Dining in Ancient Times

Mesopotamians and Egyptians preferred small, portable tables that might serve only one or two diners, although many tables could be brought into an area for a banquet. The Greeks ate in many different styles, from individual tables to the boardinghouse-style dinners for which Sparta was famous. Rome boasted formal dining rooms, called triclinia, in which three couches were aligned in a U-shape. Each couch traditionally accommodated three diners, who took foods from a central table. Formal dining posture changed during the ancient period. In archaic times, polite society sat upright to dine; by about the seventh century B.C.E the well-to-do started reclining on couches for formal meals, a custom attributed to the Persians. Upright posture remained the rule for informal meals among all classes and civilizations. Women were usually excluded from dinner parties in Greece; they might attend Roman parties, but many times they sat, rather than reclined, on the couches. In the Greco-Roman world sitting up to dine signaled social inferiority.

(Excerpted from "Cooking in Ancient Civilizations", by Cathy K. Kaufman)