Rich people usually lived in a town house called a domus. Many of them also had a country house called a villa. Most people who lived in towns and cities rented an apartment called a cenaculum. Some apartments were big and luxurious but others had only one room.
The richest Romans lived in grand comfortable houses set in beautiful gardens hidden from the rest of the city by high walls. Only wealthy Romans could afford the space for courtyards and fountains in their homes in the middle of the city.
Many wealthy Roman houses consisted of a kitchen, family bedrooms, a dining room ('tricilinium'), a meeting room ('atrium'), a guest room and a study for the master. They didn't have wallpaper or carpets. Some had small rugs but expensive houses had patterned floors called mosaics made from tiny pieces of stone. They used limestone for white and blue, brick for red and purple and glass to give other colours.
Mosaics were made by spreading plaster over the floor and then pressing tiny squares of bright stone into the plaster to make a picture. The gaps between the squares were filled in with plaster.
Fine houses had walls built of lumps of stone mixed with mortar, a kind of cement. Stone masons cut the stones to s
Poor peasant families worked on their own small farms.
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