Eating out was part of Roman life. Cities offered a variety of different bars and eateries where patrons could buy takeaway snacks, eat a meal, have a drink — or find a bed for the night. 

There were various types of ancient Roman inns and hotels, many sharing similar, interchangeable functions but different names. Those classed broadly as eateries — Cauponae, tabernae, popinae and thermopolia — were found in the busy social and commercial areas of a city; around the forum, bathhouses, and along residential streets.

Rooms could also be rented in some of these eateries. However, visitors to towns and cities could also choose to stay in dedicated hotels and motels — hospitia, stabulae or, if they were on the road Mansiones — where they could eat and rent a room or a bed for the night — or longer. 

Types of Ancient Roman Inns and Eateries

Roman Taverns — Cauponae and Tabernae

Cauponae and tabernae can both be broadly defined as Roman taverns with both offering eat-in food, drink and cheap. Cauponae could also offer basic accommodation in the rooms above the bar. 

Many, like Asellina’s Tavern in Pompeii, were one-room shops, serving simple food to their patrons. They also popular drinking establishments serving wine late into the night while patrons gambled. 

Servers operated behind an L shaped marble counter, between 6 and 8ft long and inset with large pottery dolia containing bar snacks of dried fruit and pulses. Amphorae containing wine was kept behind the bar, where staff also cooked food on simple braziers. Patrons could stand at the bar or take a table in the open-plan communal area — or a secluded booth with masonry seats — if the tavern had them. 

Cauponae and Tabernae had a mixed reputation, with many ancient writers such as Ammianus Marcellous regarding them as places frequented by the poor and lowest classes. The poet Horace was similarly unimpressed, regarding them as “greasy”. The insalubrious reputation of certain taverns was not helped by the fact the waiting staff could offer sexual services as well as serving food and drink.

Like bars today, these types of ancient Roman inn could be rowdy, disreputable places. The “cartoon” above, found in the Caupona of Salvius at Pompeii, shows the kind of scenes that could play out in taverns late at night after a little too much to drink. Two men engaged in a dice game — but one believes the other has cheated — “That’s not a three, it’s a two”. The pair begin arguing and finally brawling before being unceremoniously evicted by the landlord.

However, not all taverns insalubrious — and some seem to have made an effort to attract a better kind of client by offering private facilities. At the caupona identified amongst the Properties of Julia Felix in Pompeii, patrons — perhaps those taking a break from the games or who wanted to conduct a business lunch — had the option of hiring a dining room with formal dining couches set around a circular table.

The Roman Takeaway — the Thermopolium

Thermopolia were small booths with a counter across the opening where take-out snack bars were sold directly to passersby. A good example is the bar of Vetutius Placidus in Pompeii.

Thermopolia could also be an offshoot of a caupona or taberna. Asellina’s Tavern in Pompeii is an example of a taberna/caupona that also acted as a thermopolium. One end of the bar’s L shape counter flanked the small inner room, which patrons entered through a street door that announced their arrival with a phallic-shaped door chime. However, the other side of the counter stretched across another separate, entrance, where staff could sell food and drink directly onto the street. 

Low-class Snack Bars — Popinae 

Different in name but similar in function to cauponae, tabernae and thermopolia were popinae. The best way to differentiate this type of Roman eatery was to see it as the lowest-grade cookshop; a place where the most inferior classes could grab a quick, cheap and unsophisticated meal. 

As with tabernae and cauponae, popinae had an L shaped counter where the customers were served. However, their facilities were generally more basic, with patrons eating their snacks or taking a cup of cheap wine while standing or perched on a stool near the bar. 

These basic arrangements meant only slaves and the poorest citizens ate in popinae. Juvenal, in his eighth satire, describes some of the patrons of a popina in Ostia. They included thieves, sailors, fugitive slaves, coffin makers, assassins  — and a priest of Cybele. A most unsavoury crowd! (Sat.8.171-178).

Ancient Roman Hotels

Hospitia

A Hospitium was a Roman hotel. Originally, they were rented rooms in private homes — hence their name which derives from the principle of hospitia, or the hospitality owed by a Roman host to his guests.

As time progressed, hospitia became solely commercial and many were former private homes, converted to offer guests’ food, drink and lodging. Many offered private dining rooms, garden triclinia and formal atriums. Other, smaller establishments were more basic and styled like caupona, with a central bar area for eating and rooms for sleeping elsewhere. These Roman hotels were often regarded as seedy, as travellers often rented little more than a bug-infested mattress and blanket on the floor of a shared room.

One famous hospitia in Pompeii of the better sort was the House of Sallust; an old Samnite-style house converted into a hotel from a private residence during the Augustan period.

Stabula

Stabula were a specific time of Roman motel found at the entrance of towns and cities. Their main difference from hospitia was that they offered facilities for stabling animals as well as rooms for guests. It was easy to recognise a Stabulum as it always had a ramped entrances sloping onto the street to allow access to carts and pack animals.

Animals were accommodated in stables at the back of the premises, generally in a courtyard area faced by kitchens and latrines. Guests would typically stay at the front of the complex, although they could also be accommodated in rooms above the stables.

Mansiones

Mansiones were the Roman equivalent of motorway service stations, appearing at regular intervals along the Roman road network. The name “mansio” derives from the Latin “manere”, signifying that a mansio was a place to spend the night travelling. 

Mansiones were official state-run services, designed to let those on imperial business change horses and rest. However, they also offered food and accommodation to general travellers. In Britain, the Roman town of Venonae in Leicestershire probably accommodated at least one mansio as it featured in the Antonine Itinerary, a third-century imperial travelogue. 

Sources.

Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum, 14.6.25

Pompeii: Archaeological Guide. Instituto Geografico de Agostini.

Dobbins, J J and Foss P W, (eds) (2007). The World of Pompeii. Routledge: London and New York.

Horace, Epistles, 1.14.21

Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires. Penguin Classics

Matyszak, P, Ancient Rome on Five Denarii A Day. Thames & Hudson.

Sheldon, N, (2018) Discovering Pompeii, Strigidae Press.

                   (2020) The Little Book of Leicestershire, The History Press