DICTIONARY OF THE ROMAN AND GREEK ANTIQUITIES
Anthony Rich (3rd ed. 1883)

STABULUM (stathmos)

1. -  In a general sense, every place where can be stood (stare) and shelter herself men and horses; thus a stable for the horses (Virg. Georg. III, 184) ; a park or a sheepfold for the sheep and the goats (ibid. III, 295; Aen. X, 723) ; a cowshed to oxen (Columell. VI, 23) ; a shelter for the poultry and the domestic birds (Columell. VIII, 1, 3) ; a shed using to protect hives (ibid. IX, 6, 4) ; a fishpond where one kept fish (ibid. VIII, 17, 7).

2. - A distinction between the stabulum and the caupona is established in the Pandectes (Ulp. Dig. 4, 9, 1), but without detail that can explain to us what this difference carried with. However, judging by the general sense of the two words, and the particular opportunities where one finds them used, one could conjecture that the caupona was destined to receive only the travellers on foot, while the stabulum had also place as the horse rider and his mount. Such a distinction would match very well our habits, since now many of our innkeepers accommodate only on foot; among the Roman ones, it was all the more necessary as the great majority of travellers went on foot, and that those that were rich enough to use horses and cars had in general resort to the hospitality deprived, instead of going down to an inn. A stabulum thus understood had to be a pretty less common establishment than the caupona, being always on a road, or to the entry of the city, so that the persons coming of the countryside could leave their horses and their cars there and dispense from driving them to the streets themselves thus, while the caupona was situated the more often to the heart of the city. This idea still is confirmed by the discovery of an inn having place for men and animals, to the exit of Pompéi, near the doors, on the road of Herculanum; very vast stables are annexed to it, where one found the skeleton of a donkey, with several things, like wheels and other objects serving for the horses and the cars.