A Pompeii Bar Painting Shows a Night Out in Four Scenes, Ending in a Fistfight
The scenes decorated the bar of Salvius, and the last one shows the innkeeper ordering two dice players to take their fight outside.
Ancient Rome Live · Daily Life in Ancient RomeThe bar wall of the caupona of Salvius in Pompeii has four separate scenes: kissing, drinking, dice, and a fight. A caupona was a bar and eatery, one of the fast food counters where people ate in the busy cities of the Roman Empire.
In the first scene, people are shown kissing. A painted caption accompanies the embrace and includes the Latin word mortalis, meaning mortal.
In the second scene, men are shown drinking. They hold their cups as they drink, and they are calling out to the barmaid, probably for more alcohol.
Then, several men sit around a dice game.
In the fourth scene, the same two men are now fighting. They are yelling obscenities at each other, and the innkeeper intervenes and tells them to take the fight outside.
Questions people ask
What exactly was a caupona?
A caupona was a bar, inn, and eatery, often with a counter facing the street for serving food and drink to take away or eat on site. A thermopolium was a similar fast food counter, with large jars set into the counter to keep food and drink warm.
Did Romans really play dice in bars?
Yes, and Romans loved them. They played with marked cubes much like modern dice, often throwing for stakes in taverns despite laws that restricted gambling to certain holidays.