Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum

The houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum preserve more than architecture: they offer evidence for how Roman society worked at close quarters. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill uses domestic space to examine status, household life and the social encounters that took place within these exceptionally preserved towns.

His analysis of more than two hundred houses brings archaeology and literary evidence together, showing how rooms, decoration and patterns of access could express rank and shape behaviour. It also challenges easy modern divisions between public and private or work and leisure. The book remains a major study of Roman domestic life because it treats the house not simply as a building, but as part of the social world its inhabitants created.