Meetings at the theater of Pompey
The life of the noble patricians was based on certain customs that facilitated social life and were indispensable for anyone with political aspirations. The important men of Rome, whether they were senators or magistrates or influential personalities, did not go to the thermae or portici only for otium, to have meetings with friends, but above all to increase their clientes, one of the functions for which large spaces public were specifically created; under the arcades it was normal to see talks of senators with mercatores or rather a magistrate with a poet.
But there were not only these citizens; social life in ancient Rome was enlivened by many characters who lived thanks to the availability of aristocrats. Martial tells about a young man named Selius who frequented the thermae and strolled in the arcades hoping to meet someone who invited him to his banquet. There are also representations of this custom in the comedies of Plautus who develops a real mask: the "mooch", that is the one who would do anything for an invitation to dinner. This way of behaving had its reason in an interchangeable relationship, in fact the patrician had to have a clientele and this had to be maintained with gifts that could be money but also invitations to dinner.
The most important meal for the Romans was dinner, it was the time not only when they tasted the most elaborate dishes, where they talked with friends, but it was also the measure of wealth and power as well as a time to make friends or get to know people who mattered.
Usually there was a guest of honor at dinner to whom was reserved a place on the lectus medius called consular, positioned in front of the front door, while the landlord usually sat at left of the guest of honor. The hosts used to invite an immense amount of people to these banquets, reserving only the most succulent dishes and the most unthinkable delicacies to truly important guests, while many peopleatt ended and waited to receive what others had not liked or had become excessive. Inviting to dinner became a way for the new rich to enter in the most exclusive circles though often the invitation to dinner was not a tool of social elevation but a simple ostentation for its own sake. Precisely this aspect sarcastically teased Petronius referee in the "Trimalcyon Dinner".
Trimalcyon is an enriched freedman who has so much money that he can set up a banquet in his sumptuous triclinium in which the cook prepare a reconstruction, among the many courses, of the celestial constellations placing each food in analogy with the prerogatives of the different zodiac signs (Satyricon, 35, 2)
Rotundum enim repositorium duodecim habebat signa in orbe disposita, super quae proprium convenientemque materiae structor imposuerat cibum.
Dinner was the real important meal for the Romans; the custom included two more meals, the jentaculum and the prandium, which were comparable to breakfast and lunch, although they often gave up on it because the medicus suggested keeping light and drinking only water.
n reality these two meals were a sort of snack; the jentaculum was a little bread with cheese, while in the prandium bread was always consumed but with meat, vegetables and fruit and wine could also be drunk. But these were "snacks" for which it was not even necessary to prepare the table; the only real meal was the dinner that took place at the eighth hour, after taking a bath.
Under the arcades of Pompeo's theater, people went for walks, to meet friends and acquaintances, but also to watch and meet the women with whom they exchanged glances and intertwined love stories, so much so that Ovid made it the setting for his loving elegies.
Porticus of Pompey with its gardens, flowers and shadow was the place of the "capture of love" and Ovid advised lovers to visit the groves that were there, as well as Cintia, jealous of Propertius, asked him don't go to the Temple of Venus in order not become prey to women in search of love.
by M.L. ©ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (Ed 1.0 - 28/01/2020)