Roman houses were four sided, rectangular in shape and had no cellar underneath. Only the rich, called the Patricians, could afford to live in houses in the city. The Roman Atrium was like a living room and entry hall today. It was a place where Roman's entertained their guests. The Atrium had a hole in the middle of it's roof to let light in and where rain poured in . They collected the water in a pool like basin called the impluvium. They used this water for drinking and washing. The Romans spent more time outside their homes in Atriums and gardens compared to us who spend more time inside our homes. Most of the roman homes were constructed of brick and mortar. Many were decorated with brightly painted walls and mosaic floors.
The Luxury of the Rich in Rome
Rome is still looked upon as the queen of the earth, and the name of
the Roman people is respected and venerated. But the magnificence of
Rome is defaced by the inconsiderate levity of a few, who never
recollect where they are born, but fall away into error and
licentiousness as if a perfect immunity were granted to vice. Of these
men, some, thinking that they can be handed down to immortality by
means of statues, are eager after them, as if they would obtain a
higher reward from brazen figures unendowed with sense than from a
consciousness of upright and honorable actions; and they are even
anxious to have them plated over with gold!
Others place the summit of glory in having a couch higher than usual,
or splendid apparel; and so toil and sweat under a vast burden of
cloaks which are fastened to their necks by many clasps, and blow about
by the excessive fineness of the material, showing a desire by the
continual wriggling of their bodies, and especially by the waving of
the left hand, to make more conspicuous their long fringes and tunics,
which are embroidered in multiform figures of animals with threads of
divers colors.
Others again, put on a feigned severity of countenance, and extol their
patrimonial estates in a boundless degree, exaggerating the yearly
produce of their fruitful fields, which they boast of possessing in
numbers, from east and west, being forsooth ignorant that their
ancestors, who won greatness for Rome, were not eminent in riches; but
through many a direful war overpowered their foes by valor, though
little above the common privates in riches, or luxury, or costliness of
garments.
Source.
From: William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History:
Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and
Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, pp. 224-225, 239-244,
247-258, 260-265, 305-309.
