A significant proportion of Roman urban space was given over to commercial activity, but identifying commercial space in the archaeological record is not always straightforward. A commercial function is often assigned to particular spaces on the basis of a combination of architectural typologies, the application of Latin nomenclature, and textual and modern analogies.Footnote 2 This is a practice most clearly demonstrated by the so-called taberna, a Latin term which is frequently assigned to spaces that follow a particular architectural form. These structures typically consist of ground-floor rooms opening directly on to the street (or on to a portico or arcade), with wide entranceways marked by grooved thresholds in which shutters could be placed; some also have back rooms and/or mezzanine floors above, lighted by windows above the entranceways (Figs 1a–c and 2a–c). Such structures are frequently identified in the archaeological record, appearing almost as the quintessential Roman commercial space, and are commonly identified as shops and workshops.Footnote 3 Theories about the structure and organization of urban economies and societies are then constructed on the basis of this identification. Purcell (Reference Purcell, Crook, Lintott and Rawson1994: 659–73), for example, contends that the taberna was almost synonymous with the urban plebs in Rome, characterizing Rome as a ‘city of shops’ and its people as ‘a nation of shopkeepers’, while Mayer (Reference Mayer2012) argues for a particular ‘taberna economy’ that generated and supported a Roman urban middle class. Others, such as Flohr (Reference Flohr2014), note that the number and visibility of these commercial units increased in the Roman period, reflecting a pattern of increased capital investment in commercial space and the growing commercialization of the economy. The presence of tabernae has, therefore, been used as a proxy indicator for the nature of an urban economy.
Fig. 1. (a) Taberna (Herculaneum, Ins.III.6) (photo: Amy Coker). (b) Taberna (Pompeii VI.14.14) (photo: author). (c) Taberna (Ostia) (photo: Elizabeth Munro).
Fig. 2. (a) Grooved threshold (Herculaneum, Ins.III.6) (photo: Amy Coker). (b) Cast of shutters (Pompeii IX.7.10) (photo: author). (c) Remains of shutters (Herculaneum, Decumanus Maximus) (photo: Amy Coker).
This paper has two main aims: first, to explore the connections between Latin terminology, architectural typologies and Roman commercial space, using the taberna as a case-study; and secondly, to argue that commercial activity does not always require a particular architectural space or structure in which to take place, meaning that relying on the taberna alone gives only a partial picture of urban commercial activity. The main focus is on Roman Italy, partly for practical reasons of space and clarity, but also because the terminology and architectural typologies of the Eastern provinces are somewhat different. In the Eastern regions of the Roman world, the term ergasterion is used in place of taberna, at least in literature, and many structures lack the wide doorways typically associated with tabernae in Italy and the West.Footnote 4
The first part of the paper considers the Latin label taberna, the architectural structures associated with this terminology, and the process of textual analogy, drawing on recent scholarship highlighting the complexity of the relationship between architecture and text. It then goes on to investigate the use of historical and modern analogy in interpreting archaeological space — a practice that has long been the subject of debate among archaeologists — before exploring the material evidence that could provide an independent check on the use of analogy to understand Roman commercial space.Footnote 5 This analysis of material evidence focuses in particular on Pompeii and Herculaneum, since tabernae in these urban centres are relatively well documented and well studied.
The second section of the paper then moves beyond the taberna to argue that commerce — and particularly retail – could take place almost anywhere, and that consequently a much wider variety of spaces should be viewed as potentially commercial, not all of which can be identified on architectural grounds.Footnote 6 Extending the Roman commercial arena beyond the paradigm of the taberna is in itself nothing new. DeLaine's (Reference DeLaine, MacMahon and Price2005) valuable discussion of Ostia, for instance, recognizes the diversity of the commercial landscape of the Roman town, but while open spaces on the outskirts of Ostia are identified as potentially commercial, the overall focus continues to be on architectural structures, including tabernae, porticoes, and covered spaces similar in form to later Italian loggias. Furthermore, DeLaine (Reference DeLaine, MacMahon and Price2005: 30) considers Portus to be reliant on Ostia for supply since it lacks market buildings or tabernae, argued to be essential components for commerce. This paper contends that commerce does not require an architecturally definable space in which to take place and argues that we should also consider a variety of open spaces, streets, and even private houses to be part of the commercial landscape, at least potentially. In focusing too much on architecturally defined spaces, we run the risk of overlooking many of the commercial spaces which cannot be so easily labelled or categorized, and thus of underestimating the flexibility and diversity of Roman commercial activities and practices, in terms of both structure and spatial organization.Footnote 7
THE TABERNA: A CASE STUDY
LATIN NOMENCLATURE AND TEXTUAL ANALOGY
Several studies focusing on the domestic sphere have demonstrated that the labelling of archaeological remains with Latin terminology is a problematic practice. The Vitruvian or Varronian labels conventionally applied to spaces are not always used correctly, and moreover, their application results in uncritical relationships being drawn between domestic spaces and literary texts.Footnote 8 Labels are used as though they constitute primary evidence, when in fact the process of labelling in itself represents a modern interpretation of the ancient remains, and presupposes a function for a space that may not accurately reflect actual household practices. In the commercial sphere also, Latin terminology has at times been erroneously applied to archaeological remains. There are, for example, numerous Latin terms for bars and inns, including taberna, deversorium, hospitium, stabulum, caupona, popina and thermopolium, which were applied almost indiscriminately to structures at Pompeii in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These labels were subsequently used by scholars such as Kleberg (Reference Kleberg1957) to categorize Pompeian bars; the work of Steven Ellis (e.g. 2004; 2008), focusing on the actual archaeological evidence for bars at Pompeii, has provided an important corrective to this practice.
Likewise, structures that follow a particular architectural typology — essentially, ground-floor rooms with wide entranceways closed by shutters — are routinely labelled as tabernae in the archaeological record. Yet no particular criteria for the architectural form of such structures are laid down in the literary record. Ulpian (Digest 50.16.183) defines tabernae as ‘all buildings fit for habitation’ (‘tabernae’ appellatio declarat omne utile ad habitandum aedificium).Footnote 9 Although this definition is so broad as to be almost meaningless, it does suggest that a wide variety of architectural forms could conceivably be classed as tabernae. However, on the outskirts of Rome inscriptions recording tabernae as part of tomb complexes seem to be referring to a distinctive building ‘type’, since they commonly distinguish these structures from aedificia (buildings) and habitationes (places to live).Footnote 10 Thus although Storey (Reference Storey2004: 51) argues that in a funerary context taberna simply means ‘shelter’, reflecting the co-option of words for house and abode to mean eternal homes for the dead, the fact that tabernae are clearly distinguished from habitationes suggests that they were unlikely to be included in tomb complexes for residential purposes, either for the living or the dead. Tabernae here must surely be understood to have had a particular function and/or form, although none is specified. It could be argued that these were intended as storerooms for the flowers and fruit grown in associated gardens,Footnote 11 or as places offering refreshments to mourners and also to travellers, given the location of tombs along the main arterial roads leading out of Rome, but this must remain speculation. Vitruvius (6.5.2) also appears to be providing a specific functional (and perhaps spatial) definition when he advises those who need to store country produce within their property to have tabernae and stabula in their forecourt, although he does not elaborate any further on the architectural form that these units should take.
There are, however, some surviving indications of the appearance of tabernae in the literary sources. According to ancient etymologists, for example, the term taberna originally referred to the simple wooden huts in which the poor lived. It derived either from tabula (board or plank) or trabs (a length of timber), but continued to be used even when tiled roofs and stone construction became the norm. These authors stress that the term derives from the initial wooden construction, rather than from wooden shutters, which in itself implies a popular association between tabernae and wooden shutters;Footnote 12 these were then chained in place at night (Juvenal 3.302–4; see Fig. 2a–c).
Furthermore, at least some tabernae appear to have opened directly on to the street, or on to an associated portico or arcade, probably by means of a wide doorway, since Martial (7.61) praises Domitian's edict ordering all tabernae to keep within their own threshold; previously they had spilled over into the street, arcades or porticoes, causing obstructions. The jurist Paulus’ description of a fugitive taking refuge in a taberna, only to be attacked by a dog, also suggests easy access from the street (Digest 9.1.2.1; Monteix Reference Monteix2010: 45). An open doorway is further implied by Livy's description of Camillus entering Tusculum and seeing all the tabernae open, displaying the goods and activities within to passers-by (Livy 6.25.9.1). Livy's scene is set in the fourth century BC but doubtless reflects the cityscape familiar from his own experience.
Surviving graffiti from Pompeii can also be linked directly to archaeological remains. Rental notices on the Insula Arriana Polliana (VI.6: CIL IV 138) and praedia of Julia Felix (II.4: CIL IV 1136), for example, both list tabernae to rent, alongside other units, including cenacula, pergulae and domus. Footnote 13 At the Insula Arriana Polliana, the tabernae offered to rent are described as cum pergulae, which most likely refers to mezzanine floors, although this is not certain. Within the complex, there are several rooms with grooved thresholds and wide entranceways opening on to the street (VI.6.2–4; 21–3); these rooms also display the remains of staircases and holes in the walls in which supportive beams for mezzanine floors were placed. These units could then potentially be the tabernae offered for rent, although it is equally plausible that other rooms or spaces in the complex were offered for rent as tabernae, such as the other small units on the west side of the block that lack wide openings but have mezzanine floors (VI.6.14–16).Footnote 14 Similarly, at the praedia of Julia Felix, the rental notice lists tabernae, pergulae and cenacula to rent and three rooms on the ground floor fit the architectural typology conventionally assigned to tabernae (II.4.1; 5; 7). Elsewhere in Pompeii, a graffito offering a reward for information leading to the return of a vessel (urna) stolen from a taberna was painted on a pillar between two rooms which would conventionally be identified as tabernae (VIII.5.33 and VIII.5.34); the notice can plausibly be linked to a theft from one of these units (CIL IV 64; Monteix Reference Monteix2010: 48). There is, of course, a certain circularity to these arguments. A relationship is assumed between the graffiti and rooms that fits preconceived ideas of the form of tabernae, when in reality, the term may be referring to an entirely different type of space.Footnote 15 The graffiti do, however, suggest that at least in some cases a spatial rather than a functional definition for the term was understood; that is, the rental advertisements were presumably referring to particular rooms or complexes of rooms, rather than to how the spaces were to be used.
Most probably, then, a wide doorway opening on to the street was a common feature of tabernae, but there is no need to believe that this was a prerequisite. In fact, the literary evidence suggests that some tabernae were little more than wooden booths or even tables, temporary or otherwise (e.g. Suetonius, Nero 27.3). Some were known by the diminutive term tabernula, although the tabernula described by Apuleius (Met. 9.40–2) was relatively substantial, consisting of two floors, and with enough space to conceal a donkey and his owner. Some tabernulae housed neighbourhood shrines (e.g. Varro, Ling. 5.47; 5.50), but others may have had a commercial function. Dealers or agents, as well as those involved in businesses such as moneylending, could easily have operated from relatively small premises or stalls, as of course could small-scale retailers.
In the case of the taberna, then, the connection between the Latin terminology and the structures to which it is conventionally applied is probably not too far off the mark, although the term was almost certainly less rigidly applied in antiquity than its modern usage implies. Thus while the literary or legal concept of the taberna cannot simply be mapped directly on to a physical space, ancient written evidence can be useful for understanding the place of the taberna within the Roman commercial environment and for suggesting a function for at least some of these units.
The term taberna occurs relatively frequently in the surviving corpus of Latin literature, and the actual meaning is often ambiguous and dependent on context.Footnote 16 Indeed, although a glossary in a standard Pompeian textbook, The World of Pompeii, edited by Dobbins and Foss (Reference Dobbins and Foss2007: 647), provides what the authors note is the ‘traditional’ definition of a taberna as a ‘retail shop; a wine shop or tavern’, this ‘traditional’ definition is far too limited.Footnote 17 Furthermore, the meaning was not fixed and will have changed over time, from apparently initially referring to the wooden shelters of the poor to becoming particularly (although not exclusively) associated with bars and inns in late antiquity, a meaning which it has retained in some modern European languages.Footnote 18 If we look at the full range of uses of the term, the taberna appears as a multi-functional space, but one used primarily for commercial purposes. Tabernae are linked to retail, to manufacturing, to administration and to the provision of services, including those of doctors, barbers and moneylenders, as well as the supply of food and drink, housing bars, cookshops and inns, together with bakers, butchers, fishmongers, cheese-sellers and the like.Footnote 19 Tabernae were also residential, either in combination with commerce or exclusively domestic.Footnote 20
Textual analogy, then, can be useful in suggesting functions for these spaces. We must, however, remember the full range of uses attributed to tabernae in Latin literature, and crucially, we must not privilege the literary over the material evidence.Footnote 21 Indeed, the action of labelling spaces as tabernae remains problematic, as it imposes an expectation of function that is not always borne out by the actual physical evidence, and hinders other interpretations of the use of space in these units. To use Latin nomenclature still risks privileging the literary evidence over the actual archaeological evidence.
ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGY AND MODERN ANALOGY
Regardless of whether or not we are justified in labelling them as tabernae, spaces that fulfil the architectural typology described above are routinely identified as commercial (see introductory section and n. 3, above). Identification is made on the basis of form, irrespective of whether or not there is any corroborating archaeological evidence.Footnote 22 This practice cannot really be separated from the idea of the taberna, since notions of Latin nomenclature and the architectural form of the space itself have fed into each other and become mutually reinforcing. The understanding of the use of the architectural space is, however, based as much on modern analogy and ‘intuitive’ approaches to spatial function as on the literary idea of the taberna. These units are architecturally almost identical to commercial units that can still be seen in the historic city centres of Italy, such as those along the Via dei Tribunali in Naples or along the Via dei Sediari in Rome, with their wide entranceways opening directly on to the street or an arcade (see Fig. 3a, b), something which has almost certainly influenced interpretations of Roman space.Footnote 23
Fig. 3. (a) Shop, Via dei Tribunali, Naples. (b) Workshop, Via dei Sediari, Rome. (Photos: author).
In the case of the taberna, modern analogy would suggest on the basis of their architectural form that they had a commercial function, most obviously as shops. As in modern urban centres, the Roman units tend to be located along the main streets, suggesting that they were intended to be visible and accessible to as many people as possible, and the wide doorway maximizes light and air, and facilitates interaction between those inside and outside the unit.Footnote 24 The wide entranceway would also make these spaces less practical from a domestic point of view, although it is important not to impose on the ancient world modern expectations of privacy and space.Footnote 25
However, while analogy can at the very least be useful in providing hypotheses about the potential use of space in the archaeological record, caution is needed. Allison (Reference Allison2001: 195) warned that modern analogy can ‘normalize the perception that little has changed in the domestic domain over the past millennia’, and such concerns also hold for the commercial sphere. Drawing analogies between the commercial landscape of the Roman period and modern Italy can lead to anachronistic assumptions, since the nature of production and the structure of demand that created the modern commercial landscape are fundamentally different from those of the Roman world. Moreover, even if the architectural form of a space suggests that it was designed for a particular purpose, the actual use is not always consistent with the intended use (Allison Reference Allison2009: 11).
MATERIAL EVIDENCE AND FUNCTIONAL SPACE
In analysing how a space was actually used, the material evidence should of course play a central role in archaeological interpretation.Footnote 26 The clearest evidence to indicate a function for tabernae in the archaeological record comes in the form of permanent installations, which often represent a significant fixed-capital investment on the part of the owners or tenants.Footnote 27 Stone counters, for example, are sometimes found within these units and are generally taken to indicate the sale of food and drink in bars (see Fig. 4).Footnote 28 Similarly, millstones and ovens, or basins, vats and treading bowls, are taken to indicate the presence of bakers and fullers respectively.Footnote 29
Fig. 4. Stone bar counter (Herculaneum, Ins.IV.6) (photo: Amy Coker).
Artefact assemblages can also sometimes indicate a likely function for a unit.Footnote 30 At Pompeii, for example, a probable tannery (I.5.2) has been identified by the discovery of various leather worker's tools and numerous basins, together with a graffito near the entrance, X/lmi cor(i)ariano, perhaps identifying this as the tannery of Xulmus, or, as Borgard et al. (Reference Borgard, Brun, Leguilloux and Tuffreau-Libre2003) suggest, referring to a specific order of skins, with the number ten followed by the worker's initials.Footnote 31 A cobbler's workshop (VII.1.41–2) has also been identified on the basis of a graffito referring to the repair of a cobbler's tool, and the discovery of various items, such as knives, hooks for stretching leather, a pair of tongs, three bronze needles, and two small jars of what Della Corte describes as atramentum (black dye for shoe leather); the room also contained a stone workbench.Footnote 32 Further finds suggest the presence of pottery and lamp sellers and/or producers (I.20.2; VII.4.3; VII.2.46),Footnote 33 a doctor (VIII.3.11–12)Footnote 34 and metalworkers.Footnote 35
Somewhat less convincingly, functions for some units at Pompeii have been suggested on the basis of paintings, dipinti or graffiti on their exterior. One unexcavated unit (IX.7.5–7), for example, is commonly referred to as the officina coactiliaria di Verecundus, or felt workshop of Verecundus, on the basis of a painting depicting the production and sale of felt items on the exterior.Footnote 36 A supposed pottery shop has been identified on the basis of a sign advertising the sale of containers for faex (wine-lees or the sediment at the bottom of garum) on the exterior;Footnote 37 this is known as the taberna vasaria of Zosimus, since dipinti on the exterior wall name one Zosimus, although such identifications of ownership are tenuous at best.Footnote 38 Similarly, Della Corte suggested uses for some units on the basis of electoral recommendations made by groups of craftsmen or retailers on the façade, a practice rightly called into question by Mouritsen.Footnote 39
The vast majority of tabernae excavated across the Roman world, however, provide little archaeological evidence of their function in antiquity. At Ostia, for example, Girri (Reference Girri1956) catalogued over 800 units that she identified as tabernae, but the process of slow abandonment, coupled with the manner of excavation, means that it is possible to identify a specific function for only a small minority of these units.Footnote 40 At Rome also, tabernae were either similarly abandoned and emptied of their contents in the final stage of occupation, or were continuously occupied or incorporated into other structures, leaving few traces of their use in antiquity.Footnote 41 A rare exception was the discovery of dozens of glass-paste ‘gems’ inside a taberna of the early imperial period, situated below a staircase at the northwest corner of the Palatine, suggesting the workshop of a jeweller (Haselberger et al. Reference Haselberger2002: 221).Footnote 42
Even at Pompeii and Herculaneum, where the rich archaeological record potentially enables a fuller understanding of the commercial landscape of the towns, the vast majority of the excavated units provide little evidence of their actual function. Gassner (Reference Gassner1986), for example, undertook a study of what she termed the ‘Kaufläden’ of Pompeii (also described as tabernae in the text). She deliberately excluded those units with readily identifiable functions, such as bakeries, fulleries or dyeworks, and bars, leaving a total of 577 units to survey; a probable function can be suggested for fewer than 20% of these units.Footnote 43 As the early excavators of Pompeii were concerned primarily with domestic art and architecture, spaces that were thought to be commercial in nature were excavated with little care.Footnote 44 Furthermore, fragmentary glass and pottery were largely overlooked until the 1930s, as were amphorae without inscriptions, until relatively recently.Footnote 45 Finds that were not of artistic interest were routinely decontextualized, and moved without the exact context or find spot being precisely documented, meaning that they tend to be analysed separately as evidence for activities such as trade, rather than for the function of a particular space.Footnote 46
For those units that do contain a number of documented finds, these are often of limited help in understanding room function. Allison (Reference Allison2004), for example, analysed the finds excavated in a sample of 30 houses at Pompeii, investigating what the spatial distribution of the finds could tell us about the function of spaces within the houses.Footnote 47 The artefact assemblages for the tabernae included in the sample were on the whole inconclusive, with no distinctive finds that could suggest a particular function for a unit, commercial or otherwise.Footnote 48 Other recent studies have also demonstrated that the contents and assemblages of many tabernae are not notably distinct from those found in areas of houses which are generally assumed to have a domestic function.Footnote 49 Indeed, as Allison (Reference Allison2004: 174) concludes on the basis of her particular sample, ‘the evidence is insubstantial to identify them [tabernae] as commercial spaces’.Footnote 50
In any case, it can be difficult to distinguish between finds that indicate a commercial or a domestic function, since these are very often the same. The presence of hearths, latrines and stoves, for example, could be connected with a commercial or ‘industrial’ function for a room, but such finds could equally be taken as evidence of habitation.Footnote 51 Similarly traces of cult could represent the protective deities of workers, but could also signify the domestic cult of a household.Footnote 52 Yet preconceived ideas of function mean that signs of habitation have often been overlooked and attention has focused almost exclusively on finding evidence of commerce, a practice which to a certain extent reflects an anachronistic modern conception of living and working space as separate. Some units at Pompeii, for example, contain possible bed niches set into the walls (e.g. I.8.15; II.2.3; VII.3.8), and at Herculaneum the remains of beds are occasionally found (e.g. Insula Orientalis II.9 and II.10); both are generally located in back rooms.Footnote 53 Yet when Maiuri (Reference Maiuri1958: 442; 466) came across evidence for beds, or for areas of tabernae that were partitioned off with wooden panels at Herculaneum, he took these to be evidence of rest areas for workers, places for a siesta, rather than as an indication that this was a residential unit. Furthermore, although space may have been tight, workers and other occupants could sleep on mats on the floor, which would be unlikely to leave any trace in the archaeological record; boundaries between domestic and commercial space in such units were probably more temporal than spatial, and the use of space in tabernae was likely flexible (Flohr Reference Flohr2007: 142).
Identifying the specific function of tabernae on the basis of material evidence alone, then, is rarely possible. Finds are very often either non-existent, or are inconclusive. This is particularly true for sites that underwent a process of gradual abandonment rather than sudden destruction, since any specialist tools, wooden furnishings, raw materials and stock — especially if these were valuable and could be sold or reused — would generally have been packed up and removed when a space was eventually abandoned. Given the limited archaeological evidence, a greater variety of activities could then potentially have taken place within these spaces than is commonly assumed. Furthermore, in focusing on the architectural form of the taberna as a commercial space, we may overlook the commercial activities that were taking place in spaces that would ordinarily be identified on architectural grounds as having a solely domestic function.
In fact, artefact assemblages at Pompeii indicate small-scale metalworking and cloth production taking place within apparently ‘domestic’ spaces, as well as pointing to two houses being used for gem engraving, and one as a painter's workshop, although with Pompeii it is possible that some of these activities reflect a change in the use of space after disruptive seismic activity in the years leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius.Footnote 54 While it is not always easy to distinguish whether such material represents domestic activity or enterprises on a commercial scale, in these cases, finds are significant enough to suggest production on a commercial level.Footnote 55 Groups of over 50 loom weights found together in particular houses, for instance, point to multiple looms and cloth production on a scale that could conceivably enable some commercial sales, while the high numbers of precious stones in varying states of manufacture, found alongside tools, suggest activity geared towards the market.Footnote 56 There is nothing in terms of decoration or architecture to distinguish these houses from any others, and in a less well-preserved site than Pompeii it is unlikely that the commercial function of these spaces would have been recognized. Here it is the contents of the house which suggest how the space was used functionally by the inhabitants.Footnote 57 Graffiti can also sometimes indicate a commercial use for an apparently ‘domestic’ space, as, for example, with the House of Nebuchelos (B8-H; also known as the ‘House of the Archive’) at Dura-Europus. Alongside horoscopes, mnēsthē texts, and drawings of a boat and a winged victory, graffiti include accounts, receipts, records of shipments for items including wool and grain, and inventories, testifying to the organization within the house of the commercial activities of one Aurelios Nebuchelos, who appears to have had business interests in agriculture, trade and moneylending.Footnote 58
These examples demonstrate that a particular architectural space such as that of the taberna is not a prerequisite for commerce, something also shown by Flohr's (Reference Flohr2007) study of the spatial contexts of urban production at Pompeii. His dataset, based on a survey of workshops containing relatively easily identifiable installations such as ovens and mills, treading stalls, basins, vats and furnaces, is by no means dominated by tabernae; of 61 workshops identified, only 18 were located in tabernae, with 26 found in domus and 17 in other spatial contexts, although 67% of workshops were part of a complex of rooms that were connected to a taberna (Flohr Reference Flohr2007: 133–4; appendix 1). Urban production clearly took place in a variety of spaces, many of which would ordinarily be classified on architectural grounds alone as domestic; more often than not, decoration and finds suggest that these spaces were also residential. It is the additional artefactual or textual evidence that points to their commercial function.
Furthermore, ancient literature indicates that external producers and retailers visited private homes directly, particularly those of the wealthy, in order to make sales and collect payments. Some visits were by appointment, with customers inviting traders into their homes, while other visits were more speculative; Horace (Sat. 2.3.225–30), for example, satirizes a wealthy young man who invites a number of luxury traders to come to his house the next day, while Ovid (Ars am. 1.421–8) warns readers of the danger of a retailer calling when women are in the mood to buy. The sexual threat of the pedlar visiting women who are home alone became a cliché in Latin literature.Footnote 59 It is also perfectly possible for traders to base themselves within their own homes. This may reduce the opportunity for spontaneous commercial transactions with passers-by, but for those who worked in small urban centres, or who dealt in highly specialist goods, word of mouth may have been sufficient to enable them to do business; an art dealer such as Damasippus, for example, was unlikely to have a shop (Cic. Ad Familiares 7.23; Hor. Sat. 2.3.20). Even apparently domestic space can, therefore, be viewed as potentially commercial, while apparently commercial space can be viewed as potentially domestic.
LOOKING BEYOND THE TABERNA
To understand commercial space more fully, then, we need to look beyond the taberna. Commercial activities do not always require a specialized workshop or shop, but can take place within houses or simply in the open air, particularly in Mediterranean countries; such practices must have been less common in the northern parts of the empire, especially in the winter months. Retail in particular can take place in almost any conceivable setting, including not only fora and other large open spaces, but also streets, porticoes and arcades. Legislation enacted in the first and second centuries indicates that tabernae commonly spilled out over their thresholds in Rome, and texts from Roman Palestine indicate the problems that could be caused by such practices, recounting, for example, the story of a blind man who broke a box of glassware displayed outside a glass shop by hitting it with his stick.Footnote 60 There is also plenty of literary evidence to suggest that street traders and hawkers were themselves a common feature of Roman urban centres, most notably as sellers of food.Footnote 61 Auctions were also a common means of exchange, with transactions ranging from the wholesale and retail trading of commodities at docks, wharves and gates, to the sale of land, cattle, luxury items, the redistribution of the contents of large aristocratic estates, and the informal sale of second-hand items. While some auctions took place in macella or auction halls, street corners, porticoes, arcades — in short, almost any public open space — could be utilized for such sales.Footnote 62
Ancient visual representations of retail certainly suggest that much of this took place in the open air. The frieze from the praedia of Julia Felix at Pompeii, for example, shows a variety of retailers in the forum; most sell their goods from the floor, although some display items on wooden tables or shelves, while a shoe seller hangs curtains between the columns of a portico to mark out his area of sale.Footnote 63 A marble relief from Ostia, most probably dating to the late second century AD, shows a vegetable seller behind a makeshift trestle table, with the basket underneath presumably used to transport the produce.Footnote 64 Another Ostian relief of similar date depicts a woman behind a stall made up of wooden cages which hold her stock of live chickens and rabbits. She also sells fruit from bowls on the stall, along with snails, contained in a large barrel.Footnote 65 Reliefs from Gaul show the sale of fruit from a trestle table (Arlon), grain from sacks (Bordeaux), and fruit sold by an ambulant trader, who carried his stock in a basket hung around his neck (Narbonne).Footnote 66
Sellers who hawked goods from trays, baskets or mats would leave little physical trace of their presence. Similarly, many stalls were temporary in nature, and packed up and removed when not in use. Such commercial practices are, therefore, difficult to document archaeologically, although sudden destruction due to a catastrophic event can enable the remains of stalls to be detected. At Wroxeter in England, for example, stacks of pottery vessels were uncovered, which appear to have fallen from stalls located in the portico of the forum during a fire in the mid-second century AD (Atkinson Reference Atkinson1942: 127–30).Footnote 67 With this in mind, we might expect similar finds at Pompeii, but no such stalls have been noted here. Perhaps they were rare, given the narrowness of most pavements and the scarcity of porticoes and arcades in the town, although there are traces of numerous stone benches that traders could potentially have used to display their wares.Footnote 68 Wooden benches could also have been used in similar ways, although such furniture does not commonly survive (Hartnett Reference Hartnett2008: 93).
It may, however, also be the case that the remains of stalls were not properly identified when the streets were excavated. A group of metal items found in a street in Regio I in the early twentieth century, for example, could be tentatively identified as the stock of a street stall. These bronze and iron items were rusted together and included grips for horses (two of which were stamped with the name of P. Pilonius Felix), elements of horse harnesses, strigils, keys, scythes and sickles.Footnote 69 A taberna (I.6.12) located c. 1 m behind the metal items was consequently identified as the workshop of a ‘faber ferrarius’, conventionally attributed to Junianus on the basis of a name appearing in an electoral notice on the façade, although the name differs from that stamped on the horse grips.Footnote 70 The items are commonly thought to have been hanging for sale on the architrave when Vesuvius erupted, having then been moved away from the entrance by the force of the eruption.Footnote 71 Yet when the room was excavated in the 1920s, some years later than the street, the finds were rather inconclusive, consisting of a miscellany of bronze, glass and terracotta items, but nothing to indicate metalworking, such as a furnace, brazier or traces of metal debris.Footnote 72 This may be because the taberna housed a retailer rather than a manufacturer of metal items, but it could also be that the artefact assemblage is entirely independent of the structure behind. The pavement in front of this taberna is relatively wide, and the artefacts could possibly represent the remains of a stall selling metal items to customers moving along the Via dell'Abbondanza. Such suggestions must, of course, remain speculative, but it may be that the significance of other such artefact assemblages has been missed in the past.
Traders were surely more likely to base themselves on such busy, central streets as the Via dell'Abbondanza in Pompeii, or close to the entrances to important public buildings, in temple complexes, within open spaces such as fora, or perhaps alongside a water basin or neighbourhood shrine, anywhere that pedestrian traffic — and thus the potential for customers — was at its greatest.Footnote 73 Religious centres, for example, were natural locations for trade. Sacrificial cakes were available for purchase outside the Temple of Venus close to the Pompeian forum, flowers and garlands were sold along the Via Sacra in Rome, and Paul famously angered the sellers of silver shrines outside the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.Footnote 74 Traders also sold food, and at a sanctuary to Venus near modern Cassino in Italy an inscription records a kitchen set up by four freedwomen (AE 1975: 197; 1980: 216). The popularity of temples and altars as places to trade can perhaps also be indicated by a clause included on the dedicatory inscriptions of altars erected by Domitian in Rome in response to the great fire under Nero in AD 64 (CIL VI 826; 30837); trading was forbidden in the vicinity of the altars, suggesting that this was common practice elsewhere.
Likewise, entertainment venues were popular places to trade, and sellers marked out the location of their stalls on the exterior of the amphitheatre at Pompeii with paint, while price lists or accounts were scratched on the columns in the portico of the palaestra.Footnote 75 A wall painting depicting the riot in the amphitheatre at Pompeii in AD 59 also shows stalls in the foreground.Footnote 76 Some of these stalls look to be semi-permanent wooden structures, while others are more temporary in nature, consisting of spaces marked off by awnings strung between trees or on posts, a practice that would be impossible to document archaeologically but must have been common in the hot Mediterranean climate.
There is no recorded archaeological evidence for semi-permanent wooden huts in the vicinity of the amphitheatre at Pompeii, but in some differently preserved towns, such as Cherchel in modern Algeria, the presence of stalls and wooden huts can sometimes be identified by the marks of grooves and post-holes left in pavement surfaces, primarily in the forum or agora (Trifilo Reference Trifilo2009: 185–7).Footnote 77 The commercial function of these huts can perhaps be indicated by the large numbers of fourth-century bronze coins found in the paving cracks beneath; certainly in other locations the discovery of significant numbers of scattered coins of a reasonable chronological and geographical spread has been taken as a strong indicator of commercial activity, sometimes signifying the site of an otherwise undocumented market, fair, or place of sale.Footnote 78
While the painted markers for stalls that we occasionally find at Pompeii are rare, in some late antique cities of the Eastern empire, for example Aphrodisias, Sagalassos and Gerasa, more durable topos markers survive in the form of names and occupations carved into stone columns or walls.Footnote 79 It is unclear if these markings replaced earlier ones, which perhaps were made with paint (as at Pompeii) rather than inscribed, or if this was an entirely new phenomenon in these cities, reflecting a change in the use of space in late antiquity, or at least a formalization of previous practices. The practice of inscribing place markers in stone, particularly when combined with the presence of wooden huts, certainly suggests some permanence to the stalls and stall-holders. Moreover, both the painted and inscribed markers must reflect supervision and regulation of trade by local civic officials, who rented these spaces out to traders.Footnote 80
The presence of temporary and semi-permanent wooden stalls must have had a notable impact upon the character and atmosphere of a city. Where present, stalls must also have affected the visibility and impact of public buildings, especially as they tended to cluster around the edges of porticoes and fora, very often competing for space with public monuments, such as honorific statues (Trifilo Reference Trifilo2009: 194–205). As Libanius (Orations 11.254) remarked about fourth-century Antioch, ‘no space is without some handicraft; but if a man gets possession of a little strip of space, it at once becomes a tailor's workshop (ergastērion) or something of that order’.Footnote 81 These practices attracted the attention of the authorities, but ultimately led to the development of the suq or market in eastern cities.Footnote 82
CONCLUSIONS
Identifying commercial space in the archaeological record is not always easy. Whether consciously or not, we are very often relying on different types of analogies, which can be misleading. Assigning Latin terminology to particular spaces and drawing on textual analogy to identify the function of those spaces is, for example, a problematic practice, although in the case of the taberna at least, not an entirely unjustified one. Similarly, we cannot rely on architectural typology alone as an indicator of function, since the interpretation of space is influenced by modern analogies which may not necessarily be valid, and in any case, the actual use of a space is not always consistent with the intended use. Also, when it comes to the taberna, the material evidence that could provide an indication of function is very often missing. Moreover, commercial activity does not require a particular architectural space or structure in which to take place, a fact underlined by the minimal separation of commercial and domestic space in the pre-modern world. We need to be cautious, then, about using architecture as a proxy for activities; the frequency of tabernae cannot straightforwardly be viewed as a proxy indicator for the structure and organization of an urban economy or society, since commercial activity could take place in a wide variety of spaces, from private houses to street corners, from open market spaces to porticoes and arcades. This is indicated by the archaeological, literary, epigraphic and pictorial evidence for commercial activity, and while no single source should necessarily take precedence over another, making use of a broad range of ancient evidence enables a much fuller understanding of the Roman urban commercial landscape. In short, if we rely on architecture as our main indicator for the nature and location of commerce, we will only ever get a limited and partial picture of the diverse commercial landscape of Roman urban centres.
