Aeterna Roma

Grata amicas! Welcome friends!

Hello and welcome to the Taberna Pulchra Luna! This sub-forum has been set up as a place for those wishing to have a thread set in a tavern can play around, meet friends, gossip, have a cup of wine, eat, and plot world domination – or a clandestine rendezvous. Feel free to have your own threads, or, if you’re just wanting to hang out, have one of the taberna’s staff wait on you and have a nice chat - flirt, fight, whatever!

Current staffers are:



John of Judea

Don’t let the name fool you – John is a party boy who hightailed it out of Jerusalem and basically gave up his faith for the life of a student in Antioch. He married the boss’s daughter – the boss being Methodius, a citizen of Antioch and member of the Greek community there. Recently, John and his lovely wife, Hypatia, have moved to Rome, to help with her uncle’s taberna and the family wine merchant business.




Hypatia Georgiou

Hypa is a beautiful young woman with a brilliant smile and a warm heart. She has left her family of many younger sisters behind in Antioch and courageously and graciously moved to Rome with her husband, to help with the family business. You’ll find her often in the taberna, and she is sure to have a smile for you, and a cup of wine or a plate of delicious food. She has a soft spot for children and the poor, so you might find her out and about doing good deeds for the underprivileged of Rome.

If you’d like a thread with any taberna staff, just shoot that player a PM.

[We anticipate there will be one or two more played characters who work at the Taberna – some may be adoptables so be sure to check there if you are interested in playing a worker/family member]

ABOUT TABERNAE

Here is just a little information and a few photos of Roman tabernae, to help you get some idea of the lay out. Roman tabernae were probably not quite like ‘ye olde taverns’ we might think about from more recent times. Tabernae served not only as a place to grab a drink. They also were a place of general merchandising, where all sorts of goods might have been sold and purchased. Most of the flooring, walls, and ceilings would have been of stone work, which was common for the Mediterranean area. As the climate of Rome was fairly mild, the taberna would have probably been half ‘open-air’ with large entrances, probably where passing citizens could stop at a counter and get food or drinks quickly and consumed standing up. Tabernae typically had ledges or half-walls with declivities built right in where food and drink could be kept ready to hand. The declivity could be filled with hot or cold water (some may have had a space underneath for a fire or coals) to keep food or liquids warm or cold. There would be rough tables of wood with benches, and perhaps individual stool at the counters. Probably one end would have a hearth/oven for preparing the food to be served (no grand fireplaces - chimneys were not in common use yet, for residences or cookery, etc). During the day and in the warm seasons, the doors of the taberna (think something like stable doors) would be kept open. In colder times, they could be closed to maintain some warmth. A second floor would serve as living quarters for the owner and his family, or for storage, and/or there might have been more rooms behind the common area of the taberna.





Taberna



counter with declivities for food and drink



serving counter



exterior



very open to the air and the vaulted ceiling



A view of the declivities, which here are actually the openings to the dolia (large storage vessels) which have been then surrounded by masonry (you can see an exposed one to the left where the masonry has crumbled away)



most smaller vessels for pouring the wine, and the cups for the patrons, would have been made of clay/pottery



Roman ‘McDonalds drive up window’

If you have any questions about this forum or the taberna, please post them here, so we can answer in a way to be helpful to any players who may have the same questions.

Thanks!