Taberna
A type of shop for the sale of goods and services; typically attached to domestic homes or lining city streets
Taberna (plural tabernae) is a Latin term which can refer to multiple things, but in this context refers to a shop, storefront, or otherwise small space for commercial use. Its early appearances in the literary record indicate that taberna originally referred to small wooden shelters or huts occupied by the lower classes, and in other contexts they seem to be parts of tomb complexes. Later Roman writers sometimes used taberna to refer to any building suitable for habitation, but the most common use for the term appears to be in relation to some sort of commercial space within a city. The typical taberna would be a street-level building that opened directly to the street through a wide doorway, with grooves on either side to accommodate wooden shutters; they also often had rooms above or to the back of them for storage, production, or habitation. Tabernae are often identified by this typical architectural form, but it is important to note that this form is not exclusive to tabernae - tabernae could also exist as temporary stands or booths, and buildings with their typical form were not always used as commercial spaces (Holleran, 2017). Many scholars have taken the frequency and quantity in which tabernae appear in the archaeological record throughout Roman Italy to mean that their absence should indicate a lack of commercial activity, but recent scholarship has shown that tabernae were just one aspect of commercial activity in ancient Rome. While tabernae represent a type of commercial exchange that much of the modern world can identify with - that of the storefront in a market or urban setting - commercial activity in the ancient world was not limited to these small street-side establishments. Tabernae were also not limited to any specific type of commercial activity - a taberna could provide material goods and food items, but also services like doctoring, tailoring, barbering, money lending, and so on (Holleran, 2017).
Bibliography
Latin Dictionary Entry
Taberna - Perseus Digital Library
Jay Brodzeller, 2022