8; VI.4.1–2) or copper alloy (VI.1.17), which
suggests they may have supported some kind of framework or object. The
counter at VI.1.2 is said to have had a terracotta statuette of the Egyptian god
Ptah-Pateco inserted in this way into the corner of the counter to ward off evil
tidings (see Fiorelli 1875, 76); the figurine now stands on display in the MANN,
inv. no. MNN 22607. Similar uses for such holes have been interpreted for
marble bases in lararia; see Boyce 1937, 11 on the bored holes as supports, and
no. 123 for the statuettes.
(113) NSc 1902, 375. It reads:
SAT……CLA
SIBI. ET……
(114) PAH I, 1, 311–12. It reads:
L. CEIVS. DORYP….
CN ALLEIVS A…….
ALEXAND…………
MI…………..
MII………
(115) Tile topped the counters at I.4.27 and (the secondary counter at) VI.8.8.
The counters at VIII.3.1/40 and VII.3.9 were reconstructed with tile, but the
archival records do not mention if tile was part of the original structures.
(116) I am grateful to Hans Peter Isler for sharing his knowledge on the
excavation of this counter with me; see also Isler 2001, 72; Pfunter 2013, 120–2.
(117) The standard size urban plot for a Vesuvian city was c.200m2; others who
have worked on this calculation include Wallace-Hadrill 2011, 240. For Maiuri
1958, the size was smaller still, at 185m2.
(118) Girri 1956, 3, 6–7.
(119) Boëthius 1934; 1960; Staccioli 1959, 58; Meiggs 1973; Packer 1971, 18;
Gassner 1986, 45–9 (specifically those at Pompeii); Mar and Ruiz de Arbulo
1993, 349–53 (specifically those at Empuries); Monteix 2010, 113–27
(specifically those at Herculaneum); Holleran 2012, 100–5.
(120) Principally Gassner 1986, 45–9; Verena Gassner adopted many of the same
spatial and structural criteria but reordered them so that the attached building
Page 46 of 50
took precedence: so, a shop attached to an atrium house; a shop that had no
direct access to any attached building; a shop attached to an “irregular house”;
and a shop with habitation accessible only through the shop itself. Gassner then
divided each of her four types according to the number of rooms in each shop.
More recently Monteix 2010, 113–27 devised six types for Herculaneum and
Pompeii, basing each type on a supposed activity rather than specific structural
configurations, so:
(1.) a restaurant with a counter (114–17);

(2.) a property somewhere between a restaurant and a tavern (117–
20);
(3.) a shop for the sale of unprepared food products (121–4);
(4.) a drinking establishment without food catering (124–5);
(5.) restaurants with uncertain storage (125–6);
(6.) non-food shops (127).
(121) On the presence of graffiti and vessels embedded into a counter to define
the type of shop, see Gulino 1987, 130–4 and Monteix 2007.
(122) Such as the Type 4 of Monteix 2010, 124–5.
(123) The present typology was first explored in Ellis 2008a.
(124) Just one example being Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 65–90.
(125) Smith 1997, 13–20.
(126) Gros 1976.
(127) See, for example, Calabro 2012, 76 who struggles to assign the second
room of a shop to either the shop itself or to the attached house.
(128) Type A.1 (16 examples): I.3.28; I.10.3; III.11.5; VI.2.5; VII.1.1/62; VII.2.32–
33; VII.6.1–2; VII.6.23–24; VII.9.22; VII.11.7–8; VII.16.2; VIII.2.35; VIII.3.22; VIII.
3.29; IX.1.13; Scavo Matrone 7.
Type A.1.H (11 examples): I.2.29; I.3.21–22; I.4.3; I.13.13; III.8.9; VI.5.12; VI.
10.3; VI.13.17; IX.7.24–25; IX.9.1; IX.11.2.
(129) As exemplified by the bar at I.10.13. The smallest example was at IX.1.13
(15m2), while both VII.2.32–33 and VII.11.7–8 were 35m2.
(130) For the example at I.4.3, see Niccolini 1854–96, Vol. II, 79; followed by Foss
1994, 186. See also Hay 2016, 132 who notes a similar example at insula I.9.
(131) Type B.1: I.3.2; VII.7.3; VII.3.13; VIII.4.40–40a.
Page 47 of 50
Type B.1.H: I.21.4–5.
(132) Type A.2 (27 examples): I.1.9; I.2.7–8; I.3.5–6; I.3.11; I.4.27; I.6.5; I.12.12–
13; II.1.6; II.4.5; VI.4.3; VI.15.16; VI.17.2; VII.1.44; VII.3.27–28; VII.6.13–14; VII.
6.20; VII.7.8–9; VII.9.30–31; VII.13.24; VII.16.7–8; VIII.3.23; IX.1.6; IX.1.15–16;
IX.2.25; IX.3.10–12; IX.6.b; IX.7.13.
Type A.2.H (8 examples): I.8.1; I.9.4; I.10.2–3; II.3.5; III.6.1; VI.15.15; VII.2.15;
VII.3.23.
(133) Foss 1994, 280.
(134) Type A.3 (23 examples): I.1.2; I.7.8; I.13.10; V.2.13; VI.1.17; VI.1.18/20; VI.
2.1/32; VI.3.23–24; VI.4.1–2; VI.14.35–36; VI.17.31; VII.1.32; VII.3.9; VII.5.14;
VII.5.17; VII.6.26; VII.7.18; VII.9.50; VII.9.57; VII.12.15–16; VII.13.20–21; VIII.
2.24; IX.1.8.
(135) Mart. 6.93. See also Scobie 1986, 414. But cf. Flohr and Wilson 2011, 151–
3.
(136) Petronius Sat. 71.8.
(137) On privacy in toilets, see Jansen 1997, 125–6.
(138) Type A.4 (48 examples): I.1.1/10; I.2.1/30–32; I.2.18–19; I.2.20–21; I.4.11; I.
6.8; I.7.13–14; I.8.8; I.8.15; I.9.11; I.11.1–2; I.11.10–11; I.11.16; I.12.3; I.12.5; I.
14.15; II.1.1/13; II.4.7; II.8.2–3; III.10.6; V.1.1/32; V.1.13; V.2.19; V.2.b; V.4.6–8;
VI.1.2; VI.1.5; VI.3.18–20; VI.8.8; VI.8.9; VI.10.1/19; VI.16.1–2; VI.16.12; VI.
16.20–24; VI.16.32–33; VI.16.40; VI.17.3–4; VII.1.38–39; VII.2.23; VII.3.1/40; VII.
3.4; VII.4.4; VII.15.5; VIII.4.17–17a; IX.1.3; IX.7.21–22; IX.9.8–9; Porta Marina 4.
(139) The largest was at I.8.8 (292m2), the smallest at VI.10.1/19 (43m2). The
following list indicates the number of examples for Type A.4 properties as
defined by their number of rooms, and their average size (none had 10 rooms):
4 room = 14 (80m2)
5 room = 7 (95m2)
6 room = 10 (120m2)
7 room = 7 (152m2)
8 room = 5 (206m2)
9 room = 3 (191m2)
11 room = 1 (202m2)
Page 48 of 50
12 room = 1 (214m2)
(140) A.1 with A.1.H = 24m2, but B.1 with B.1.H = 21m2; A.2 with A.2.H = 44m2,
with B.2 with B.2.H = 42m2; A.3 = 57m2, but B.3 = 50m2.
When grouped, Type A (1–3) = 42m2; Type B (1–3) = 38m2.
(141) I.2.18–19; I.6.8; I.7.13–14; I.11.16; I.12.3; I.12.5; I.14.15; VI.16.32–33; VII.
15.5.
(142) I.4.11; I.8.8; I.11.10–11; I.12.3; I.12.5; V.2.19; VII.15.5.
(143) I.8.8; I.11.16; II.4.7; II.8.2–3.
(144) Ling. 5.162. Sutherland 1990.
(145) For the goldsmith workshop at Scythopolis see Khamis 2007; for the pottery
workshop at Aquincum, Láng 2003; 2016, 358; for the pigment shop in Rome,
start with Beeston and Becker 2013.
(146) For example Demarolle and Petit 2011, 306–13; also Luley and Piquès 2016.
(147) For example, the property at I.6.8. On the relative lack of finds, see Allison
1994, 246–51. On post-earthquake abandonment, see Andreau 1973, 385; cf.
Allison 2004, 19–21.
(148) One especially unhelpful outcome is that we too often offset these messy
archival records against some mythical standard of a “modern” excavation.
(149) On the “garum shop” (I.12.8) at Pompeii, see Maiuri 1978, 635–6; Curtis
1979; 1991, 92–4; Botte 2009, 95–9.
(150) For example the contents from the tabernae at Gerasa: Uscatescu and
Martín-Bueno 1997, 81–2.
(151) Gabler 1994, 357; Zsidi 2002, 133.
(152) Allison 2004.
(153) On the Pompeii premise, see Binford 1981. For reactions against it, see
Schiffer 1985; Allison 1992; 2004; Dicus 2014; Ellis 2017.
(154) Dyson 1992, 165–6, on the lack of finds records for Pompeian shops.
(155) Allison 2004, 112–13, 174.
(156) For the excavations and inventories, see Sogliano’s entry in NSc 1901, 423–
40 (for the stash of coins, see 427).
Page 49 of 50
(157) The finds from the bar at VI.14.35–6, for example, were presented to the
Prince of Wales; NSc 1877, 369.
(158) Wallace-Hadrill 2011, 65–88.
(159) Baird 2007 on Dura-Europos; Cahill 2002, 107 on Olynthos.
(160) Monteix 2010, with reviews by Ellis 2013 and Wallace-Hadrill 2014b. See
also Monteix 2016 for a more critical approach to the available published and
unpublished sources.
(161) On some of the fallacies associated with the recording of archaeological

fieldwork, see Ellis 2016, 60–3.
(162) Such as the marble found torn from the counter in the Matrone excavations
outside of the city (NSc 1901, 426).
(163) Deiss 1989, 118–21.
(164) Chase 1913, 106.
(165) The seminal study remains Schiffer 1972.
(166) Some (of very many) examples include Hobbs 2013; Murphy et al. 2013;
Luley and Piquès 2016. For a critique of this view, see Dicus 2014; Ellis 2017.
(167) For a fuller discussion of the “Stratified Assemblage Premise,” Ellis 2017,
315.
(168) Wallace-Hadrill 1990, 187–9; repeated in Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 87–9.
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The Archaeology of Roman Retail Outlets

The Roman Retail Revolution: The Socio-

Print publication date: 2018

The Archaeology of Roman Retail Outlets

Abstract and Keywords

The Archaeology of Tabernae

today it is because they were to be readily identifiable then as veritable

(p.37) Once inside, most

Given that for so many shops

form—the double-door—in Fig. 2.2. Fragments from the Forma

Fig. 2.3. A shuttered threshold with

Photo courtesy of the Pompeii

Fig. 2.4. Plaster casting of the shuttered

Fig. 2.5. Threshold and lintel

Fig. 2.6. Plaster cast of door-block

From Shops to Bars: The Fig. 2.7. Shop threshold at Minturnae

Fig. 2.8. Counter in the bar at I.2.5,

The strongest evidence that Photo: S. Ellis.

These scenes may thus be

what can we do with this Photo: S. Ellis.

These questions should at once

The Location of Counters

sunlight being an important factor in the placement of street-front benches, it

The exceptions to this spatial

The Structure and Shape of Counters

(p.53) Among the more

(p.55) While the shape of the dolium—wide mouthed and voluminous—was

The Cooking Hearths of Counters

charcoal was normally set on a reused roof-tile, enclosed within a horseshoe

A good number of in-built

The Decoration of Counters

Many of the Pompeian counters,

The use of polychrome marble,

The Main Types of Bars

Type A: Counter associated with a cooking facility (133)

Type B: Counter without a known cooking facility (21)

Type C: Counter with no remaining evidence to confidently suggest the

Sub-type 1: one-room establishment (20)

Sub-type 1.H: one-room establishment attached to a house (12)

Sub-type 2: two-room establishment (36)

Sub-type 2.H: two-room establishment attached to a house (11)

Sub-type 3: three-room establishment (27)

Sub-type 4: large, multi-room establishment (four or more rooms) (48)

(p.68) VII.3.4 A.4

(p.69) IX.7.24–25 A.1.H

Via dei Sepolcri SW 7 C

Via dei Sepolcri SW 14 C

Via dei Sepolcri NE 10 C

Via dei Sepolcri NE 16 B.2

Porta Marina 4 A.4

Scavo Matrone 7 A.1

(p.70) Types A.1 and A.1.H: The

Regardless of whether these single-room bars retained spatial access to the

Types A.2 and A.2.H: The Double-

(p.74) Type A.3: The Triple-Room Bars

Type A.4: The Multi-Room Bars

Finds and Fantasies: Context and the Pompeii Premise

(Justinian, Digest 33.7.23)

Not everything in the daybooks

(2) Etym. 15.2.43. Cf. Ulp. Dig. 50.16.183.

(3) The translation follows Barney et al. 2006.

(9) Kleberg 1957.

(10) These serve as the “Master List” in DeFelice 2001.