• DOI:10.2307/503177
• Corpus ID: 191396900

The Excavation of a Shop-House Garden at Pompeii (I. XX. 5)

@article{Jashemski1977TheEO,
  title={The Excavation of a Shop-House Garden at Pompeii (I. XX. 5)},
  author={Wilhelmina Mary Feemster Jashemski},
  journal={American Journal of Archaeology},
  year={1977},
  volume={81},
  pages={217 - 227}
}

• W. F. Jashemski
• Published 21 January 1977
• History
• American Journal of Archaeology

The shop-houses of the humble people who made up a large part of the population at Pompeii have been little noticed, over-shadowed as they are by the more aristocratic and much studied atrium-peristyle houses. It is now generally recognized that Pompeii was a busy commercial town and not the resort town and playground of the wealthy Romans that earlier writers believed it to be. The many shops and workshops at Pompeii are found scattered throughout the town, for the residential and business sections were not rigidly separated. In many cases the shop was simply a large room, which was open to the street when the shutters were pushed back. Frequently there was a counter facing the street, especially in food shops, so that passers-by might be served without the need to enter the shop. Livy's description of everyday life as Camillus found it in Tusculum could easily be used to describe Pompeii. When Camillus entered the town he found "the shops with their shutters off and all their wares exposed, the craftsmen busy with their respective trades, the schools buzzing with the voices of scholars,' crowds in the street."2 Many shops were both places of business and of residence, having one or more rooms at the rear or above the shop, in which the shopkeeper and his family lived. At other times the second story rooms were a separate dwelling reached by a flight of stairs from the street.'