Popina
[1][2] The popina (plural: popinae) was an ancient Roman wine bar, where a limited menu of simple foods (olives, bread, stews) and selection of wines of varying quality were available. The popina was a place for plebeians of the lower classes of Roman society (slaves, freedmen, foreigners) to socialise and in Roman literature they were frequently associated with illegal and immoral behaviour.
Features
Popinae were a type of wine bar generally frequented by the lower-classes and slaves, and were simply furnished with stools and tables. They provided food, drink, sex and gambling. Because they were associated with gambling and prostitution, the popinae were seen by respectable Romans as places of crime and violence. Although gambling with dice was illegal, it would appear from the large number of dice found at cities like Pompeii that most people ignored this law. Several wall paintings from Pompeian popinae show men throwing dice from a dice shaker (see MANN 111482 Photo: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli). Prostitutes frequented popinae, but as many of these wine bars found at Pompeii had no rooms provided with a bed, they must have met their customers at these bars then taken them elsewhere. The popina differs from the Roman caupona in that it did not provide overnight accommodation.
The following is a excerpt from a comic romance fiction called, "Satyricon" by Petronius Arbiter. This quote from the fiction explains how the Roman gambling sessions and the drinking culture may have been like.
"We were in the midst of these delights when Trimalchio was brought in with a burst of music. They laid him down on some little cushions, very carefully; whereat some giddy ones broke into a laugh, though it was not much to be wondered at, to see his bald pate peeping out from a scarlet cloak, and his neck all wrapped up and a robe with a broad purple stripe hanging down before him, with tassels and fringes dingle-dangle about him.
Then going through his teeth with a silver pick, "my friends," quoth he, "I really didn't want to come to dinner so soon, but I was afraid my absence would cause too great a delay, so I denied myself the pleasure I was at---at any rate I hope you'll let me finish my game." A slave followed, carrying a checkerboard of turpentine wood, with crystal dice; but one thing in particular I noticed as extra nice---he had gold and silver coins instead of the ordinary black and white pieces. While he was cursing like a trooper over the game and we were starting on the lighter dishes, a basket was brought in on a tray, with a wooden hen in it, her wings spread round, as if she were hatching."
Modern discovery
Physical remains of taverns and bars are found in well-preserved Roman cities.
120 popinas were identified in Pompeii, but many of them might have been misidentified.
Roman legislators could not actually do anything about what went on in taverns, but they could at least be seen to be trying.
The taverns are often identified by evidence of storage jars set into them. However, regular shops also contained those storage jars.
Some believed that the food and drink was sometimes catered when it was requested by a customer.
Etymology
The word is the Osco-Umbrian equivalent of Latin coquina, from Latin coquere "to cook".
References
- ↑ Potter, David S. (2008-04-15). A Companion to the Roman Empire. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781405178266.
- ↑ "Internet History Sourcebooks". legacy.fordham.edu. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, pp. ??
- Ref: John DeFelice, Roman Hospitality: The Professional Women of Pompeii; Marco Polo Monographs,2001