200 DOMESTIC ACCOMMODATIONS CHAP. ix. 



glass windows to admit the light and exclude 

 the cold. An open place in the centre of the 

 roof of the house admitted the rain that fell into 

 a place called impluvium or compluvium, and 

 the light was admitted by the same opening. 

 Even in the villas, where the opulent Romans 

 displayed their greatest domestic luxuries, the 

 barns, stables, wine and oil storehouses, granaries, 

 and fruit rooms, with the sleeping places for 

 the agricultural slaves, formed a part of the 

 building in which the proprietor resided, and on 

 the top of which was his supping apartment, 

 where he could enjoy the prospect of the sur- 

 rounding country, without feeling the annoy- 

 ances which must have affected his senses of 

 smelling and hearing from his stores and his 

 slaves and working cattle. 



The clothing of even the best families was 

 fabricated in their own houses. The mistress 

 of a family with the female servants were em- 

 ployed in spinning and weaving, and conducted 

 the operations in the chief apartment (in media 

 cedium), according to Livy, book i. cap. 5J. 

 This kind of industry was thought to be so ne- 

 cessary, that to inculcate it most securely, one 

 part of every marriage procession consisted of 

 females carrying a distaff, a spindle, and wool, 

 to intimate to the bride what was to be her 

 future duty. Augustus himself is said by Sue- 

 tonius to have worn nothing for his domestic 



