What is this stool like thing on this Roman red figure pottery

Factual Questions
1

I’m working on an art project that has something to do with Roman red figure pottery. Here is a link to the image of the pottery.

What is the thing outlined by the green rectangle? It looks like a foot stool of some kind, but I dunno, it could be a musical instrument or something.

Also, what is the foot shaped thing outlined by the red ellipse?

Thanks!

2

Here’s a couple of images of Roman beds

http://blog.mattressman.co.uk/2012/12/a-look-at-beds-throughout-ages.html

http://jimsheng.hubpages.com/hub/Beds-through-the-ages

It’s a stool.

3

Thanks Peter. Yup, looks like a stool. I’m going to copy the legs off that Pompeii bed because that foot thing (enclosed by red ellipse) looks stupid.

4

I’m not convinced. That “foot thing” seems to be important enough to be on two separate objects. It probably serves some specific purpose, rather than being just an odd feature.

5

I was hoping the OP meant “sitting object” and not…

I thought at first it might be something like a lyre or harp, but then I realized that was the gent’s foot and such things are not usually played with the toes.

6

The other (right) feet on the side tables look like they are carved to be human feet, but front view instead of side view?

The artist’s quasi-perspective shows the right-hand legs staggered, but the left legs seem to line up. I sort of see this for the couches too. Or else, the right hand side of each table has leg supports side-by-side in pairs.

So maybe just decorative carvings where the feet of the side tables are just feet? The “acorn cap” look to them is basically just seeing the “toe” of the far leg behind the front leg. The left table’s shape even seems to indicate a big toe. (Or am I reading too much into an unsteady brush?)

7

Here’s something very, very similar but with the little feet things significantly smaller. One person or the other took some artistic license. I’m guessing either the feet were they’re and they’re just decoration or they weren’t and the artist drew them in for the picture in the OP.

If they were there, I don’t see why they can’t just be an adornment on a piece of furniture. If you must have a reason, maybe it’s so a person carrying a platter of food has an easier way of grabbing the stool with their foot and pulling it out from under the couch/bed.

8

Me too, but actually, I’m wondering if the right hand end of these stools is a hinge - as if they are designed to be fixed in position, but swing out from underneath the bed.

9

Nope, sorry. That’s no stool.

A stool is a diphros. A diphros is usually represented as an x-shaped (sometimes folding) frame, a design that is at least as old as dynastic Egypt. The object on question is a banqueting table, called a trapeza. You don’t sit on it or put your feet on it, you eat off it. The bed is called a kline.

10

So the gentleman is being portrayed as rude or careless?

11

He’s hammered. It’s a drinking party (symposium) scene. They mix wine with water in those shallow vessels.

12

A low table, to rest food or wine goblets upon?