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rekirts · 09-06-2003, 07:18 AM

I started thinking about this because of a post on RAT in which Togaman says we haven't any images of Romans reclining to dine. So my question is, where does this idea come from? What are the ancient sources? Anybody know? 
 
I have always thought it would be quite awkward to recline while dining and that if they actually did it, it would only be on certain rare occasions such as special dinner parties. It certainly wouldn't aid digestion to eat that way and would require more room for guests around the tables. Any thoughts? No doubt I am letting my modern ideas colour my thinking, but when something seems impractical to me, I want to know why it was done. 
 
Wendy "I am an admirer of the ancients,but not like some people so as to despise the talent of our own times." Pliny the Younger

09-06-2003, 12:42 PM

Hi Wendy! 
Please let me clarify: I said there were practically no visual representations of Romans reclining to dine. There are numerous literary references (Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, Martial, Catullus, Petronius, Propertius, etc.) and we have numerous Greek vases of Greek males at their symposion. We have grave frescoes and funerary monuments of Etruscans, male and female, feasting and banqueting, but there is a paucity of Roman visual evidence, other than archeological remains and reconstructions of clinii (dining couches) themselves. 
I got into this because of numerous requests for a form of my presentation specifically about partygoing in the ancient world (obviously, a popular topic on college campuses). I researched and developed a presentation entitiled: Symposion et Convivium (partygoing etc.) It traces the customs and traditions of dining and drinking from ancient Greece to Etruria and the customs that Romans derived from each. 
Basically and briefly: Greek males reclined at a drinking party (symposion) two to a couch. Wives were forbidden, but professional entertainers were common (hetairai-flute playing dancing girls). The Etruscans were considered barbaric because they dined and drank, and reclined on couches, with their wives (shocking!). Romans reclined three to a couch (early Republic-wives sat in individual chairs) and later reclined with a variety of guests. There is of course a great deal more, far more than I can answer here. Midday and farm meals were simple and eaten at a common table, but a banquet or feast was a leisurely social event (food was already cut up and dipped so it was basically all finger food that required no implements other than a napkin). There is a fairly copious vocabulary of Latin terms and phrases relating to dining, reclining, drinking, toasting and offering to the gods and host: favorites include: aut bibant aut abeat (either get to drinking or get out) and clinopale(es)-couch wrestling, i.e. making out at the feast. 
This is just a hint of the lore on such customs. My presentation adapts itself to the nature of the audience, but collegiate audiences love the gory details. I hope this may answer some questions and concerns, and I would love to be found incorrect about the lack of Roman visual evidence. I am limited by my access to published sources. Someone in Europe may have access to museum or archeological evidence that I am unaware of. Cheers! Tibi propino kantharum, Wendy. 
 
 
Wade Heaton 
Lucius Cornelius Libo 
[email protected] 
www.togaman.com 
 
P.S. After reviewing your post: Greek drinking parties could have as many as 15 couches or thirty symposiastoi (drinking buddies). The Roman word for dining room in the domus is triclinium (3 couches) hence nine to the convivium. Public feasts served outdoors had a variety of furniture depending on rank, class, and status.

09-14-2003, 02:28 PM

Could you please tell me which RAT thread? I looked but didn't find it. 
I think there are a few funerary portraits from Britain depicting reclining diners (something like 10 from Chester alone I think). Not that, that says a lot!

rekirts · 09-15-2003, 09:53 PM

It's in Re-enactment and Reconstruction--The Lesson of the Longbow. No wonder you couldn't find it. 
 
Wendy 
"I am an admirer of the ancients,but not like some people so as to despise the talent of our own times." Pliny the Younger

09-22-2003, 02:57 PM

Hi Jackie, 
 
I would love to see those images. Are they published anywhere? If not, I'll have to put Chester on the itinerary of my dream vacation. That's after I win the Lottery, that is. Does the museum there have a website? 
 
 
Wade Heaton 
Lucius Cornelius Libo 
[email protected] 
www.togaman.com

venicone · 09-23-2003, 12:43 AM

Weve got lots of images from Chester Grosvenor Museum - let me have a look and see if I have any of these ones 
<img src="http://www.ttforumfriends.com/images/forum/co.gif"/> 
 
[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]

09-23-2003, 11:25 AM

Thanks to all for the interest and help, Anaten and Venicone. 
 
Wendy, thought I found something I'm incorporating into my presentation (not the whole of it of course) but some juicy gossip and nuggets of lore from Plutarch. While not Roman, per se, I think they really help distinguish between ancient sensibilities and ours. 
 
Plutarch's Moralia: Book VII BIBLION EBDOMON "Quaestiones Convivales" translated in the Loeb edition as "Table Talk" (though the table is of course absent as the dialogues specifically purport to recount conversations in Greek, in Greece, on couches) begins with these words, "The Romans...are fond of quoting a witty and socialable person who said, after a solitary meal, "I have eaten, but not dined today," implying that a "dinner" always requires friendly sociability for seasoning." 
 
Some of his comments on the minor differences between Greek and Roman dining customs (really only in detail) are becoming really useful for my "Symposion et Convivium" presentation. 
 
Wade Heaton 
Lucius Cornelius Libo 
[email protected] 
www.togaman.com

rekirts · 09-24-2003, 06:44 AM

I like that quote. It's true that we rarely 'dine' these days. Mostly just rush home from work, slap together a meal (of sorts), scarf it down, and rush off to another activity or to veg in front of the TV. Sometimes we 'dine' as well as 'eat' at family gatherings, chatting and laughing during the meal and lingering over the teapot in deep conversation. 
 
I have to admit, though, that I wouldn't linger long if I had to lean on my left elbow the whole time--too painful to the arm and shoulder. But then I haven't had the opportunity to build up the strength in my left side by wearing a toga for most of my life. 
 
Wendy "I am an admirer of the ancients,but not like some people so as to despise the talent of our own times." Pliny the Younger

venicone · 09-27-2003, 07:10 AM

heres some images from chester 
 
[url=http://www.romanauxilia.com/Exploratio/chester/chester6.htm" target="top]chester [/url] <img src="http://www.ttforumfriends.com/images/forum/co.gif"/> 
 
 
[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]

09-27-2003, 08:43 AM

Venicone, 
 
Thank you very much. After I made the first assertion about a lack of images of Roman, I did find two in my books. Oddly, or maybe not, all of these relief sculptures are funerary casques. I'm speculating that there is an Etruscan connection (origin lost in the mists of time?) since all the famous Etruscan funeral sarcophagae or tomb frescoes are the evidence we have. From Greece we have drinking bowls and wine mixing bowls. But of course, these are what have survived the ravages of time. 
Thanks for the extra effort and I'm really enjoying the links. They help me in figuring our posture and the arrangement of pillows and especially what to do with all those extra folds on the left arm (padding, obviously, but on or off the shoulder, for instance.) 
 
 
Wade Heaton 
Lucius Cornelius Libo 
[email protected] 
www.togaman.com Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=togaman>Togaman</A> at: 9/29/03 2:50 pm

venicone · 09-27-2003, 08:47 AM

wade 
 
some of these might interest you too 
 
[url=http://www.romanauxilia.com/Exploratio/bardo/mosaics%20daily%20life/mosaics%20daily%20life%201.htm" target="top]daily life[/url] <img src="http://www.ttforumfriends.com/images/forum/co.gif"/> 
 
 
[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=venicone>venicone</A> at: 9/27/03 10:48 am

09-27-2003, 04:10 PM

Those are really nice pictures from the Bardo museum. The mosaic collection there is pretty awesome. 
What intrigues me is that the figures appear to be very upright, although as one doesn't see their legs I presume they are reclining? 
 
Thinking about Wendy's comment (and it's not just the arm and shoulder that feel the strain, it's pretty tough on the neck too!) I wonder exactly what sort of position was assumed and if a lot of cushions were used for propping up? 
 
Jackie.

09-29-2003, 01:09 PM

Jackie, 
You have hit upon the crux of the issue exactly. I study as many of the images as I can precisely because the posture is so &#*@%$#!! uncomfortable! However, there are a few hints. The Etruscan funerary sculptures show a angled board(?) to prop up on. Also, many of the Etruscan, Roman mosaics and funerary stele(s) have pillows. The reconstruction exhibit from Munich's Alte Pinotheke (a friend sent me a postcard) shows a wooden frame with a crisscrossed fabric mesh for the bulk of the body weight; they have a smoothed wooden board propped at an angle. 
 
One other consideration: All the Roman images do indeed show them stiff and solemn and stern. Most of the Etruscan scultures and frescoes show a variety of postures and attitudes: straightening the left arm, propping the right arm on the knee, embacing the spouse, etc. All in all, the Etruscans are usually smiling and relaxed and happy. Maybe the secret is what's in the drinking bowl? 
 
WH Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=togaman>Togaman</A> at: 10/2/03 1:35 pm

**Robert Vermaat** · 10-01-2003, 04:58 AM

Hi Togaman, 
I have another image for you, from the Vergilius Romanus (Vergil MS Vat. lat. 3867= Romanus), folio 100v: 
<img src="http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/vergil100v.jpg" style="border:0;"/> 
This is from a Late Roman manuscript. The image will be used, I'm told, as a backdrop to the new display cabinet of the Mildenhall treasure in the British Museum (or was it the Museum of London? I forgot). 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert 
[url=http://www.fectio.org.uk/" target="top]FECTIO[/url] 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=vortigernstudies>Vortigern Studies</A> at: 10/1/03 7:05 am

**Robert Vermaat** · 10-01-2003, 05:19 AM

I found another one which stuck to my mind: 
[url=http://sights.seindal.dk/images/photo/2001-09-13/images/14_36_19_01.jpg" target="top]Very large image, so I won't show it here. Click this link.[/url] 
OK, a small version then: 
<img src="http://sights.seindal.dk/images/photo/2001-09-13/smaller/14_36_19_01.jpg" style="border:0;"/> 
This is from the Piazza Armenia mosaics, from the room know as the 'Little Hunt'. 
Interestingly, the scene is about the same as the one from the Vergilius Romanus, a large cushion around a table, and servants cutting the meat and offering drinks. 
However, the men ar sitting on this cushion, rather than lying down. 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=vortigernstudies>Vortigern Studies</A> at: 10/1/03 7:27 am

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