THE DWELLING HOUSE 



in shape and position, the Roman atrium, for on its 

 two sides were built apartments facing inward. In 

 the case of the house we are considering these apart- 

 ments were used as stalls, and a fodder-trough lay 

 between them and the threshing-floor. On the right 

 of the entrance stood the cows, and over their heads 

 were built into the wall the bunks of the women ser- 

 vants; from the left the horses gazed over at the cows, 

 and above their heads were the sleeping-niches of the 

 men servants. 



The back part of the threshing-floor was the sanctum 

 of the family, and contained the hearth, at the right and 

 left of which were the berths of the men and women 

 of the family. This apartment was called the fire- 

 room. At each end of the building a ladder gave access 

 to the uncovered second story uncovered of necessity, 

 for the chimney had not yet been invented, and an 

 open space to the sky for the escape of smoke was 

 essential. 



This plan was later modified by transferring the 

 entrance door from the gable-end to the side wall, and 

 separating the threshing-floor from the fire-room by 

 a vestibule. These changes, slight and superficial as 

 they really were, greatly obscured the basilica plan 

 from which the dwelling sprang, and which in reality, 

 though not in appearance, it retained. Vitruvius, who 

 wrote in Rome during the age of Augustus, speaks of 

 dwellings built on this model, and Galen describes 

 similar houses in Asia Minor in the second century of 

 our era. The type still exists in Friesland and in Sax- 

 ony, and also in Yorkshire, where it is named a coir. 



VOL. DC. 10 



