Identification Courtyards were desirable features in the crowded city, and the addition of a covered colonnade like in this fragment was especially luxurious. Courtyards could be shared by a group of neighbors and shopowners and used as work spaces or simply extra living space. They might function as meeting grounds for one of Rome's many guilds or priesthoods. On occasion, when attached to bath complexes, they served a more specific function as a palaestra for exercise. The rooms to the left are probably tabernae although not enough remains to be certain. If they are shops with back rooms, the latter would have provide living quarters for the shop owner and his family. This back space could be blocked off from the front part of the shop by a wooden partition.

Significance This fragment seems to represent a view of the lesser known structures that made up the urban fabric of Rome: the residential and commercial buildings.

Text by Tina Najbjerg