Fast Food Roman Style

Food and warmed wines could be purchased in taverna or thermopolium, a small pub-like shop selling warmed wines and hot food like hot sausages, bread, cheese, and dates.  Food shops were also available at the baths.  In Latin literature, they would also be called popina, caupona, hospitium or stabulum, but archaeologists call them all thermopolium.  It is thought dried foods were kept in the embedded dolia rather than hot foods.  A dolium in the thermopolium attached to the House of Neptune and Amphitrite in Herculaneum contained the carbonized remains of nuts.  

I saw this little mosaic of a Roman tavern scene while browsing the database of French museum collections and thought it quite endearing.  The bar maid looks fully clothed and probably like the bar keeper's wife or daughter.  The database says the mosaic is at the Musee du quai Branly in Paris but I could not find it on their website so I could get additional information about it even using French search terms.  I've increased the size of the image with AI software since the original was really small. 

The second image is a thermopolium that I photographed in Herculaneum in 2007.

Mosaic of a Roman tavern scene at the Musee du quai Branly in Paris, France courtesy of The Louvre 


A thermopolium that I photographed in Herculaneum in 2007.

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