A domus was the form of house that wealthy families owned in ancient Rome and almost all the major cities of the Empire. (The middle classes and the poor were housed in crowded apartment blocks, known as insulae, while the country houses of the rich were known as villas). The domus included multiple rooms, and an indoor courtyard: the atrium, which was the focal point of the domus, off which were cubicula (bedrooms), an altar to the household gods, a triclinium where guests could lie on couches and eat dinner whilst reclining, and a tablinum (living room or study) and cellae(shops on the outside, facing the street). Domus is an Italian Magazine, first published in 1928, which focuses on design and architecture. ... Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ... Remains of the top floors of an insula near the Capitolium and the Aracoeli in Rome. ... A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class. ... Looking up inside the 32-story atrium of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, part of the Jin Mao Building. ... In Roman Era dwellings (particularly those of the wealthy), triclinia were standard issue. ... In Roman architecture, a tablinum (or tabulinum, from tabula, board, picture) was a room generally situated on one side of the atrium and opposite to the entrance; it opened in the rear on to the peristyle, with either a large window or only an anteroom or curtain. ...

In cities throughout the Roman Empire, wealthy homeowners lived in one story buildings with few exterior windows. Glass windows weren't readily available: glass production was in its infancy, and the cost would have been prohibitive, but this exterior blankness did give the occupiers the advantage of protecting themselves from outside noise, intruders, and the elements. Homeowners tended to view their exterior walls as public property, and they quickly became filled with political graffiti. Wealthy homeowners often rented out the two front rooms of their homes to merchants if they lived on busy streets. Thus a wealthy Roman citizen lived in a large house separated into two parts, and linked together through the tablinum or study or by a small passageway.

To protect the family from intruders, it would not face the streets, only its entrance providing more room for living spaces and gardens behind.

The atrium was the most important part of the house, where guests and dependents (clientes) were greeted. The atrium was open in the centre, surrounded at least in part by high-ceilinged porticoes that often contained only sparse furnishings to give the effect of a large space. In the center was a square roof opening called the compluvium in which rainwater could come, draining inwards from the slanted tiled roof. Directly below the compluvium was the impluvium, a shallow rectangular pool to gather rainwater, which drained into an underground cistern. The impluvium was often lined with marble, and around which usually was a floor of small mosaic. Bahut a dwarf-wall of plain masonry, carrying the roof of a cathedral or church and masked or hidden behind the balustrade. ...

Surrounding the atrium were arranged the master's families' main rooms: the small cubicula or bedrooms, the tablinum or master bedroom, and the triclinium or dining-room. Only two objects were present in the atrium of Caecilius in Pompeii: a small bronze box that stored precious family items and the lararium, a small shrine to the household gods, the Lares. In the master bedroom was a small wooden bed and couch which usually consisted of some slight padding. As the domus developed, the tablinum took on a role similar to that of the study. In each of the other bedrooms there was usually just a bed. The triclinium had three couches surrounding a table. The triclinium often was similar in size to the master bedroom. The study was used as a passageway. If the master of the house was a banker or merchant the study often was larger because of the greater need for materials. Roman houses lay on an axis, so that a visitor was provided with a view through the fauces, atrium, and tablinum to the peristyle. Pompeii is a ruined Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. ... Lares Familiares (Family Guardians in Latin) were mythological spirits of ancient Rome. ... Lares (pl. ...

The back part of the house was centred around the peristyle much as the front centred on the atrium. The peristylium was a small garden often surrounded by a columned passage, the model of the medieval cloister. Surrounding the peristyle were the bathrooms, kitchen and summer triclinium. The kitchen was usually a very small room with a small masonry counter wood-burning stove. The wealthy had a slave who worked as a cook and spent nearly all his or her time in the kitchen. During a hot summer day the family ate their meals in the summer triclinium to stave off the heat. Most of the light came from the compluvium and the open peristylium. In Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building that surrounds a court that may contain an internal garden. ...

There were no clearly defined separate spaces for slaves or for women. Slaves were ubiquitous in a Roman household and slept outside their masters' doors at night; women used the atrium and other spaces to work once the men had left for the forum. There was also no clear distinction between rooms meant solely for private use and public rooms, as any private room could be opened to guests at a moment's notice.

The rooms of the Pompeian domus were often painted in one of four styles: the First Style imitated ashlar masonry, the Second Style represented public architecture, the Third Style focused on mystical creatures, and the Fourth Style combined the architecture and mythical creatures of the Second and Third Styles.