Identification Rows of tabernae like those depicted here are one of the most common features on the Marble Plan. Most often, the shops consisted of a single room with a wide opening towards the street that could be screened off at night, while the owners perhaps resided with their families on a wooden platform in the back of the shop. The luxury of having an arcade in front of a row of shops as here was apparently not restricted to such grandiose areas as the slopes of the Palatine, facing the Circus Maximus (see fr. 8bde). Frs. 33abc, 34a, 34b and 34c depict a large, predominantly commercial area by the Tiber which abounds with rows of tabernae and arcades. This fragment might belong to either such areas. The covered arcades or porticoes signify that there was a second storey or a mezzanine level above the shops, which would have provided the shop owners with additional living room (Reynolds 1996, p. 158). The function of the enclosure to the left is uncertain.

Significance This fragment is a typical example of the type of combined commercial and residential structures that made up a large part of Rome's non-monumental cityscape.

Text by Tina Najbjerg