Cavaedium

Cavaedium or atrium are Latin names for the principal room of an ancient Roman house, which usually had a central opening in the roof (compluvium) and a rainwater pool (impluvium) beneath it.

The main entrance led into it; patrones received their clientes there, and marriages, funerals, and other ceremonies were conducted there.

Small rural Roman buildings did not need atria; they were lit by windows and drew water from wells or watercourses.

Sometimes urban houses retained a walled garden at the rear, which later often became a peristyle, a sort of cloister surrounded by rooms.

[4] Varro gives classical etymologies: "The hollow of the house (cavum ædium) is a covered place within the walls, left open to the common use of all.

Water for household use could be drawn up in buckets via the puteal (a lidded cylinder set over a hole in the top of the cistern as a wellhead).

In wet weather, impluvium overflow would generally run out the front door into the street, which was much lower than the interior floor.

[6] The tollere liberum (ceremony for a newborn), dedication of the bulla at Liberalia (coming-of-age, male), and confarreatio marriage were described as conducted in the atrium, in front of the lararium.

[citation needed] The wedding couch or bed, the lectus genialis, was placed in the atrium, on the side opposite the door or in one of the alae.

[4][7] The lectus funebris, or funeral couch, was placed in the atrium, and the body of the deceased was laid in state upon it with feet facing the door.

This patron-class use as a reception-room made the atrium a semi-public space,[4] and it came to be known as the pars urbanan, the city part of the house.

[11] In the countryside the order was sometimes reversed; the pars urbana cortile, which one entered from the main street entrance, was a peristyle.

The atrium was then buried in the depths of the house, often near a portico (an outwards-looking colonnade on one or more outside walls) with a view of the landscape.

[citation needed] The household safe (arca) was also kept in the atrium; it contained family treasures and important documents.

[citation needed] In wealthier houses, furniture included an oblong marble cartibulum (table), supported by trapezophoros pedestals depicting mythological creatures like winged griffins.

[citation needed] There would also be works of art, especially statuary, which was set beside the impluvium, on tables, in niches, on walls, etc.

[14] The roof around the compluvium was edged with a row of highly ornamented tiles, called antefixes, on which a mask or some other figure was moulded.

At the corners there were usually spouts, in the form of lions' or dogs' heads, or any fantastical device which the architect might fancy.

The spouts carried the rain-water clear out into the impluvium, rather than letting it run down the walls and pillars, which would damage them.

Five structural types of cavaedia (or atria) are described by the architect Vitruvius:[14] The full original description, in his sixth book on engineering, is fairly succinct: 1.

There are five different styles of cavaedium, termed according to their construction as follows: Tuscan, Corinthian, tetrastyle, displuviate, and testudinate.

This style is suitable chiefly in winter residences, for its roof-opening, being high up, is not an obstruction to the light of the dining rooms.

The testudinate is employed where the span is not great, and where large rooms are provided in upper stories.The Tuscan atrium seems to be the most common type in Pompeii.

In the atrium tetrastylum additional support was required in consequence of the dimensions of the hall; this was given by columns placed at the four angles of the impluvium.

This species of roof, Vitruvius states, is constantly in want of repair, as the water does not easily run away, owing to the stoppage in the rainwater pipes.

[14] The name comes from the Latin word testudo, which means a turtle or tortoise, and by transference a covered vault.

The alae, to the right and left, should have a width equal to one third of the length of the atrium, when that is from thirty to forty feet long.

From sixty to eighty feet, divide the length by four and one half and let the result be the width of the alae.

When it is from forty to sixty feet, divide the width into five parts and let two of these be set apart for the tablinum.

In the roof-opening let an aperture be left with a breadth of not less than one fourth nor more than one third the width of the atrium, and with a length proportionate to that of the atrium.He also advises that the size of the atrium of cavaedium be appropriate to the purposes required by the owner's social station: "men of everyday fortune do not need entrance courts, tablina, or atriums built in grand style, because such men are more apt to discharge their social obligations by going round to others than to have others come to them... For capitalists and farmers of the revenue, somewhat comfortable and showy apartments must be constructed, secure against robbery; for advocates and public speakers, handsomer and more roomy, to accommodate meetings; for men of rank who, from holding offices and magistracies, have social obligations to their fellow-citizens, lofty entrance courts in regal style, and most spacious atriums and peristyles, with plantations and walks of some extent in them, appropriate to their dignity."