proportions (relative to the atrium) of the adjacent rooms that are alcoves open on the atrium side, the tablinum and alae). It is worth noting that many extant atria do not follow his ideal rules. He also advises that the size of the atrium of cavaedium be appropriate to the purposes required by the owner's social station: "men of everyday fortune do not need entrance courts, tablina, or atriums built in grand style, because such men are more apt to discharge their social obligations by going round to others than to have others come to them... For capitalists and farmers of the revenue, somewhat comfort­able and showy apartments must be constructed, secure against robbery; for advocates and public speakers, handsomer and more roomy, to accommodate meetings; for men of rank who, from holding offices and magistracies, have social obligations to their fellow-citizens, lofty entrance courts in regal style, and most spacious atriums and peristyles, with plantations and walks of some extent in them, appropriate to their dignity." In many homes in Pompeii, the atrium's walls were placed halfway between the walls behind them and the edge of the impluvium. This meant that the same proportions (almost always 1:√2 width:length) were used for the impluvium edge, the atrium walls, and the next layer of walls (those running outside the tabernae, the cubicles and alae, and the tablinum with its flanking rooms). This arrangement would give the sloping rafters an equal span on each side of the atrium walls. See also Qa'a (room), a space with similar social and physical functions in traditional Middle-eastern architecture Machiya and tsubo-niwa, traditional Japanese equivalents of the domus and compluvium Burgage plot, narrow town lots in medieval Europe Notes External links Video of a digital reconstruction of the House of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, Pompeii, by the Swedish Pompeii Project (Pompeji Projektet); roof shown at 2:50. Narration in English; interior furnishings and wallpaintings are shown. References Ancient Roman architectural elements