1.
Dining room
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A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving. In the Middle Ages, upper class Britons and other European nobility in castles or large manor houses dined in the great hall and this was a large multi-function room capable of seating the bulk of the population of the house. The family would sit at the table on a raised dais. Tables in the hall would tend to be long trestle tables with benches. The sheer number of people in a Great Hall meant it would probably have had a busy, suggestions that it would also have been quite smelly and smoky are probably, by the standards of the time, unfounded. These rooms had large chimneys and high ceilings and there would have been a flow of air through the numerous door. In the first instance, the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the 14th Century caused a shortage of labour, also the religious persecutions following the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII made it unwise to talk freely in front of large numbers of people. Over time, the nobility took more of their meals in the parlour, and the parlour became, functionally and it also migrated farther from the Great Hall, often accessed via grand ceremonial staircases from the dais in the Great Hall. Eventually dining in the Great Hall became something that was primarily on special occasions. Toward the beginning of the 18th Century, a pattern emerged where the ladies of the house would withdraw after dinner from the room to the drawing room. The gentlemen would remain in the room having drinks. The dining room tended to take on a more masculine tenor as a result, a typical North American dining room will contain a table with chairs arranged along the sides and ends of the table, as well as other pieces of furniture, as space permits. Often tables in modern dining rooms will have a leaf to allow for the larger number of people present on those special occasions without taking up extra space when not in use. Although the typical family dining experience is at a table or some sort of kitchen area. In modern American and Canadian homes, the room is typically adjacent to the living room. Smaller houses and condos may have a breakfast bar instead, often of a different height than the kitchen counter. If a home lacks a dinette, breakfast nook, or breakfast bar and this was traditionally the case in Britain, where the dining room would for many families be used only on Sundays, other meals being eaten in the kitchen
2.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
3.
Couch
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Although a couch is used primarily for seating, it may be used for sleeping. In homes, couches are normally found in the room, living room, den. They are sometimes found in nonresidential settings such as hotels, lobbies of commercial offices, waiting rooms. The term couch is used in North America, South Africa, the word originated in Middle English from the Old French noun couche, which derived from the verb meaning to lie down. It originally denoted an item of furniture for lying or sleeping on, somewhat like a chaise longue, other terms which can be synonymous with the above definition are chesterfield, divan, davenport, lounge, and canapé. The word sofa is from Turkish derived from the Arabic word suffa for wool, the word settee comes from the Old English word, setl, which was used to describe long benches with high backs and arms, but is now generally used to describe upholstered seating. The most common types of couches are the loveseat, designed for seating two persons, and the sofa, with two or more cushion seats, other variants include the divan, the fainting couch and the canapé. To conserve space, some sofas double as beds in the form of sofa beds, daybeds, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the term couch is rarely used, the terms sofa or settee being more common. A furniture set consisting of a sofa with two matching chairs, is known as a chesterfield suite or living room suite. Also in the UK, the word chesterfield meant any couch in the 1900s, the first leather chesterfield sofa, with its distinctive deep buttoned, quilted leather upholstery and lower seat base, was commissioned by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. A couch consists of the frame, the padding and the covering, the frame is usually made of wood but can also be made of steel, plastic or laminated boards. The wood used under the upholstery is made from kiln-dried maple wood that is free of knots, the show wood of the legs, arms and back can be maple, mahogany, walnut or fruitwoods. Sofa padding is made from foam, down, feathers, fabric or a combination thereof, sofa coverings are usually made out of soft leather, corduroy or linen fabric coverings. The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts
4.
Slavery in ancient Rome
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Slavery in ancient Rome played an important role in society and the economy. Besides manual labour, slaves performed many services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs. Accountants and physicians were often slaves, Greek slaves in particular might be highly educated. Unskilled slaves, or those sentenced to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines and their living conditions were brutal, and their lives short. Slaves were considered property under Roman law and had no legal personhood, unlike Roman citizens, they could be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation, torture, and summary execution. Over time, however, slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters, attitudes changed in part because of the influence among the educated elite of the Stoics, whose egalitarian views of humanity extended to slaves. Roman slaves could hold property which, despite the fact that it belonged to their masters, skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, and might hope to save enough to buy their freedom. Such slaves were freed by the terms of their masters will. A notable example of a slave was Tiro, the secretary of Cicero. Tiro was freed before his masters death, and was enough to retire on his own country estate. However, the master could arrange that slaves would only have enough money to buy their freedom when they were too old to work. They could then use the money to buy a new young slave while the old slave, unable to work, Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become citizens. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a Roman citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership. A slave who had acquired libertas was thus a libertus in relation to his former master, as a social class, freed slaves were libertini, though later writers used the terms libertus and libertinus interchangeably. Libertini were not entitled to public office or state priesthoods. During the early Empire, however, freedmen held key positions in the government bureaucracy, any future children of a freedman would be born free, with full rights of citizenship. Vernae were slaves born within a household or on a farm or agricultural estate. There was a social obligation to care for vernae, whose epitaphs sometimes identify them as such
5.
Kitchen
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A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. Many households have an oven, a dishwasher and other electric appliances. The main function of a kitchen is serving as a location for storing, cooking and preparing food, commercial kitchens are found in restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, hospitals, educational and workplace facilities, army barracks, and similar establishments. These kitchens are generally larger and equipped with bigger and more heavy-duty equipment than a residential kitchen, for example, a large restaurant may have a huge walk-in refrigerator and a large commercial dishwasher machine. Commercial kitchens are generally subject to public health laws and they are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they do not meet hygienic requirements mandated by law. The evolution of the kitchen is linked to the invention of the range or stove. Food was cooked over an open fire, technical advances in heating food in the 18th and 19th centuries changed the architecture of the kitchen. Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from a source such as wells. The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type, the rooms were arranged around a courtyard for women. In many such homes, a covered but otherwise open patio served as the kitchen, homes of the wealthy had the kitchen as a separate room, usually next to a bathroom, both rooms being accessible from the court. In such houses, there was often a small storage room in the back of the kitchen used for storing food. In the Roman Empire, common folk in cities often had no kitchen of their own, some had small mobile bronze stoves, on which a fire could be lit for cooking. Wealthy Romans had relatively well-equipped kitchens, the fireplace was typically on the floor, placed at a wall—sometimes raised a little bit—such that one had to kneel to cook. Early medieval European longhouses had a fire under the highest point of the building. The kitchen area was between the entrance and the fireplace, in wealthy homes there was typically more than one kitchen. In some homes there were upwards of three kitchens, the kitchens were divided based on the types of food prepared in them. In place of a chimney, these buildings had a hole in the roof through which some of the smoke could escape. Besides cooking, the fire served as a source of heat
6.
Eating
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Eating is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Fungi digest organic matter outside of their bodies as opposed to animals that digest their food inside their bodies, for humans, eating is an activity of daily living. Some individuals may limit their amount of nutritional intake and this may be a result of a lifestyle choice, due to hunger or famine, as part of a diet or as religious fasting. Many homes have an eating room or outside kitchen area devoted to preparation of meals and food. Some trains have a dining car, most societies also have restaurants, food courts, and food vendors so that people may eat when away from home, when lacking time to prepare food, or as a social occasion. At their highest level of sophistication, these places become theatrical spectacles of global cosmopolitanism, at picnics, potlucks, and food festivals, eating is in fact the primary purpose of a social gathering. At many social events, food and beverages are available to attendees. Dishware, silverware, drinkware, and cookware come in an array of forms. People usually have two or three meals a day regularly, snacks of smaller amounts may be consumed between meals. Some propose not snacking, instead advocating three meals a day with four to six hours between, having three well-balanced meals will then account to some 1800–2000 kcal, which is the average requirement for a regular person. The issue of healthy eating has long been an important concern to individuals, among other practices, fasting, dieting, and vegetarianism are all techniques employed by individuals and encouraged by societies to increase longevity and health. Some religions promote vegetarianism, considering it wrong to consume animals, Eating can also be a way of making money. In jurisdictions under sharia law, it may be proscribed for Muslim adults during the hours of Ramadan. Newborn babies do not eat adult foods and they survive solely on breast milk or formula. Small amounts of pureed food are sometimes fed to infants as young as two or three months old, but most infants do not eat adult food until they are between six and eight months old. Young babies eat pureed baby foods because they have few teeth, between 8 and 12 months of age, the digestive system improves, and many babies begin eating finger foods. Their diet is limited, however, because most babies lack molars or canines at this age. By 18 months, babies often have teeth and a sufficiently mature digestive system to eat the same foods as adults
