Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T07:57:21.162Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Mind the Gap

Reuniting Words and Walls in the Study of the Classical Greek House

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2022

By
Janett Morgan
Edited by
J. A. Baird  and
April Pudsey
J. A. Baird
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
April Pudsey
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Get access

Summary

When 19th-century excavators uncovered domestic buildings at classical Greek urban sites, they also uncovered a problem: words and walls did not match. The clash between sources led to a clash between scholars. This chapter explores the origin of this perceived gap between words and walls and shows that it is the result of clashing philosophies, rather than faulty sources. Discussions of ancient Greek houses began in 16th-century Italy, at a time when no Greek houses were available to study. Scholars created their own plans, drawing on ancient texts and surviving Roman remains. Their designs were intended to facilitate philosophical discussions, not to rebuild the past. In contrast, archaeologists wanted to rebuild. They needed labels to describe the buildings they had found. They mined ancient texts to create a terminology for domestic spaces and features. Inevitably, text and archaeology did not match. It is time to step away from the gap and re-evaluate our approach to investigating ancient houses. Through a re-examination of evidence for 4th-century BCE Athenian houses in texts and material remains, this chapter demonstrates how different ancient sources can work in parallel to advance knowledge of domestic life in the ancient Greek city.

Keywords

VitruviusPrieneOlynthosGreek domestic architecture
Type
Chapter
Information
Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Material and Textual Approaches
 , pp. 96 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, P. M. (1993). How do we identify the use of space in Roman housing? In Moorman, E. M., ed., Functional and Spatial Analysis of Wall Painting. Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress on Ancient Wall Painting, Amsterdam 8–12 Sept 1992. Bulletin antieke beschaving. Annual Papers on Classical Archaeology. Leiden: Stichting BABESCH, 1–8.Google Scholar
Allison, P. M. (1999). Labels for ladles: interpreting the material culture of Roman households. In Allison, P. M., ed., The Archaeology of Household Activities. London and New York: Routledge, 57–77.Google Scholar
Alston, R. (1997). Houses and households in Roman Egypt. In Laurence, R. and Wallace-Hadrill, A., eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 25–39.Google Scholar
Alston, R. (2007). Some theoretical considerations and a Late Antique house from Roman Egypt. In Westgate, R. C., Fisher, N. R. E. and Whitley, A. J. M., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond. London: British School at Athens, 373–78.Google Scholar
Arnott, W. G. (2000). Menander. Volume III. Cambridge, MA, and London: Loeb.Google Scholar
Ault, B. A. (2005). Halieis: Excavations at Porto Cheli, Greece. Vol. 2. The Houses: the Organisation and Use of Domestic Space. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ault, B. A. and Nevett, L. C. (1999). Digging houses: archaeologies of Classical and Hellenistic Greek domestic assemblages. In Allison, P. M., ed., The Archaeology of Household Activities. London and New York: Routledge, 43–56.Google Scholar
Barbaro, D. (1556). I Dieci libri dell’Architettura: di M. Vitruvio, tradotti & commentati da Mons. Daniel Barbaro eletto Patriarca d’Aquileia. Venice.Google Scholar
Becker, W. A. (1840). Charikles: Bilder altgriechischer Sitte, zur genauren Kenntnis des griechischen Privatlebens. Leipzig: Friedrich Fleischer.Google Scholar
Becker, W. A. (1911). Charicles, or Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks, trans. Metcalfe, F.. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
Berry, J. (1997). Household artefacts: towards a re-interpretation of Roman domestic space. In. Laurence, R. and Wallace-Hadrill, A., eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 183–96.Google Scholar
Brigger, E. and Giovannini, A. (2004). Prothésis: Étude sur les rites funéraires chez les grecs et chez les étrusques, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome 116, 179–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, B. (2001). Thing theory. Critical Inquiry 28(1), 1–22.Google Scholar
Brown, J. (2013) The ephebe and the schoolboy: the Classical narrative of Becker’s Charikles or Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks. Journal of Classics Teaching 28, 1–14.Google Scholar
Burkert, W. (1985) [1996 reprint]. Greek Religion, trans. Raffan, J.. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cahill, N. (2002). Household and City Organisation at Olynthus. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Calame, C. (1997). Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role and Social Functions, trans. Collins, D. and Orion, J.. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Carey, C. (1989). Lysias. Selected Speeches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carey, C. (1995). Rape and adultery in Athenian law. Classical Quarterly 45, 407–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, C. (1997). Trials from Classical Athens. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cellauro, L. (2004). Daniele Barbaro and Vitruvius: the architectural theory of a Renaissance humanist and patron. Papers of the British School at Rome 72, 293–329.Google Scholar
Chamonard, J. (1906). Fouilles de Délos 1904: fouilles dans le quartier du théâtre. Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 30, 485–606.Google Scholar
Chamonard, J. (1922–24). Le quartier du Théâtre: étude sur l’habitation délienne à l’époque hellénistique, 3 vols. Exploration archéologique de Délos VIII. Paris: Editions de Boccard.Google Scholar
Ciapponi, L. A. (1984). Fra. Giocondo da Verona and his edition of Vitruvius. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47, 72–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, D. (1989). Seclusion, separation, and the status of women in Classical Athens. Greece and Rome 36, 3–15.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. (1991). Law, Sexuality and Society: The Enforcement of Morals in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dalby, A. (1996). Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Demand, N. (1994). Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Athens. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, M. and Usher, S. (1985). Greek Orators 1: Antiphon and Lysias. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.Google Scholar
Fisher, N. (2001). Aeschines, Against Timarchos. Translated, with Introduction and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, S. (2015). Philosophy of architecture. In Zalta, E. N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/architecture, accessed 11 August 2020.Google Scholar
Foxhall, L. (2000). The running sands of time: archaeology and the short term. World Archaeology 31, 484–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foxhall, L. (2007) House clearance: unpacking the ‘kitchen’ in Classical Greece. In Westgate, R. C., Fisher, N. R. E. and Whitley, A. J. M., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond. London: British School at Athens, 234–42.Google Scholar
Gallant, T. W. (1991). Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece: Reconstructing the Domestic Economy. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Gardner, E. (1901). The Greek house. Journal of Hellenic Studies 21, 293–305.Google Scholar
Gardner, P. and Jevons, F. B. (1895). A Manual of Greek Antiquities. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Garland, R. (1990). The Greek Way of Life. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Garland, R. (2009). Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks, 2nd ed. London: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Giocondo, G. (1511). M. Vitruvius per Jocundum solito castigatior factus cum figuris et tabula ut iam legi et intelligi pos sit. Venice: G. da Tridentino.Google Scholar
Goldberg, M. (1999). Spatial and behavioural negotiation in Classical Athenian houses. In Allison, P. M., ed., The Archaeology of Household Activities. London and New York: Routledge, 142–61.Google Scholar
Graham, J. W. (1954). Olynthiaka 6. The kitchen-complex. Hesperia 23, 328–46.Google Scholar
Graham, J. W. (1966). Origins and interrelations of the Greek house and the Roman house. Phoenix 20, 3–31.Google Scholar
Hall, J. M. (2014). Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. (2012). Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Holland, L. B. (1944). Colophon. Hesperia 13, 91–171.Google Scholar
Jameson, M. H. (1989). Review of F. Pesando Oikos e ktisis. American Journal of Archaeology 93, 478–79.Google Scholar
Jameson, M. H. (1990). Domestic space in the Greek city-state. In Kent, S., ed., Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92–113.Google Scholar
Johnston, S. I. (1999). Restless Dead. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jones, J. E. (1975). Town and country houses of Attica in Classical times. In Mussche, H., Spitaels, P. and Goemaere-De Poerk, F., eds., Thorikos and the Laurion in Archaic and Classical Times: Papers and Contributions of the Colloquim held in March 1973 at the State University of Ghent. Misc Graeca 1. Ghent: Belgian Archaeological Mission in Greece, 63–133.Google Scholar
Jones, J. E., Sackett, L. H. and Graham, A. J. (1962). The Dema house in Attica. Annual of the British School at Athens 57, 75–114.Google Scholar
Jordan, D. R. and Rotroff, S. I. (1999). A curse in a chytridion: a contribution to the study of Athenian pyres. Hesperia 68, 147–54.Google Scholar
Kaiser, A. (2015). Archaeology, Sexism and Scandal: The Long Suppressed Story of One Woman’s Discoveries and the Man Who Stole Credit for Them. London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. (1982). Village Ethnoarchaeology: Rural Iran in Perspective. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kruft, H.-W. (1994). A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present. London: Zwemmer.Google Scholar
Kurtz, D. C. and Boardman, J. (1986). Booners. In Greek Vases in the John Paul Getty Museum. Occasional Papers on Antiquities 2. Malibu: The John Paul Getty Museum, 35–70.Google Scholar
La Motta, V. M. and Schiffer, M. B. (1999). Formation processes of house floor assemblages. In Allison, P. M., ed., The Archaeology of Household Activities. London and New York: Routledge, 19–29.Google Scholar
Lape, S. (2004). Reproducing Athens. Menander’s Comedy, Democratic Culture and the Hellenistic City. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McEwen, I. K. (2003). Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McHardy, F. (2008). Revenge in Athenian Culture. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
McIntosh, G. (2014). Amor and Roma: Understanding Vitruvius through Eryximachus’ erotic logos in Plato’s Symposium. L’Antiquité Classique 83, 15–30.Google Scholar
Morgan, G. (1982). Euphiletos’ house: Lysias I. Transactions of the American Philological Association 112, 115–23.Google Scholar
Morgan, J. (2007a). Women, Religion and the Home. In Ogden, D., ed., The Blackwell Companion to Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell, 297–310.Google Scholar
Morgan, J. (2007b). Space and the notion of a final frontier: searching for cult boundaries in the Classical Athenian home. Kernos 20, 113–29.Google Scholar
Morgan, J. (2010). The Classical Greek House. Bristol and Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, J. (2011a). Families and religion in Classical Greece. In Rawson, B., ed., Family and Household in Greece and Rome: A Companion. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 447–64.Google Scholar
Morgan, J. (2011b). Drunken men and modern myths: searching for the andron in Classical Greece. In Lambert, S. D., ed., Sociable Man. Essays in Greek Social Behaviour in Honour of Nick Fisher. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 267–90.Google Scholar
Morgan, M. H. (1914) [1960]. Vitruvius. The Ten Books on Architecture. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1994). Archaeologies of Greece. In Morris, I., ed., Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 8–47.Google Scholar
Morris, S. P. (1985). ΛΑΣΑΝΑ: a contribution to the ancient Greek kitchen. Hesperia 54, 393–409.Google Scholar
Mylonas, G. E. (1946). Excursus II: the oecus unit of the Olynthian house. In Robinson, D. M., ed., Excavations at Olynthus XII. Domestic and Public Architecture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 369–98.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. C. (1994). Separation or seclusion? Towards an archaeological approach to investigating women in the Greek household in the third to fifth centuries BC. In Parker-Pearson, M. and Richards, C., eds., Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space. London: Routledge, 98–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevett, L. C. (1995). Gender relations in the Classical Greek household: the archaeological evidence. Annual of the British School at Athens 90, 363–81.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. C. (1997). Perceptions of domestic space in Roman Italy. In Rawson, B. and Weaver, P., eds., The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 281–98.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. C. (1999). House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nývlt, P. (2013). Killing of Eratosthenes between reality and mime (or was Lysias 1 really pronounced?). Graeco-Latina Brunensia 18(1), 159–70.Google Scholar
Oakley, J. H. and Sinos, R. H. (1993). The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Paris, P. (1884). Fouilles de Délos: maisons du second siècle av. J.-C. Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 8, 473–96.Google Scholar
Patterson, C. B. (1998). The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pavlides, E. (1985). Vernacular architecture in its social context: a case study of Eressos, Greece. (PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania; Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms.)Google Scholar
Pesando, F. (1987). Oikos e Ktesis. La Casa Greca in Età Classica. Perugia: Quasar.Google Scholar
Petersen, C. (1851). Der Hausgottesdienst der alten Griechen. Cassel: Theodor Fischer.Google Scholar
Porter, J. (2007). Adultery by the book: Lysias 1 and comic diēgēsis. In Carawan, E., ed., Oxford Readings in the Attic Orators. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 60–88.Google Scholar
Rider, B. C. (1916). The Greek House: Its History and Development from the Neolithic Period to the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, D. M. (1932). The residential districts and the cemeteries at Olynthus. American Journal of Archaeology 36, 118–38.Google Scholar
Robinson, D. M. (1946). Excavations at Olynthus XII: Domestic and Public Architecture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, D. M. and Graham, A. J. W. (1938). Excavations at Olynthus VIII: The Hellenic House. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Romano, E. (2016). Between republic and principate: Vitruvius and the culture of transition. Arethusa 49(2), 335–51.Google Scholar
Salmenkivi, E. (1997). Family life in the comedies of Menander. In Frösén, J., ed., Early Hellenistic Athens: Symptoms of a Change. Papers and Monographs of the Finnish Institute at Athens. Vol. VI. Helsinki: Finnish Institute at Athens, 183–94.Google Scholar
Schnapp, A. (1996). The Discovery of the Past: The Origins of Archaeology. London: Abrams.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. (1995). Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shear, T. L. Jr (1973). The Athenian Agora: excavations of 1971. Hesperia 42, 123–79.Google Scholar
Sparkes, B. (1962). The Greek kitchen. Journal of Hellenic Studies 82, 121–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sparkes, B. and Talcott, L. (1958). Pots and Pans of Classical Athens. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.Google Scholar
Thompson, H. A. (1959). Activities in the Athenian Agora: 1958. Hesperia 28, 91–108.Google Scholar
Thompson, H. A. and Wycherley, R. E. (1972). The Athenian Agora XIV: The Agora of Athens. The History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Centre. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.Google Scholar
Todd, S. C. (2000). Lysias. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Todd, S. C. (2007). A Commentary on Lysias (Speeches 1–11.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsakirgis, B. (2007). Fire and smoke: hearths, braziers and chimneys in the Greek house. In Westgate, R. C., Fisher, N. R. E. and Whitley, A. J. M., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond. London: British School at Athens, 425–31.Google Scholar
Whitley, J. (2001). The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T. and König, J., eds. (2008). Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wiegand, T. and Schrader, H. (1904). Priene: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen in den Jahren 1895–1898. Berlin: G. Reime.Google Scholar
Wilkins, J. (2000). The Boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Winckler, A. (1868). Die Wohnhäuser der Hellenen. Berlin: Calvary.Google Scholar
Young, R.S. (1951). An industrial district of ancient Athens. Hesperia 20, 135–250.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Mind the Gap
  • Edited by J. A. Baird, Birkbeck College, University of London, April Pudsey, Manchester Metropolitan University
  • Book: Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
  • Online publication: 08 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108954983.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Mind the Gap
  • Edited by J. A. Baird, Birkbeck College, University of London, April Pudsey, Manchester Metropolitan University
  • Book: Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
  • Online publication: 08 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108954983.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Mind the Gap
  • Edited by J. A. Baird, Birkbeck College, University of London, April Pudsey, Manchester Metropolitan University
  • Book: Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
  • Online publication: 08 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108954983.004
Available formats
×