1. The Dinner Party

2. CENA
Breakfast (ientaculum) and lunch (prandium) were light meals, often skipped entirely.
The main eating event of the day was dinner (cena).
Most people imagine endless orgiastic indulgence of weird and exotic dishes but this was only true of a small number of Romans.
Most people had a relatively simple dinner.

3. Logistics
summus
Meals took place in the triclinium (the three-couch room).
Large houses in Pompeii seem to have a triclinium indoors for winter and another with an open-air roof for the summer.
The host reclined at position x, the most important guest at position y.
Couches sloped slightly downwards; each couch sat three diners.
medius y x
imus

4. Manners
“Evening dress” was the synthesis – a loose-fitting and brightly embroidered gown.
Diners ‘reclined’, lying forward across the couch.
Food was taken with the right hand, the plate held with the left.
Knives or spoons would be used where necessary.
Garum was a commonly used condiment/ sauce.

5. The Order A standard cena had three courses:
1. Gustatio – Light appetisers such as eggs, olives, salad, etc. This was immediately followed by mulsum, wine sweetened with honey.
2. Cena – Often meat or fish served with vegetables. In more luxurious dinenrs this may have been a succession of different meat dishes.
3. Secundae Mensae – Fruit, nuts or cakes. This may extend into a commisatio: a drinking party.

6. Garum
… is thus made: the intestines of fish are thrown into a vessel, and are salted; and small fish, especially atherinae, or small mullets, or maenae, or lycostomi, or any small fish, are all salted in the same manner; and they are seasoned in the sun, and frequently turned; and when they have been seasoned in the heat, the garum is thus taken from them. A small basket of close texture is laid in the vessel filled with the small fish already mentioned, and the garum will flow into the basket; and they take up what has been percolated through the basket, which is called liquamen; and the remainder of the feculence is made into allec...

7. Master of ceremonies
A master of ceremonies (rex convivii), often the host, decided when guets should drink, and the proportion of wine to water in the mixing bowl (cratera).
Romans rarely drank wine neat; proportions could be four-fifths of water to one fifth of wine.
This explains how they managed to get through long drinking sessions.

8. Evidence
Horace:
“Off home I go to prepare my meal: fritters, leeks and peas. Three boys serve the food; two cups and a ladle stand on a white stone slab. There is a cheap salt-cellar and an earthenware jug and saucer.”
Clearly not all dinners were feasts.
Martial offers a menu for a dinner party of seven guests:
“Lettuce, leeks and mint.
Lizard-fish garnished with sliced eggs, served with fresh herbs.
One young kid.
Meat-balls, beans and young sprouts.
A chicken, a ham now seeing its fourth dinner.
Ripe apples.
Wine.”

9. Comissatio This often went past midnight.
Guests drank and slaves provided entertainment.
This may have included musicians, dancers (more traditional Romans despised this), jugglers, clowns, dwarfs and acrobats.
These individuals would usually be slaves.
It was improper for guests to dance themselves.
More intellectual dinner-parties may include poetry recitals or comic actors.
However, conversation was the key to success; it marked a civilised dinner.

10. The End of the Night
Upon leaving the domus or villa, guests were guided home by slaves holding lamps (there were very few street lights and city streets could be dangerous).
Muggings, and indeed murder, were more commonplace than now.
There was no police force. The town vigiles may have served some public order purpose but their main job was essentially as firemen.

11. The Skinny
Cena was the main event of the day, taking place in the triclinium.
Less ostentatious than perhaps has been portrayed.
Most had the same seating lay-out.
Lying forward, eating from the right hand.
Gustatio, Cena, Secundae Mensae - Garum
Rex Convivii; diluted wine.
Entertainment at the commisatio. Conversation was king.
Slaves lighting the path home – dangerous streets.

12. Sources Taylor, David. Roman Society. Bristol Classical Press, 2001.
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