Homes in Ancient Greece: Layouts, Household Space and Living Conditions

Greek houses accommodated the household’s work as well as its residents. Courtyards brought light and air into rooms facing inward from the street, and stone foundations supported walls commonly built of mudbrick. At Olynthus, a roofed pastas sheltered rooms opening towards the court. Wealthier houses could provide a separate dining room with couches, while Hellenistic houses at Delos added colonnaded courts and decorated floors.

The oikos included the house, its occupants and the property supporting them. Household members prepared food and textiles, stored produce and maintained domestic cults. A household might also run a workshop or rent out a room with a separate street entrance.

On this page6 sections

From early houses to planned urban homes

Archaic domestic architecture included oval, square and rectangular buildings. Some early houses had only one room, while others had several small compartments. Excavated settlements show that buildings could remain in use for generations and be enlarged over time. At Zagora on Andros, houses from the late eighth century BCE included stone benches that may have served as beds or storage surfaces. Other early houses followed a form related to the megaron, a rectangular building with an interior hearth, a porch and supports at the front.

By the seventh century BCE, some houses had several rooms grouped around a central space. Evidence from Megara Hyblaea and Naxos in Sicily illustrates this arrangement, while the settlement at Lathouriza in Attica included separate units that may have been functional rooms belonging to one household. Storage, reception and work could therefore be given distinct areas, although the boundaries were not necessarily permanent.

Classical urban planning encouraged more regular plots in some communities. At Olynthos in northern Greece, rectilinear streets produced houses of relatively regular shape and size. Houses at Halieis in the Argolid and buildings on Thasos also commonly had a single entrance leading towards an internal court. Athens, by contrast, appears to have contained houses with greater variation in size and form. The difference reflects local planning and building histories rather than a universal Greek model.

Priene’s fourth-century BCE plan arranged streets and housing plots within a regular grid. A planned block did not dictate one permanent household arrangement: adjoining houses could be combined, rooms enlarged and entrances altered as resources and needs changed.

Courtyards, entrances and the organisation of space

A courtyard admitted light and air while the surrounding walls screened much of domestic activity from the street. An entrance passage could limit the view into the court, as at Olynthus. Rooms opening onto it could be reached without passing through another occupied room.

A pastas was a roofed space opening onto the courtyard, providing shelter outside the enclosed rooms. Houses at Olynthus commonly used this arrangement. Wealthy Hellenistic houses also adopted peristyles, with columns surrounding their courts.

Houses could include rooms opening towards the street. At Olynthos, some had small shops with no direct connection to the interior, perhaps for selling household surplus or operating as independent businesses. This arrangement joined domestic property to the local economy while keeping the main household space inward-facing.

Upper floors existed in at least some Greek houses, but the evidence is incomplete. Only a minority of excavated Olynthian houses preserve staircases that securely demonstrate an upper storey, while written evidence indicates that some Athenian houses had one. The idea that upper rooms were normally reserved for women is based partly on literary statements, but archaeological remains do not allow such a rule to be applied generally.

Rooms and changing uses

The andron accommodated male dining and drinking gatherings. Raised borders around a floor provided positions for couches, and an entrance set off centre left room for them along the walls. Decorated floors marked the space as a reception room. Couches and low tables supported the serving of food and wine. Greek symposia explains the arrangements and activities of these gatherings.

Literary descriptions refer to women’s quarters, or a gynaikonitis. Archaeological house plans seldom identify a permanently separated suite with certainty. Household members could instead use rooms differently according to the time, activity and presence of visitors.

Textile production was an important domestic activity, but the position of the loom cannot usually be identified with certainty. Weaving weights have been found in different locations, and their distribution does not prove the existence of one permanent women’s workroom. They may have fallen from an upper floor when a building collapsed, or may reflect work carried out in more than one place. Poorer households, in particular, could not easily separate men’s and women’s work because family members worked together in and around the home.

Construction, light and comfort

Ordinary houses commonly combined a stone base with walls of sun-dried clay brick or a wooden framework filled with fibrous material and covered in clay or plaster. The stone base helped protect vulnerable walls from damp. Smaller or poorer buildings could have thatched roofs, while substantial houses used fired roof tiles. Larger houses at Delos were built of stone and plastered, and wealthy Classical houses could have mosaic floors.

These materials affected the durability and comfort of domestic buildings. Clay walls and thatch were vulnerable to moisture and fire, while tiled roofs required more labour and stronger walls. The courtyard and covered portico were therefore important environmental devices as well as architectural features. They brought air and daylight into rooms that did not open widely onto the street and provided shade in hot weather and shelter during storms.

Courtyards supplied much of a house’s daylight. Enclosed rooms depended on openings towards the court and on lamps when natural light was insufficient. Cooking could use movable hearths or braziers as well as installations built into a room.

Cooking, storage and household work

Cooking took place in several possible locations. The idea of a fixed hearth-room as the normal centre of women’s activity does not fit every excavated house. The Vari House in Attica had several places that may have been used for cooking, but no permanent fireplace and no single cooking area that remained in use throughout the building’s life. Fires, vessels and work surfaces could therefore be moved or adapted as the household changed.

Storage was one of the main reasons for dividing a house into several spaces. Food, tools, textiles and other goods could be kept in rooms, on benches or in areas associated with the courtyard and portico. In early houses, one room might combine storage, work and reception. Later houses could provide more specialised spaces, but even then rooms remained multifunctional. The household was a place of production as well as residence, and the arrangement of storage affected how people moved through it and protected supplies.

Household members, including women and enslaved workers, fetched water from public fountains. Wells and cisterns reduced that journey where a house had its own supply. At Delos, channels and basins collected rainwater for storage.

Sanitation was similarly variable. Olynthian housing blocks included a narrow passage behind the houses where a drainage system was located. Some houses had spaces for washing and occasional evidence of latrines, but domestic toilets were not a universal or defining feature. The available remains do not support a single explanation for sanitation across Greek communities.

Wealth, locality and the Hellenistic house

Wealthier households could maintain more rooms and provide separate accommodation for reception and work. Mosaics and painted plaster increased the expense of construction, while adjoining plots allowed some owners to enlarge existing houses.

The scale of a house depended on wealth, available land and the history of its plot. Enlarging a courtyard, adding reception rooms or combining neighbouring properties gave prosperous households opportunities that smaller homes lacked. Excavated room plans can show these differences without identifying every inhabitant’s status or daily routine.

At Delos, wealthy Hellenistic houses preserve peristyles and decorated floors. The House of Dionysus has a courtyard basin designed to collect rainwater and a mosaic depicting Dionysus riding a tiger.