Part II. The Houses

Chapter XXXIII. The Pompeian House

Our chief sources of information regarding the domestic architecture of ancient Italy are two,—the treatise of Vitruvius, and the remains found at Pompeii. The Pompeian houses present many variations from the plan described by the Roman architect; yet in essential particulars there is no disagreement, and it is not difficult to form a clear conception of their arrangements.

The houses of Greco-Roman antiquity differed from those of modern times in several respects. They took their light and air from the inside, the apartments being grouped about a court or about a large central room which ordinarily had an opening in the ceiling; the distribution of space being thus made on a different principle, the large rooms were often larger, the small rooms smaller and more numerous than in modern dwellings of corresponding size; and in the better houses the decoration of both walls and floors was more permanent than is usual in our day. The ancient houses were relatively low, in most cases, if we except the crowded tenements of imperial Rome, not exceeding two stories. The windows in the outside walls were generally few and small, and the external appearance was not unlike that of Oriental houses of the present time. In the city house the large front entrance was frequently ornamented with carved posts and lintel.

The development of the Italic house can be traced at Pompeii over a period of almost four hundred years. The earlier form consisted of a single series of apartments,—a central room, atrium, with smaller rooms opening into it, and a garden at the rear; an example is the house of the Surgeon (p. 280). A restoration of such a house with its high atrium, wide front door, and garden is shown in Fig. 114.

Later, under Greek influence, a court with a colonnade and surrounding rooms was added. This was called peristylium, 'peristyle'; it is simply the more elaborate inner part of the Greek house, andronitis, joined to the dwelling of Italic origin. We find the union of atrium and peristyle with their respective groups of apartments fully accomplished in the second century B.C., the Tufa Period; the type of dwelling thus developed remained in vogue during Roman times and is often called the Roman house.

The double origin is clearly indicated by the names of the rooms. Those of the front part are designated by Latin words,—atrium, fauces, ala, tablinum; but the apartments at the rear bear Greek names,—peristylium, triclinium, oecus, exedra. In large houses both atrium and peristyle were sometimes duplicated.

The houses of Pompeii impress the visitor as having been designed primarily for summer use. The arrangements contemplate the spending of much time in the open air, and pains was taken to furnish protection from the heat, not from the cold. The greater part of the area is taken up by colonnades, gardens, and courts; from this point of view the atrium may be classed as a court. The living rooms had high ceilings. In summer they were cool and airy, in winter difficult to heat; they were dark and close when the door was shut, cold when it was open.

With a single exception the arrangements for heating so often met with in the remains of houses discovered in northern countries are found at Pompeii only in connection with bath-rooms; the cold was ineffectively combated by means of braziers. We are led to believe that the Pompeians were extremely sensitive to heat, but endured cold with great patience. One who makes himself familiar with the arrangements of Italian houses to-day will receive a similar impression, although the peculiarity is perhaps less obvious than in the case of the ancient dwellings.

In describing the Pompeian houses it is more convenient to designate the principal rooms by the ancient names. In Fig. 115 we present an ideal plan; in it the names are given to the parts of the house, the relative location of which is subject to comparatively little variation. These parts will first be discussed; then those will be taken up which present a greater diversity in their arrangements.

I. Vestibule, Fauces, and Front Door

The vestibulum was the space between the front door and the street. The derivation of the word (ve- + the root of stare, 'to stand aside') suggests the purpose; the vestibule was a place where one could step aside from the bustle and confusion of the street. In many houses there was no vestibule, the front door opening directly on the sidewalk; and where vestibules did exist at Pompeii, they were much more modest than those belonging to the houses of wealthy Romans, to which reference is so frequently made in classical writers. Roman vestibules were often supported by columns of costly marbles, and adorned with statues and other works of art. Only one vestibule at Pompeii was treated as a portico, that of the house of the Vestals near the Herculaneum Gate. This was once as wide as the atrium, the roof being carried by four columns; but before the destruction of the city two partitions were built parallel with the sides dividing it into three parts, a narrow vestibule of the ordinary type, with a shop at the right and at the left.

The passage inside the front door was called fauces, or prothyron. According to Vitruvius the width of it in the case of large atriums should be half, in smaller atriums two thirds, that of the tablinum; at Pompeii the width is generally less than half. In the houses of the Tufa Period the corners of the fauces where it opens into the atrium were ornamented with pilasters connected at the top by an entablature.

The vestibule and fauces were ordinarily of the same width, and were separated by projecting doorposts with a slightly raised threshold (Fig. 116) and heavy double doors. Sometimes, as in the house of Epidius Rufus, there was in addition a small door at the side of the vestibule opening into a narrow passage connecting with the fauces (Fig. 149). In such cases the folding doors, which on account of their size and the method of hanging must always have been hard to open, were generally kept shut. They would be thrown back early in the morning for the reception of clients, and on special occasions; at other times the more convenient small door would be used.

In several instances the volcanic dust so hardened about the lower part of a front door that it has been possible to make a cast by pouring soft plaster of Paris into the cavity left by the crumbling away of the wood; there are several of these casts in the little Museum at Pompeii. With their help, and with the well preserved stone thresholds before us, it is possible to picture to ourselves the appearance of the doorway.

The doorposts were protected by wooden casings, antepagmenta, which were made fast at the bottom by means of holes in the threshold (α, α in Fig. 116).

The folding doors swung on pivots, which were fitted into sockets in the threshold (β, β) and in the lintel. The pivots were of wood, but were provided—at least the lower ones—with a cylindrical cap of iron or bronze, and the socket had a protective lining of the same metal. Both caps and sockets, especially those of bronze, are found in the thresholds in a good state of preservation. It seems strange that ancient builders did not use smaller pivots of solid metal, on which the doors would have turned much more easily; but a conservative tradition in this regard prevailed against innovation.

The fastenings were elaborate. Near the inner edge of each door was a vertical bolt, which shot into a hole in the threshold (γ, γ); there was probably a corresponding bolt at the top, as in the case of large modern doors. Sometimes there was a heavy iron lock, turned with a key, and also an iron bar which was fastened across the crack in such a way as to tie the two folds together. In many houses there are holes in the walls of the fauces, just back of the door, in which at night a strong wooden bar, sera, was placed; hardly less often we find a hole in the floor a few feet back, in which one end of a slanting prop was set, the other end being braced against the middle of the door. These arrangements bring to mind Juvenal's vivid picture of the disturbances and dangers of the streets of Rome at night.

II. The Atrium

An atrium completely covered by a roof was extremely rare. With few exceptions, there was a large rectangular opening over the middle, compluvium, toward which the roof sloped from all sides (Figs. 114, ). In the floor, directly under the compluvium, was a shallow basin, impluvium, into which the rain water fell (h in Fig. 118). The impluvium had two outlets. One was connected with the cistern; a round cistern mouth, puteal, ornamented with carving, often stood near the edge of the basin, as in the house of the Tragic Poet (Fig. 153). The other outlet led under the floor to the street in front, carrying off the overflow when the cistern was full, and also the water used in cleaning the floor. In the better houses a fountain was often placed in the middle of the impluvium.

Vitruvius (VI. iii. 1 et seq.) mentions five kinds of atriums, the basis of classification being the construction of the roof—Tuscan, tetrastyle, Corinthian, displuviate, and tortoise atriums. The first three are well illustrated at Pompeii.

The Tuscan atrium, supposed by the Romans to have been derived from the Etruscans, was apparently the native Italic form. Two heavy girders were placed across the room, above the ends of the impluvium (Fig. 117, b). On these, two shorter crossbeams were laid (c), over the sides of the impluvium. The corners of the rectangular frame thus made were connected with the walls at the corners of the atrium by four strong slanting beams (Figs. 117, , e). On these and on the frame were placed the lower ends of the sloping rafters (Fig. 117, f), carrying the tiles, the arrangement of which can be seen in Figs. 114, , and . This was the most common arrangement of the roof at Pompeii.

The edge of the compluvium was frequently ornamented with terra cotta waterspouts, representing the heads of animals. In a house near the Porta Marina the projecting foreparts of dogs and lions were used in place of the heads; the remains of a part of the compluvium have been put together again, and are seen in Fig. 119. The lions were placed over the larger spouts at the four corners; the under side of the spouts surmounted by the dogs and lions was ornamented with acanthus leaves in relief. The same illustration presents an example of the antefixes sometimes found.

The tetrastyle atrium differed from the Tuscan in only one respect: there were four columns supporting the roof, one at each corner of the impluvium. In most cases these supports, which interfered with the view of the interior, can hardly have been intended primarily for ornament; they simplified the construction, making the ceiling and roof firm without the use of the heavy and expensive girders.

The Corinthian atrium had a larger compluvium than the other kinds, the roof being supported by a number of columns. There are three examples at Pompeii, the houses of Epidius Rufus with sixteen columns (p. 310), of Castor and Pollux with twelve, and of the Fullonica with six.

The roof of the displuviate atrium sloped from the middle toward the sides, the water being carried off by lead pipes. The aperture for the admission of light and air was relatively much higher above the floor than in the kinds previously described. No example of this type has been found at Pompeii.

The tortoise atrium, atrium testudinatum, was small and without a compluvium. The roof had a pyramidal shape. There were possibly a few examples at Pompeii, as we may infer from the occasional absence of an impluvium; in the only instance, however, in which it is possible to determine the form of the roof (V. v. 1-2), this must have been very different from that referred to by the Roman writer (p. 343).

Vitruvius says further that the atrium should have an oblong shape, the width being three fifths or two thirds of the length, or measured on the side of a square, the hypothenuse of which is taken for the length. The design was obviously to bring the sides nearer together, thus lessening the strain on the two girders which in the commonest form were used to sustain the roof. The height, to the frame of the compluvium, should be three fourths of the width.

In the case of the tetrastyle and Corinthian atriums at Pompeii the height is indicated by that of the columns, but there are rarely adequate data for determining the height of the others with exactness. In regard to length and breadth the proportions harmonize fairly well with those recommended by Vitruvius; but the height, in the cases in which it can be ascertained, is often greater than that contemplated by the rules of the architect.

Looking at the Pompeian atriums in their present condition (Plate VII, Figs. 121, ) one might easily receive the impression that they were primarily courts rather than rooms. In this respect the restorations of Roman houses in the older books are often at fault, the atrium being generally represented as too low in comparison with the rooms around it.

The references in the ancient writers uniformly point to this as the principal room of the house. In the earliest times the hearth stood here; a hole in the roof served as a chimney. The accumulation of soot on the ceiling and the walls suggested the characteristic name 'black room'; for atrium comes from ater, 'black.' Here the household gathered at mealtime; here they worked, or rested from their labors. In the atrium Lucretia sat with her maids spinning late at night when her husband entered unexpectedly with his friends.

Such the atrium remained in farmhouses to the latest times. The name meanwhile was transferred to the corresponding apartment of elegant city homes, while in the country it went out of use, being replaced by culina, 'kitchen,' on account of the presence of the hearth. In such a room in his Sabine villa Horace loved to dine, conversing on topics grave or gay with his rustic neighbors, and partaking of the simple fare with relish; while his slaves, freed from the restraints of city life, were permitted to eat at the same time, sitting at a separate table. The remains of an atrium of this kind, with its hearth and niche for the images of the household gods, may be seen in the villa recently excavated near Boscoreale (p. 361).

Without doubt some houses of the ancient type might be found in cities, even in Rome, as late as the end of the Republic. We read of one in Cicero's time in the atrium of which spinning was done. But at Pompeii the hearth had been banished from the atrium at a comparatively early date, in the Tufa Period if not before; and the room was made uncomfortable to sit in, for a considerable part of the year, by the broad opening of the compluvium.

From the architectural point of view, however, the atrium never lost its significance as the central apartment. In all its dimensions, but particularly in height, it presents so great a contrast with the rooms around it as to remind us of the relation of a Roman Catholic church to the chapels at the sides. The impression of spaciousness was perhaps deepened when the atrium was provided with a ceiling. Few traces of such ceilings are found at Pompeii, and in the smaller houses the inside of the roof seems generally to have been visible.

The atrium of the Corinthian type most nearly resembled a court, on account of the size of the opening to the sky and the use of many columns. A suggestion of the un-Italic character of this type appears in the name; for one can scarcely suppose that atriums in the strict sense existed at Corinth.

Although the Pompeian atriums show no traces of a hearth, there is possibly a reminiscence of the ancient arrangement in the gartibulum, a table which we frequently find at the rear of the impluvium. Varro says that since his boyhood these tables, on which vessels of bronze were placed, had gone out of use; at Pompeii they remained in fashion much longer. The gartibulum with its bronze vases may symbolize the ancient hearth with the cooking utensils. Possibly, however, it represents the kitchen table near the hearth on which the dishes were washed; that it may have served a similar purpose in later times is evident from the fact that in front of it a marble pedestal was often placed for a statuette which threw a jet of water into a marble basin at the edge of the impluvium. This group of table, fountain figure, and basin appears in many Pompeian atriums. In Plate VII we see the gartibulum and the supports of the marble-basin, but the base of the fountain figure has disappeared.

The strong box of the master of the house, arca, often stood in the atrium, usually against one of the side walls. It was sometimes adorned with reliefs, as the one shown in Fig. 120, which is now in the Naples Museum. It stood on a heavy block of stone, or low foundation of masonry, to which it was attached by an iron rod passing down through the bottom. A wealthy Pompeian sometimes had more than one of these chests.

In three atriums the herm of the proprietor stands at the rear. One, with the portrait of Cornelius Rufus, is shown in Fig. 121.

When there were two atriums in a house, the larger was more elaborately furnished than the other, and was set aside for the public or official life of the proprietor; the smaller one was used for domestic purposes. Typical examples are found in the houses of the Faun and of the Labyrinth. In the former the principal atrium is of the Tuscan type, the other tetrastyle; in the latter the large atrium is tetrastyle, the smaller Tuscan.

III. The Tablinum

The tablinum was a large room at the rear of the atrium, opening into the latter with its whole width; the connection of the two rooms is clearly shown in Plate VII and Fig. 121. According to Vitruvius, when the atrium was 30 to 40 feet in width—as in the larger Pompeian houses—the tablinum should be half as wide; when the atrium was smaller, the width of the tablinum should be two thirds that of the atrium, while the height at the entrance should be nine eighths, and inside four thirds of the width. These proportions will not hold good for Pompeii, where the tablinum is generally narrower and higher (Vitr. VI. iv. 5, 6).

The posts at the entrance were usually treated as pilasters, joined above by a cornice; architecturally the front of this room formed the most impressive feature of the atrium. Between the pilasters hung portières, which might be drawn back and fastened at the sides. In the house of the Silver Wedding the fastenings were found in place,—bronze disks from which a ship's beak projected, attached to the pilasters.

In early times the tablinum ordinarily had an opening at the rear also, but this was not so high as that in front, and could be closed by broad folding doors. In winter the doors were probably kept shut. In summer they were left open and the room, cool and airy, served as a dining room, a use which harmonizes well with a passage of Varro explaining the derivation of the name. "In the olden time," says this writer, "people used to take their meals in the winter by the hearth; in summer they ate out of doors, country folk in the court, city people in the tabulinum, which we understand to have been a summer house built of boards." The derivation of tabulinum, of which tablinum is a shortened form, from tabula, 'a board,' is obvious.

The period to which Varro refers antedates that of the oldest houses at Pompeii. The room which we call tablinum was then a deep recess at the rear of the atrium, open at the front, as now, but enclosed by a wall at the rear; against this wall was a veranda opening into the garden, toward which the board roof sloped. People took their meals in the veranda in summer, and to it the name tablinum was naturally applied. In the recess at the rear of the atrium, corresponding to the later tablinum, was the bed of the master of the house, called lectus adversus because 'facing' one who entered the front door. As late as the reign of Augustus, long after it became the custom to set aside a closed apartment for the family room, a reminiscence of the ancient arrangement still remained in the couch which stood at the rear of the atrium or in the tablinum, which was called lectus adversus, or even lectus genialis.

The removal of the hearth and the bed from the atrium must have taken place when the small hole in the roof was replaced by the compluvium. A broad opening was made in the rear wall, and the place where the bed had been was turned into a light, airy room; this was now used as a summer room instead of the veranda, the name of which was in consequence transferred to it.

Even in later times, when the houses were extended by the addition, at the rear, of a peristyle with its group of apartments, the tablinum may often have been used as a summer dining room; but the tendency now was to withdraw the family life into the more secluded rooms about the peristyle. The tablinum, lying between the front and the rear of the house, was used as a reception room for guests who were not admitted into the privacy of the home; and here undoubtedly the master of the house received his clients.

In the house of the Vettii the tablinum is omitted on account of the abundance of room; but at the rear of the atrium there are wide openings into the peristyle (Fig. 158).

IV. The Alae

The alae, the 'wings' of the atrium, were two deep recesses in the sides (Fig. 115). They were ordinarily at the rear, but were sometimes placed at the middle, as in the house of Epidius Rufus (Fig. 149). Vitruvius (VI. iv. 4) says that where the atrium is from 30 to 40 feet long, one third of the length should be taken for the breadth of the alae; in the case of larger atriums the breadth of these rooms should be proportionally less, being fixed at one fifth of the length for atriums from 80 to 100 feet long; the height at the entrance should be equal to the breadth.

At Pompeii the alae, as the tablinum, are narrower and higher than required by these proportions. In the Tufa Period the entrances were ornamented with pilasters, and treated like the broad entrance of the tablinum.

With reference to the purpose and uses of these rooms we have no information beyond a remark of Vitruvius in regard to placing the images of ancestors in them. This throws no light upon their origin; for only a few noble families could have possessed a sufficiently large number of ancestral busts or masks to make it necessary to provide a special place for these, while the alae form an essential and characteristic part of the Pompeian house. Now and then an ala was used as a dining room; more frequently, perhaps, one was utilized for a wardrobe, as may be seen from the traces of the woodwork. A careful study of the remains only deepens the impression that at Pompeii the alae served no definite purpose, but were a survival from a previous period, in which they responded to different conditions of life.

An interesting parallel presents itself in the arrangements of a type of peasants' house found in Lower Saxony. The main entrance, as in the early Italic house, leads into a large and high central room; at the sides of this and of the main entrance are the living rooms and stalls. At the back the central room is widened by two recesses corresponding with the alae; the hearth stands against the rear wall. In the side walls, at the rear of each recess, are a window and a door. The two windows admit light to the part of the central room furthest from the entrance; the doors open into the farmyard and the garden.

The Italic house in the beginning was not a city residence shut in by party walls, but the isolated habitation of a countryman. The design of the alae, as of the recesses in the Low Saxon farmhouse, was to furnish light to the atrium, which, as we have seen, was completely covered by a roof, there being only a small hole to let out the smoke. The large windows in the rear of the alae of the house of Sallust may be looked upon as a survival; but in city houses generally light could not be taken in this way from the sides. After the compluvium had come into general use, a conservative tradition still retained the alae whenever possible, though they no longer answered their original purpose.

V. The Rooms about the Atrium. The Andron

In front there were rooms at either side of the entrance, ordinarily fitted up as shops and opening on the street, but sometimes used as dining rooms or sleeping rooms, or for other domestic purposes.

On each side of the atrium were two or three small sleeping rooms; in narrow houses these, as well as one or both of the alae, were occasionally omitted.

At the rear were one or two rooms of the same depth as the tablinum, used in most cases as dining rooms. They frequently had a single broad entrance on the side of the peristyle or the garden (Fig. 134, 22), but were sometimes entered by a door from the atrium or from one of the alae (Figs. 115, ). The door on the side of the atrium seems generally to have been made when the house was built; if the owner did not wish to use it, it was walled up and treated as a blind door, an ornament of the atrium.

The rooms about the atrium in the pre-Roman period were made high, those in front and at the sides often measuring fifteen feet to the edge of the ceiling, which had the form of a groined vault. The rear rooms were still higher, the crown of the vaults being as far above the floor as the flat ceiling of the tablinum. A corresponding height was given to the doors; those in the house of the Faun measure nearly fourteen feet. The upper part of the doorway was doubtless pierced for the admission of light in the manner indicated by wall paintings, and shown in our restoration of one side of the atrium in the house of Sallust (Figs. 261, ).

The andron was a passage at the right or the left of the tablinum, connecting the atrium with the peristyle (Figs. 115, ). The name was used originally to designate an apartment in the Greek house, but was applied by the Romans to a corridor. In modern times the passage has often been erroneously called fauces.

The andron is lacking only in small houses, or in those in which a different connection is made between the front and rear portions by means of a second atrium, or other rooms.

VI. Garden, Peristyle, and Rooms about the Peristyle

A few Pompeian houses, like those of the olden time, are without a peristyle, having a garden at the rear. In such cases there is a colonnade at the back of the house, facing the garden; this is the arrangement in the houses of the Surgeon, of Sallust, and of Epidius Rufus. In the large house of Pansa (Fig. 179), we find both a peristyle and a garden, the latter being at the rear of the peristyle; and in many houses a small garden was placed wherever available space could be found.

The peristyle is a garden enclosed by a colonnade, or having a colonnade on two or three sides. When this was higher on the north side than on the other three, as in the house of the Silver Wedding, the peristyle was called Rhodian. In the Tufa Period the colonnade was frequently in two stories, on all four sides or on the front alone. Fragments of columns belonging to the second story have been found in many houses, but in only one instance, that of the house of the Centenary, are they of such a character as to enable us to make an accurate restoration; here the double series of columns extended only across the front.

A separate entrance, posticum (Fig. 115), usually connected the peristyle with a side street. At the rear there was often a broad, deep recess, exedra, corresponding with the tablinum. The location of the other rooms in this part of the house is determined by so many conditions, and manifests so great a diversity that it may be spoken of more conveniently in connection with their use.

VII. Sleeping Rooms

The small, high rooms about the atrium were in the earlier times used as bedrooms; and such they remained in some houses, as that of the Faun, down to the destruction of the city.

The sleeping rooms about the peristyle were much lower, and the front opened by means of a broad door in its whole, or almost its whole, width upon the colonnade. These rooms could frequently be entered also through a small side door from a dining room, or a narrow recess opening on the peristyle (Fig. 146, x). The design of the arrangement is obvious. In summer the inconvenient large door could be left open day and night, a curtain being stretched across the space; in winter it would be opened only for airing and cleaning, the small door being used at other times.

The place for the bed was sometimes indicated in the plan of the room. In a bedroom of the house of the Centaur, of which an end view is given in Fig. 122, a narrow alcove was made for the bed at the left side; the floor of the alcove is slightly raised, and the ceiling, as often, is in the form of a vault, while the ceiling of the room is higher and only slightly arched. A similar arrangement is found in several other rooms decorated in the first style. In several houses, as in the house of Apollo, there is a sleeping room with alcoves for two beds.

In bedrooms with a mosaic floor the place for the bed is ordinarily white, being separated from the rest of the room by a stripe suggestive of a threshold. A similar division is often indicated in the wall decoration, particularly that of the second style; the part designated for the bed is set off by pilasters on the end walls, and differently treated both in respect to the decorative design and in the arrangement of colors.

VIII. Dining Rooms

As long as it was customary to sit at meals any fair-sized apartment could be used as a dining room. When the early Italic house was extended by the addition of a peristyle, and the Greek custom of reclining at table was introduced, it became necessary to provide a special apartment, and the Greek name for such a room with the three couches, triclinium, came into use. For convenience in serving, the length of a dining room, according to Vitruvius, should be twice the width. At Pompeii, however, the dimensions are less generous; with an average width of 12 or 13 feet the length rarely exceeds 20 feet. In many cases one end of the room opened on the peristyle, but could be closed by means of broad doors or shutters.

The plan of a typical dining room is given in Fig. 123. The couch at the right of the table was called the upper couch; that at the left, the lower; and that between, the middle couch. With few exceptions each couch was made to accommodate three persons; the diner rested on his left arm on a cushion at the side nearer the table, and stretched his feet out toward the right. Hence, the first on the upper couch had what was called 'the highest place.' The one next was said to recline 'below' him, because lying on the side toward which the first person extended his feet; the man at the outer end of the lower couch was said to be 'at the foot,' imus. When in the Gospel of John we read of a disciple "lying on Jesus' breast," the meaning is easily explained by reference to Roman usage; John was reclining in the place next below the Master. This arrangement makes clear to us the reason why the couches were so placed that the lower one projected further beyond the table than the upper one; the feet of those on the lower couch were extended toward the end furthest from the table.

To the couches grouped in the manner indicated the same name was applied as to the dining room, triclinium. Of those in the dining rooms only scanty remains are found. In summer the Pompeians, as the Italians of to-day, were fond of dining in the open air. In order to save the trouble of moving heavy furniture couches of masonry were not infrequently constructed in the garden, and have been preserved; such a triclinium is that in the garden of the tannery (p. 398). The arrangement is in most cases precisely that indicated in Fig. 123, the outer end of the lower couch projecting beyond the corresponding end of the upper one. In the middle stands the base of the table, also of masonry; the top is rarely preserved. Near by is a little altar for the offerings made in connection with each meal. The appearance of such a triclinium may be inferred from that of the triclinium funebre shown in Fig. 245, which has a square table and round altar.

In many gardens we find about the triclinium the remains of four or six columns. These supported a frame of timber or lattice-work, upon which vines were trained, making a shady bower, as in the garden of the tavern in the first Region, referred to below (p. 404).

The couches were ordinarily not provided with backs, but the outer ends of the upper and lower couches sometimes had a frame to hold the cushions, as indicated in Fig. 123 and shown more clearly in our restoration, Fig. 188. In the dining rooms small movable altars must have been used for the offerings, such as those of terra cotta or bronze not infrequently met with in the course of excavation. A fixed altar has been found in only one instance, in a small dining room in the eighth Region (VIII. v-vi. 16). Here, as our plan (Fig. 124) shows, the front of the apartment is set off as an anteroom, and in this was placed an altar of tufa.

In accordance with an ancient custom the children, even those of the imperial family, sat on low stools at a table of their own on the open side of the large table. In an open-air triclinium in the ninth Region (IX. v. 11) the children's seat is preserved, a low bench of masonry about forty inches long connected with the projecting arm of the lower couch (Plate VII.).

The inner part of the dining room, designed for the table and couches, was often distinguished from the free space in the same way that the place for the bed was indicated in bedrooms, sometimes by a difference in the design of the mosaic floor, more frequently by the division of the wall decoration and the arrangement of the ceiling. In the third and fourth decorative styles the division is less plainly marked than in the second; but often the side walls back of the couches and the inner end of the room have each a single large panel with a small panel at the right and left, while on each side wall in front are only two panels, of the same size.

In one respect the ordinary dining room was far from convenient; those who had the inner places could not leave the table or return to it in the course of a meal without disturbing one or more of those reclining nearer the outside. Large rooms, in which an open space was left between the couches and the wall, or in which several tables with their sets of couches could be placed, were unknown in pre-Roman Pompeii. In the time of the Empire a few of these large dining rooms were built in older houses. There is one measuring about 25 by 33 feet in the house of Pansa; another, of which the dimensions are 23 by 30 feet, in the house of Castor and Pollux; and a third, 36 feet long, in the house of the Citharist.

In a number of houses we find a large, fine apartment—designated by the Greek word oecus—which seems often to have been used for a dining room, especially on notable occasions. A particularly elegant form was the Corinthian oecus, which had a row of columns about the sides a short distance from the walls, the room being thus divided into a main part with a vaulted ceiling and a corridor with a flat ceiling. The couches would be placed in the main part; the guests could pass to their places along the corridor, behind the columns. The remains of such an oecus may be seen in the houses of Meleager and of the Labyrinth.

A specially interesting example—unfortunately not yet wholly excavated—is in the house of the Silver Wedding. In this case only the inner part, designed for the couches, is set off by columns. We may assume that there was a vaulted ceiling over the middle, resting on the entablature of the columns; that the ceiling of the corridor between the columns and the wall was flat, and of the same height as the entablature; and that the front part of the room had a flat or slightly arched ceiling of the same height as the crown of the vault over the middle.

In the more pretentious Roman houses there was sometimes a dining room for each season of the year; when Trimalchio in Petronius's novel boasts that he has four dining rooms, we are to understand that he had one each for winter, summer, autumn, and spring. In the case of the Pompeian houses we are warranted in assuming that dining rooms opening toward the south were for winter use, those toward the north for use in summer. Other airy apartments, with a large window in addition to the wide door, may well have been intended for summer triclinia. Further than this it is hardly possible to classify Pompeian dining rooms according to the seasons.

IX. The Kitchen, the Bath, and the Storerooms

In the Pompeian house the kitchen had no fixed location. It was generally a small room, and was placed wherever it would least interfere with the arrangement of the rest of the house.

The most important part of the kitchen was the hearth. This was built of masonry, against one of the walls. It was oblong, and the fire was made on the top. The cooking utensils sometimes rested on rectangular projections of masonry, as in the kitchen of the house of Pansa, sometimes on small iron tripods, as in the house of the Vettii (Fig. 125). The hearth of the latter house was found undisturbed, with a vessel in place ready to be heated. In one house the place of an iron tripod was taken by three pointed ends of amphorae set upright on the hearth. Underneath there was often a hollow place, like that shown in our illustration, in which fuel was kept, as in similar openings under the hearths of Campanian kitchens to-day.

Sometimes we find near the hearth a bake oven, not large enough to have been used for bread, and evidently intended for pastry; bread must ordinarily have been obtained from the bakers. In one of the cellars of the house of the Centenary there is a larger oven, which may have been used to bake coarse bread for the slaves; the heat was utilized in warming a bath above.

Over the hearth was a small window to carry off the smoke. As the kitchen was ordinarily high there may have been a hole in the roof also, but the upper parts have been destroyed, and their arrangement cannot be determined. From the small size of the kitchens and of the hearths in even the largest and finest houses, we may infer that the luxury of the table prevalent in the Early Empire had made only slight progress at Pompeii.

Close by the kitchen, frequently forming a part of it and next to the hearth, was the closet; a separate closet of good size is found in the houses of the Faun and of Castor and Pollux.

In many large houses there is a bath, generally too small to have been used by more than one person at a time. These baths ordinarily include only a tepidarium and a caldarium, but occasionally there is an apodyterium, less frequently still a small frigidarium; in most cases a basin in the apodyterium or tepidarium must have been used for the cold bath. The heating arrangements are similar to those found in the public baths, and more or less complete according to the period in which the bath was fitted up, and the taste of the proprietor; a progressive refinement in the appointments of the private baths can be traced similar to that which we have already noted in the case of the Stabian Baths. The close relation generally existing between the bath-rooms and the kitchen is well illustrated in the houses of the Faun and of the Silver Wedding.

In connection with this group of rooms we may mention the storerooms, which are found in various parts of the houses and may be identified by the traces of the shelves that were fastened to the walls.

Comparatively few houses were provided with cellars. In the house of the Centenary, however, there are two. One, entered from the atrium by a stairway, extends under the tablinum and the front colonnade of the peristyle; the other is accessible from a side atrium and is divided into several rooms, in one of which is the oven mentioned above. The cellar belonging to the house of Caecilius Jucundus is under the garden; that of the villa of Diomedes will be described later.

X. The Shrine of the Household Gods

In ancient Italy each household worshipped its guardian spirits and tutelary divinities, which formed a triple group, the Lares, the Penates, and the Genius. In Pompeii the remains associated with domestic worship are numerous and important.

Many Pompeians painted representations of the household gods upon an inner wall, often upon a wall of the kitchen, near the hearth. There was usually a painted altar underneath, with a serpent on either side coming to partake of the offerings.

In a large number of houses a small niche was made in the wall, in which were placed little images of the gods, the Lares and the Genius being also painted on the back of the cavity or on the wall at the sides or below. Such a niche may be seen in a corner of the kitchen in the house of Apollo (Fig. 126); the pictures of the gods are almost obliterated, but that of the serpent—in this case there is but one—and of the altar can be clearly seen. In front is a small altar of masonry; the ferns and grasses with which the floor is carpeted make this kitchen in summer an attractive nook. Sometimes the niches were ornamented with diminutive half-columns or pilasters at the sides and a pediment above.

Frequently a more elaborate shrine was provided, a diminutive temple raised on a foundation, placed against a wall of the atrium or of the garden. An example is the one at the rear of the peristyle in the house of the Tragic Poet (Fig. 153).

In rare instances a small, separate chapel was devoted to the domestic worship, as in the house of the Centenary. In a house of the ninth Region (IX. viii. 7) there is such a chapel in the garden, a niche for the images being placed in the wall.

The Lares are the guardian spirits of the household. Originally but one was worshipped in each house; they began to be honored in plurality after the time of Cicero, and at Pompeii we invariably find them in pairs. They are represented as youths clad in a short tunic confined by a girdle (Fig. 127), stepping lightly or dancing, with one hand high uplifted in which a drinking horn, rhyton, is seen; from the end of the horn a jet of wine spurts in a graceful curve, falling into a small pail, situla, or into a libation saucer, patera, held in the other hand.

Simple offerings were made to these beneficent spirits,—fruits, sacrificial cakes, garlands, and incense,—and at every meal a portion was set aside for them in little dishes. When a sacrifice was offered to the Lares, the victim was a pig.

With the worship of the Lares was associated that of the Genius, the tutelary divinity of the master of the house. He is represented as a standing figure, the face being a portrait of the master. The toga is drawn over his head, after the manner of one sacrificing; in the left hand there is usually a cornucopia, sometimes a box of incense, acerra; with the right hand he pours a drink offering from a patera.

Very rarely we find a representation of the Genius of the mistress of the house. In one painting she appears with the attributes of Juno; the Genius of a woman was often called Juno, as in the inscription on the bust stone of Tyche, the slave of Julia Augusta (p. 418). As a man might swear in the name of his Genius, so a woman's oath might be 'By my Juno.'

The Lares and the Genius are often found together both in the hearth paintings, and in the groups of little bronze images frequently placed in the shrines. They are associated also in an inscription on the shrine in the house of Epidius Rufus: Genio M[arci] n[ostri] et Laribus duo Diadumeni liberti,—'To the Genius of our Marcus and the Lares; (dedicated by) his two freedmen with the name of Diadumenus.' Marcus was the first name of the head of the household.

In a few cases the Genius of the emperor seems to have been revered at a house shrine. Horace (Od. IV. v. 34) speaks distinctly of the worship of the tutelary divinity of Augustus in connection with that of the Lares,—et Laribus tuum Miscet numen. On the rear wall of a little chapel in a garden is a painted altar at the right of which stands Jupiter, at the left a Genius, each pouring a libation. We can scarcely believe that the Genius of an ordinary man would thus be placed as it were on an equality with the ruler of heaven; more likely the Genius of an emperor is represented, perhaps that of Claudius. The face is not unlike the face of Claudius, and the painting is on a wall decorated in the third style (Ins. VII. xi. 4).

In another house (IX. viii. 13) two Genii are painted, and under one of them is scratched in large letters EX SC, undoubtedly for ex senatus consulto,—'in accordance with a decree of the Senate.' We are probably safe in assuming that the decree referred to is that of the reign of Augustus, by which the worship of the Lares was regulated (Dio Cass. LI. xix. 7); if so, the figure is intended to represent the Genius of that emperor.

The face of the Genius in the house of the Vettii (Fig. 127) bears a decided resemblance to that of Nero. Here the shrine was placed in the rear wall of the smaller atrium. It consists of a broad, shallow niche, the front of which is elaborately ornamented to give the appearance of a little temple, while on the back are painted the household divinities. The Genius stands with veiled head between the two Lares, holding in his left hand a box of incense and pouring a libation with the right. In the original painting the features were unusually distinct.

The Penates were the protecting divinities of the provisions or stores, penus, and the storerooms of the house; under this name were included various gods to whom the master and the household offered special worship. At Pompeii the Penates, as the Lares and the Genius, appear in paintings, and are also represented by bronze images placed in the shrines. In the shrine of the house of Lucretius were diminutive bronze figures of the Genius and of Jupiter, Hercules, Fortuna, and another divinity that has not been identified. Statuettes of Apollo, Aesculapius, Hercules, and Mercury were found, together with those of the two Lares, in another house; in a third, Fortuna alone with the Lares.

Jupiter and Fortuna are frequently met with in shrine paintings, as well as Venus Pompeiana (Fig. 4), Hercules, Mars, and Vulcan as a personification of the hearth fire; Vesta, the patron goddess of bakers, usually appears in the hearth paintings of bake shops.

Underneath the representations of the Lares and Penates ordinarily are painted two serpents, one on either side of an altar, which they are approaching in order to partake of the offerings; these consist of fruits, in the midst of which an egg or a pine cone can usually be distinguished. As early as the beginning of the Empire the significance of the serpent in the Roman worship had ceased to be clearly understood; Virgil represents Aeneas as in doubt whether the serpent which came out from the tomb of Anchises was the attendant of his father or the Genius of the place (Aen. V. 95).

In the Pompeian paintings, when a pair of serpents occurs, one may usually be recognized as a male by the prominent crest. They were undoubtedly looked upon as personifications of the Genii of the master and mistress of the house. When a single crested serpent appears, as in the shrine paintings of both the house of the Vettii (Fig. 127) and the house of Apollo (Fig. 126), we are to understand that the head of the household was unmarried.

XI. Second Story Rooms

With few exceptions the houses of pre-Roman Pompeii were built in only one story; where the peristyle was in two stories, there must have been rooms opening upon the upper colonnade. In Roman times, as the population of the city increased and more space was needed, it became a common practice to make the rooms about the atrium lower and build chambers over them. A complete second story was rare; small rooms were added here and there, frequently at different levels and reached by different stairways. Sometimes the second story on the front side projected a few feet over the street; an example may be seen in a house in the seventh Region (casa del Balcone Pensile), the front of which, with the part projecting over the sidewalk, has been carefully rebuilt by replacing the charred remains of the ancient beams with new timbers.

Houses with three stories were quite exceptional, and the rooms of the third floor must have been unimportant. Along the steep slope of the hill, on the west and southwest sides of the city, a number of houses are found that present the appearance of several stories; they are not properly classed with those just mentioned, however, for the reason that the floors are on terraces, the highest at the level of the street, the others lower down and further back, being adjusted to the descent of the ground.

From the time of Plautus, second story rooms were designated as 'dining rooms,' cenacula. Varro says that after it became customary to dine upstairs, all upper rooms were called cenacula. This explanation is not altogether satisfactory, because other literary evidence for the prevalence of such a custom is lacking. Perhaps in early times, when, on account of the introduction of the compluvium and impluvium, the atrium ceased to be convenient and comfortable for the serving of meals, a dining room was frequently constructed on an upper floor, and, being the principal second story apartment, gave its name to the rest. In some places the ancient custom may still have lingered in the time of the Early Empire.

The upper parts of the Pompeian houses in most cases have been completely destroyed; in a few, however, there are traces of a second story apartment that was probably used as a dining room.

One of these houses is in Insula XV of Region VII, near the temple of Apollo. It is painted in the second style, and dates apparently from the end of the Republic. At the rear of the atrium are two rooms and a passageway leading to the back of the house. Over these was a single large apartment, closed at the sides and rear, but opening on the atrium in its entire length; along the front, as seen in our restoration (Fig. 128), ran a balustrade connecting the pilasters—ornamented with half-columns—which supported the roof.

In a corner of the atrium at the rear a narrow stairway led to the second floor. At the right, as our section shows (Fig. 129), was a narrow gallery resting on brackets, which connected the upper room at the rear with one in the front of the house.

The large upper room was so well fitted for a dining room, especially in summer, that we can hardly resist the conclusion that it was designed for this purpose. There is no trace of a kitchen on the ground floor; and for greater convenience this also was probably placed in the second story, behind the dining room.

In the fifth Region there was a small dwelling, which afterwards became a part of the house of the Silver Wedding; the arrangement of the two stories at the rear of the atrium was similar to that just described, except that columns were used in place of the pilasters, and there was only the one upper room in the back part of the house. In such cases as this 'dining room' and 'upper story' might easily have come to be used as synonymous terms.

Where there was a large upper room at the rear of the atrium, no place was left for the high tablinum; in a house in the seventh Region (casa dell' Amore Punito, VII. ii. 23) the cenaculum was in front. On the front wall of the atrium one may still see part of the carefully hewn stones on which the columns of the second story rested, and fragments of these columns were found on the floor below.

XII. The Shops

The outer parts of the houses fronting on the principal thoroughfares were utilized as shops. On the more retired side streets there were fewer shops, and we often find a façade of masonry unbroken except for the front door and an occasional window.

The shop fronts were open to the street. The counter, frequently of masonry, has in most cases the shape indicated on our plan (Fig. 130, 2), being so arranged that customers could make their purchases, if they wished, without going inside the shop. Large jars were often set in it, to serve as receptacles for the wares and edibles exposed for sale. Sometimes on the end next to the wall there are little steps, on which, as seen in our restoration (Fig. 131), measuring cups and other small vessels were placed. At the inner end we see now and then a depression (3) over which a vessel could be heated, a fire being kindled underneath as on a hearth. In the wineshops a separate hearth is sometimes found, and occasionally a leaden vessel for heating water.

In the houses of the Tufa Period the shops, as the front doors and the rooms about the atrium, were relatively high. Those of the house of Caecilius Jucundus measured nearly 16 feet; those of the house of the Faun, 19 feet; the appearance of the latter may be suggested by our restoration (Fig. 139). The height was divided by an upper floor, pergula, 10 or 12 feet above the ground, along the open front of which was a balustrade; the stairs leading to it were inside the shop. On such a pergula Apelles, according to Pliny (N. H. xxxv. 84), was accustomed to display his paintings; and in the Digest reference is more than once made to cases in which a person passing along the street was injured by an object falling upon him from the second story of a shop. 'Shops with their upper floors' are advertised for rent in one of the painted inscriptions found at Pompeii (p. 489).

In Roman times the shops, as the inner rooms of the house, were built lower, and over them small closed rooms were made, which were called by the same name as the open floor, pergula. These rooms were frequently accessible from the street by a stairway, and in such cases could be rented separately. In colloquial language, a man whose early life had been passed amid unfavorable surroundings was said to have been 'born in a room over a shop,'—natus in pergula.

Shops were entered by means of small doors; the front was closed with shutters. These consisted of overlapping boards set upright in narrow grooves at the top and the bottom. A separate set of shutters was provided for the open pergula.

XIII. Walls, Floors, and Windows

The walls were covered with a thick layer of plaster and painted; the preparation of the stucco, the processes employed in painting, and the styles of decoration are reserved for discussion in a later chapter.

The floors were frequently made of an inexpensive concrete, consisting of bits of lava or other stone pounded down into common mortar. A much better floor was the Signia pavement, opus Signinum, so named from a town in Latium. This was composed of very small fragments of brick or tile pounded into fine mortar. The surface was carefully finished, and was sometimes ornamented with geometrical or other patterns traced in outline by means of small bits of white stone.

In the Tufa Period a floor was often made by fitting together small pieces of stone or marble, and bedding them well in mortar. The colors are white and black,—slate is used in the floor of the atrium in the house of the Faun; sometimes also violet, yellow, green, and red appear with white and black. Pavements of square or lozenge-shaped and triangular pieces of colored marble and slate, like that in the cella of the temple of Apollo (Fig. 28), are occasionally found in houses. In the time of the Early Empire floors paved with larger slabs were not uncommon.

The mosaics of the Pompeian floors—using the term mosaic in a restricted sense—may be divided into two classes, coarse and fine. In the former the cubes, tesserae, are on the average a little less than half an inch square. The patterns are sometimes shown in black on a white surface, sometimes worked in colors. The finer variety, in which the pictures appear, is not often extended over a whole room, but is usually confined to a rectangular section in the middle, coarse mosaic being used for the rest of the floor.

The windows at the front of the house, as we have seen, were ordinarily few and small. From the Tufa Period, however, large windows were often made in the rooms around the peristyle; in the house of the Faun they range in width from 10 to 23 feet, and are so low that one sitting inside could look out through them. Upper rooms, also, were provided with windows of good size, sometimes measuring 2½ by 4 feet; but the remains are scanty. In later times occasionally a lower window opening on the street was made almost as large, and was protected by an iron grating.

Windows were ordinarily closed by means of wooden shutters. Small panes of glass were found in the openings of the Baths near the Forum; had the Central Baths been finished, glass would undoubtedly have been used for the windows of the caldarium. The window of the tepidarium in the villa of Diomedes was closed by four glass panes set in a wooden frame (p. 357); in the other houses a narrow pane is occasionally found, but invariably set in masonry.

Chapter XXXIV. The House of the Surgeon

The house of the Surgeon (casa del Chirurgo) is the oldest of the Pompeian houses that retained to the last, with but slight modifications, its original plan and appearance. It lies at the right of the Strada Consolare (VI. i. 10), about fifty paces inside the Herculaneum Gate. The name was suggested by the discovery of several surgical instruments in one of the rooms.

This house was undoubtedly built before 200 B.C. The façade (Fig. 10) and the walls of the atrium are of large hewn blocks of Sarno limestone; other inner walls are of limestone framework (p. 37). The plan conforms to the simple Italic type, before the addition of the peristyle; yet it does not illustrate the oldest form of the native house, for the tablinum (Fig. 132, 7) has already displaced the recess for the bed opposite the front door. The measurements of the rooms are according to the Oscan standard (p. 44), the atrium being about 30 by 35 Oscan feet.

We pass directly from the street through the fauces (1) into the Tuscan atrium (5) at the sides of which are sleeping rooms (6) and the two alae (8). Back of the tablinum is a colonnade (16) opening on the garden (20), which originally had a greater length; the room at the right (19) is a later addition, as also the smaller room at the other end (21). The roof of the colonnade was carried by square limestone pillars, one of which has been preserved in its original form.

The oblong room at the right of the tablinum (10) was once square, as (9). Both were well adapted for winter dining rooms; in summer, meals were undoubtedly served in the tablinum. The room at the left of the entrance (2) was a shop, at least in later times. The corresponding room on the other side (6') was retained for domestic use.

The shop at the right (3) and the back room (4), as well as the kitchen with the adjoining rooms at the rear, used as store closets and quarters for slaves, were a later addition; 22 is a light court, to which the rain water was conducted from different parts of the roof. Over these rooms was a second story reached by stairs leading from the colonnade (18). It may be that this part of the house took the place of a garden in which previously there was an outside kitchen; that the ground belonged to the house from the beginning is clear from the existence of a door between the rooms 6' and 3, afterwards walled up, and the appearance of the unbroken party wall on this side.

The rooms about the atrium had no upper floor, and were relatively high; the doors measured nearly twelve feet in height, and the ceiling of the tablinum was not far from twenty feet above the floor. In respect to height, this house was not unlike those of the next period.

In the later years of the city, but before 63, the decoration was renewed in the fourth style. There are paintings of interest, however, only in the room at the rear (19), which had a large window opening on the garden. In one of the panels here we see a man sitting with a writing tablet in his hand; opposite him are two girls, one sitting, the other standing; the latter holds a roll of papyrus. This kind of genre picture is not uncommon; the type is spoken of elsewhere (p. 477).

In another panel, which was transferred to the Naples Museum, a young woman is represented as painting a herm of Dionysus (Fig. 133); a Cupid is holding the unfinished picture while she mixes colors on her palette. Two other maidens are watching the artist with unfeigned interest. Upon the pillar behind the herm hangs a small painting; in the vista another herm is seen, together with a vase standing on a pillar.

The room contained a third picture which is now almost obliterated. Perhaps this pleasant apartment was once the boudoir of a favorite daughter, who busied herself with painting and verse.

Chapter XXXV. The House of Sallust

The house of Sallust (VI. ii. 4) received its name from an election notice, painted on the outside, in which Gaius Sallustius was recommended for a municipal office. It has no peristyle, and its original plan closely resembled that of the house of the Surgeon. It was built in the second century B.C.; the architecture is that of the Tufa Period, and the well preserved decoration of the atrium, tablinum, alae, and the dining room at the left of the tablinum (Fig. 134, 22) is of the first style. The pilasters at the entrances of the alae and the tablinum are also unusually well preserved; the house is among the most important for our knowledge of the period to which it belongs.

The rooms on the left side (6-9) were used as a bakery. Those in front (2-5) were shops; two of them (2, 3), at the time of the destruction of the city, opened into the fauces (1) and another (5) had two rear rooms, one of which was entered from a side street.

The rooms at the right (31-36) were private apartments added later and connected with the rest of the house only by means of the corridor (29), which with the cell designed for the porter (30) was made over from one of the side rooms of the atrium.

If we leave these groups of rooms out of consideration, it is easy to see that the Tuscan atrium and the apartments connected with it—the tablinum (19), the alae (17), and the rooms at the sides—once formed a symmetrical whole. At the rear was a garden on two sides (24, 24'), with a colonnade. A broad window in the rear of the left ala opened into this colonnade (p. 259), a part of which was afterwards enclosed, making two small rooms (23, 18). At the end of the latter room a stairway was built leading to chambers; in the beginning the house had no second floor.

The andron (20), the wardrobe (17') at the side of the right ala, and the small room back of it (28) were made out of a square room corresponding in dimensions with that at the other end of the tablinum (22). The latter was originally entered from the atrium by a door at e, which was closed when the wide door was made at the rear opening upon the colonnade. At the rear of the tablinum is a broad window.

In the corner of the garden is an open air triclinium (25), over which vines could be trained; there was a small altar (l) near by. At n a jet of water spurted from an opening in the wall upon a small platform of masonry; the water was perhaps conducted into the rectangular basin (k) opposite, the inside of which was painted blue. Only the edges of this portion of the garden, which is higher than the floor of the colonnade, were planted; steps led up to it at f and g. A hearth (p) was placed in the colonnade at the left, for the preparation of the viands served in the triclinium. The room at the other end of the garden (27) was connected with the street at the rear by a posticum; back of it was an open space (26) with remains of masonry (m), the purpose of which is not clear.

The large dining room (13) may once have belonged to the bakery; the anteroom (12) leading to it was made from one of the side rooms of the atrium. The arrangement recalls that of the dining room of which the plan is given in Fig. 124.

The appearance of the atrium in its original form may be suggested by our restoration (Fig. 135). The proportions are monumental. The treatment of the entrances to the tablinum and the alae, with pilasters joined by projecting entablatures, the severe and simple decoration (illustrated in Fig. 261), and the admission of light through the compluvium increased the apparent height of the room and gave it an aspect of dignity and reserve. At the rear we catch glimpses of the vines and shrubs at the edge of the garden; painted trees and bushes were also seen upon the garden wall.

The series of apartments entered through the room at the right of the atrium (29) present a marked contrast with the rest of the house. They are low, the eight-sided, dark-red columns of the colonnade (31), with their white capitals, being less than ten feet high; and the dark shades of the decoration, which is in the fourth style upon a black ground, give a gloomy impression to one coming from the atrium with its masses of brilliant color.

There was a small fountain in the middle of the little garden (32), the rear wall of which is covered by a painting representing the fate of Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own hounds as a penalty for having seen Diana at the bath. At first the colonnade had a flat roof, with an open walk above on the three sides; but when the large dining room (35) was constructed, the flat roof and promenade on this side were replaced by a sloping roof over the broad entrance to the dining room. On the outer walls of the two sleeping rooms (33, 34) were two paintings of similar design, Europa with the bull, Phrixus and Helle with the ram. The rear inner wall of 34 contained two pairs of lovers, Paris and Helen in the house of Menelaus, and Ares and Aphrodite. The room at the corner of the colonnade (36) is the kitchen; the stairway in it led to the flat roof of the colonnade.

This portion of the house probably dates from the latter part of the Republic; it underwent minor changes in the course of the century during which it was used. Previously there was in all probability a garden on this side, into which opened a large window in the rear wall of the right ala, afterwards closed.

The changes made in the stately house of the pre-Roman time are most easily explained on the supposition that near the beginning of the Empire it was turned into a hotel and restaurant. The shop at the left of the entrance (3) opens upon the atrium as well as on the street; the principal counter is on the side of the fauces, and near the inner end is a place for heating a vessel over the fire. Large jars were set in the counter, and there was a stone table in the middle of the room. Here edibles and hot drinks were sold to those inside the house as well as to passers-by. The shop at the right of the entrance was connected with the fauces, the atrium, and a side room (16). The number of sleeping rooms had been increased by changes in several of the earlier apartments, and by the addition of a second floor reached by the stairway in room 18. The private apartments were for the use of the proprietor, and were guarded against the intrusion of the guests of the inn by the porter stationed at the entrance (in 30).

This explanation is confirmed by the close connection of the bakery with the house; and the use of the open-air triclinium is entirely consistent with it (p. 404). The arrangement of the house after it had become an inn may be seen in our section (Fig. 136).

Chapter XXXVI. The House of the Faun

The house of the Faun, so named from the statue of a dancing satyr found in it (Fig. 258), was among the largest and most elegant in Pompeii. It illustrates for us the type of dwelling that wealthy men of cultivated tastes living in the third or second century B.C. built and adorned for themselves. The mosaic pictures found on the floors (now in the Naples Museum) are the most beautiful that have survived to modern times.

The wall decoration, which is of the first style, in the more important rooms was left unaltered to the last, and is well preserved. This decoration, however, does not date from the building of the house. In order to protect the painted surfaces against moisture, the walls in the beginning were carefully covered with sheets of lead before they were plastered. Later two doorways were walled up, and the plastering over the apertures, which was applied directly to the wall surface without the use of lead sheathing, forms with its decoration an inseparable part of that found on either side. When the original decoration was replaced by that which we see on the walls to-day it is impossible to determine, but the change must have been made before the first century B.C. A few unimportant rooms are painted in the second and fourth styles.

An entire block (VI. xii.), measuring approximately 315 by 115 feet, is given to the house; there are no shops except the four in front (Fig. 137). The apartments are arranged in four groups: a large Tuscan atrium, B, with living rooms on three sides; a small tetrastyle atrium, b, with rooms for domestic service around it and extending on the right side toward the rear of the house; a peristyle, G, the depth of which equals the width of the large and half that of the small atrium; and a second peristyle, K, occupying more than a third of the block. At the rear of the second peristyle is a series of small rooms (q-u) the depth of which varies according to the deviation of the street at the north end of the insula.

In front of the main entrance we read the word HAVE (more commonly written ave), 'Welcome!' spelled in the sidewalk with bits of green, yellow, red, and white marble. The street door here, quite exceptionally, was at the outer end of the vestibule. It consisted of three leaves (seen in Fig. 139) and opened toward the inside, while the double door between the vestibule and the fauces (A on the plan) opened toward the outside; the closed vestibule was not unlike those of many modern houses. Fragments of the lintel over the outer door, with its projecting dentil cornice, are preserved in one of the shops (Fig. 138).

The shops with their upper floors, pergulae, were nineteen feet high. When the shutters were up they presented a monotonous appearance (Fig. 139), but on sunny days, when the articles offered for sale were attractively displayed, and buyers and idlers were loitering in front or leisurely passing from one to the other, shops and street alike were full of color and animation.

The floor of the fauces, as of many of the other rooms, is rich in color. It is made of small triangular pieces of marble and slate—red, yellow, green, white, and black. At the inner end it was marked off from the floor of the atrium by a stripe of finely executed mosaic, suggestive of a threshold (Fig. 140), now in the Naples Museum. Two tragic masks are realistically outlined, appearing in the midst of fruits, flowers, and garlands, the details of which are worked out with much skill.

The walls of the fauces are ornamented in an unusual manner. The ordinary decoration of the first style is carried to the height of eight feet. Above this on either side projects a tufa shelf about sixteen inches wide, on which is placed the façade of a diminutive temple; that on the left is seen in Fig. 141. The front of the cella, with closed doors, is presented in relief, but the four columns of the portico stand free. The shelf is supported underneath by a cornice which rested originally on stucco brackets in the shape of dogs; the underside is carved to represent a richly ornamented coffered ceiling.

The atrium was a room of imposing dimensions. The length is approximately 53 feet, the breadth 33; the height, as indicated by the remains of the walls and the pilasters, was certainly not less than 28 feet. Above was a coffered ceiling. The sombre shade of the floor, paved with small pieces of dark slate, formed an effective contrast with the white limestone edge and brilliant inner surface of the shallow impluvium, covered with pieces of colored marbles similar to those in the fauces. Still more marked was the contrast in the strong colors of the walls. Below was a broad surface of black; then a projecting white dentil cornice, and above this, masses of dark red, bluish green, and yellow. The decoration, as usual in the first style, was not carried to the ceiling, but stopped just above the side doors; the upper part of the wall was left in the white.

As one stepped across the mosaic border at the end of the fauces, a beautiful vista opened up before the eyes. From the aperture of the compluvium a diffused light was spread through the atrium brilliant with its rich coloring. At the rear the lofty entrance of the tablinum attracted the visitor by its stately dignity. Now the portières are drawn aside, and beyond the large window of the tablinum the columns of the first peristyle are seen (Fig. 141). The shrubs and flowers of the garden are bright with sunshine, and fragrant odors are wafted through the house; in the midst a slender fountain jet rises in the air and falls with a murmur pleasant to the ear. If the vegetation was not too luxuriant, one might look into the exedra, on the further side of the colonnade, and even catch glimpses of the trees and bushes in the garden of the second peristyle.

Of the rooms at the side of the atrium, one (f') was apparently the family sleeping room; places for two beds were set off by slight elevations in the floor. This room had been carefully redecorated in the second style; the room opposite, the decoration of which was inferior to that of the rest, was perhaps used by the porter (atriensis).

The tablinum (D), like that of the house of Sallust, had a broad window opening on the colonnade of the peristyle. In the middle of this room is a rectangular section paved with lozenge-shaped pieces of black, white, and green stone; the rest of the floor is of white mosaic. The floor of each ala was ornamented with a mosaic picture. In that at the left (C) are doves pulling a necklace out of a casket—a work of slight merit.

The mosaic picture found in the right ala is characterized by delicacy of execution and harmonious coloring. It is divided into two parts; above is a cat with a partridge; below, ducks, fishes, and shellfish. A large window in the rear wall of this ala opens into the small atrium, not for the admission of light, but for ventilation; in summer there would be a circulation of air between the two atriums.

Two doors, at the right and the left of the tablinum (seen in Fig. 143), opened into large dining rooms, one (E) nearly square, the other (F) oblong. Both had large windows on the side of the peristyle, and the one at the left also a door opening upon the colonnade. The mosaic pictures in the floors harmonized well with the purpose of the rooms. In one were fishes of various kinds, and sea monsters; in the other was the picture—often reproduced—in which the Genius of the autumn is represented as a vine-crowned boy sitting on a panther and drinking out of a deep golden bowl.

The colonnade of the first peristyle was of one story (Fig. 141). The entablature of the well proportioned Ionic columns presented a mixture of styles often met with in Pompeii, a Doric frieze with a dentil cornice. The wall surfaces were divided by pilasters and decorated in the first style. In the middle of the garden the delicately carved standard of a marble fountain basin may still be seen.

The open front of the broad exedra (H) was adorned with two columns, and at the rear was a window extending almost from side to side, opening upon the second peristyle. Between the columns of the entrance were mosaic pictures of the creatures of the Nile,—hippopotamus, crocodile, ichneumon, and ibis; and in the room, filling almost the entire floor, was the most famous of ancient mosaic pictures, the battle between Alexander and Darius.

This great composition has so often been reproduced that we need not present it here; as illustrating the style and treatment, however, we give a small section, in which the face of Alexander appears (Fig. 142). The mosaic is a reproduction of a painting made either in the lifetime of Alexander, or soon after his death. The battle is perhaps that of Issus. The left side of the picture is unfortunately only in part preserved. At the head of the Greek horsemen rides Alexander, fearless, unhelmeted, leading a charge against the picked guard of Darius. The long spear of the terrible Macedonian is piercing the side of a Persian noble, whose horse sinks under him. The driver of Darius's chariot is putting the lash to the horses, but the fleeing king turns with an expression of anguish and terror to witness the death of his courtier, the mounted noblemen about him being panic-stricken at the resistless onset of the Greeks. The grouping of the combatants, the characterization of the individual figures, the skill with which the expressions upon the faces are rendered, and the delicacy of coloring give this picture a high rank among ancient works of art. The colors in the mosaic are necessarily more subdued than in the original painting.

A corridor (p), both ends of which could be closed, led from the first to the second peristyle. The columns here, of the Doric order, were of brick, with tufa capitals, the shafts being edged, not fluted. The entablature rested on a line of timbers, as often in the buildings of the Tufa Period. In our restoration (Fig. 141) an upper colonnade of the Ionic order is assumed, extending about the four sides. The restoration is here possibly at fault; the colonnade may have been in two stories only on the south side, with twice as many columns above as below.

On either side of the exedra were two dining rooms (I, J), one open in its entire breadth upon the second peristyle, the other having a narrow door with two windows. The fine mosaic picture in I was found in so damaged a condition that the subject—a lion standing over a prostrate tiger—could not be made out, until a duplicate was discovered in 1885.

In the sleeping room on the other side of the corridor (N), which had been redecorated in the second style, remains of two beds were found. The room next to it (L) was the largest in this part of the house; at the time of the eruption it was without decoration and was used as a wine cellar. A great number of amphorae were found in it, as also in both peristyles.

One of the small rooms at the rear (q) was perhaps occupied by the gardener; the one next to it (r) was the doorkeeper's room. At v is a long, shallow niche, designed for statues. Nearer the corner were two smaller niches, each of which was ornamented in front with pilasters and a gable. These were the shrines of the household gods; in front of them were found two bronze tripods, two bronze lamp stands, two pairs of iron tongs, a couple of common lamps, and the remains of a branch of laurel with the bones and eggs of a dove that had nested in it. A bronze statuette of a Genius was found seemingly in one of the niches.

The domestic apartments were entered by a front door between the two shops at the right (Fig. 139). The vestibule, unlike that of the other entrance, is open to the street, the fauces being narrower and deeper. The relation of the tetrastyle to the Tuscan atrium is indicated in our transverse section (Fig. 143). The alae (c, c') are here at the middle of the sides; the one at the left served as a passageway between the two atriums. The four tufa Corinthian columns, nearly twenty feet high, are well preserved, as well as the pilasters at the entrances of the alae. A tablinum was not needed in this part of the house, and the space which it might have occupied was given to the andron (k) and a sleeping room opening on the first peristyle (l).

This part of the house was much damaged by the earthquake of 63, and there are many traces of repairs, particularly in the upper rooms. The walls were simply painted in the fourth style. Two money chests stood on large flat stones in the rear corners of this atrium.

In one of the rooms at the front (e) there are traces of shelves; stairs at one side led to the upper rooms at the left of the atrium, the shape and size of which are indicated in Fig. 143. On the right, also, there were small chambers over g, h, and h', on the same level as the second floor of the shop in front (4), and accessible only by means of the stairway in this shop; there were no other stairs in this corner of the house, and these rooms could not have been connected with chambers over other parts of the atrium, because there were no upper rooms over the fauces and the right ala (c'). Another stairway in d, partly of wood, led to chambers over i, d', n', n, o, o', and part of the kitchen, M.

Bronze vessels and remains of ivory feet belonging to a bedstead were found in the double room h, h'; but it is more likely that this was used as a storeroom for discarded furniture than that members of the family slept here.

A long corridor at the end of the first peristyle (m) connected the rooms at the right of the small atrium with the closet (n), the bath (o, o'), the kitchen (M), and the large bedroom (N) opening on the second peristyle. The two rooms of the bath, tepidarium and caldarium, were provided with hollow floors and walls, and were heated from the kitchen, into which the draft vents (p. 188) opened; in order to make the smoke less objectionable, the kitchen was built very high, with several windows.

The kitchen is of unusual size. A niche for the images of the household gods was placed in the wall at the left, so high up that it could only have been reached by means of a ladder. The front is shaped to resemble the façade of a small temple, and in it is a small altar of terra cotta for the burning of incense.

The first room at the right of the corridor (n') was completely excavated in 1900, and found to be a stall. In it were brought to light the skeletons of two cows and of four human beings, an adult and three children.

Chapter 310VII. A House Near the Porta Marina

The height of the important rooms can be accurately determined in so few houses of the Tufa Period, that special importance attaches to a house on the edge of the city north of the Porta Marina (No. 13), in which not merely the three-quarter columns at the entrance of the tablinum, but also the pilasters at the corners of the fauces and alae and part of the Ionic columns of the peristyle are seen in their full height. The atrium is the best preserved of any in the large pre-Roman houses, and the height of the ceiling in several of the adjoining rooms is clearly indicated. The house lies about seventy paces north of the Strada della Marina, on the last street leading to the right. It is without a name and is seldom visited.

Neither the decoration, renewed in the second style and without paintings, nor the arrangement of the rooms (Fig. 144) requires extended comment. There are two atriums, the smaller with the domestic apartments being at the left and entered directly from the street. The fauces of the other are of unusual width, being about two fifths of the width of the atrium. The alae are at the middle of the sides, as in the house of Epidius Rufus and the smaller atrium of the house of the Faun. At the sides of the tablinum are large windows opening into two dining rooms, which are entered from the peristyle.

More than a third of the plot enclosed by the peristyle is taken up by a deep rectangular basin for fish. At the rear are apparently other rooms, adjusted to the slope of the ground, which, however, have not yet been excavated.

It will, perhaps, be easier to appreciate the stately character of the pre-Roman atriums if we give a few of the dimensions which were used in making our restoration (Fig. 145).

The atrium is 41 by 29 feet. The tablinum measures 13 feet 9 inches between the three-quarter columns which stand, in place of the usual pilasters, at the entrance; it is thus half as wide as the atrium. The height of the tablinum at the entrance is 18 feet 6 inches; according to the proportions given by Vitruvius it should be 15 feet 4 inches.

The alae and fauces also exceed the dimensions presented by the Roman architect, the former being 12⅔ feet wide and 16¼ feet high, while the height of the broad fauces, 17½ feet, is only a trifle less than that of the tablinum.

The height of the walls of the atrium is easily determined with the help of the data before us; and the arrangement of the roof over the fauces, atrium, tablinum, and colonnade of the peristyle must have been very similar to that shown in our restoration. The entablature seen over the entrance of the left ala is restored in accordance with the architectural forms commonly used in the period when the house was built.

Both the three-quarter columns and the pilasters present a peculiarity of construction found also in other houses, but not easy to explain. The former appear as half-columns on the side of the tablinum, but present fully three fourths of their breadth on the side of the atrium. The pilasters at the entrances of the alae and fauces have, on the inside, a good proportion, the breadth being about one eighth of the height; but on the outside, toward the atrium, they are much more slender.

A well designed scroll pattern appears in the black and white mosaic floor of the fauces, which, as often in Pompeian houses, slopes gently toward the street. The floor of the atrium is made of black mosaic with pieces of colored marble arranged in rows, and white stripes at the edges. The base of a shrine for the household gods stands against the right wall. In the first room at the right was an alcove for a bed opposite the door; the ceiling of the alcove, in the form of a vault, was lower than that of the rest of the room.

Chapter XXXVIII. The House of the Silver Wedding

Among the more interesting of the large houses excavated in the last decade is the house of the Silver Wedding, which marks the limit of excavation in the fifth Region (V. ii. a on Plan VI). The main part was cleared in 1892 (Fig. 8); and in April, 1893, in connection with the festivities with which the Silver Wedding of the King and Queen of Italy was celebrated, a special excavation was made in one of the rooms, in the presence of their Majesties and of their imperial guests, the Emperor and Empress of Germany. Portions of the house are still covered, the façade, the inner end of the oecus, and the greater part of an extensive garden on the left side.

Notwithstanding the extent of the house—the greatest length is not far from 150 feet, the breadth of the excavated portion 130—and the number of apartments, the plan is simple (Fig. 146). From the fauces (a) we pass into a tetrastyle atrium (d), the largest of its kind yet discovered, with alae on either side and a high tablinum (o). Back of this is a Rhodian peristyle, at the rear of which is an exedra (y) with sleeping rooms at the right and the left (x, z). Opening into the rear of the peristyle on one side is the oecus (4), on the other a long dining room (w).

Another series of apartments lay between the peristyle and the garden at the right (2), a kitchen (s), and a bath (t-v). In front of the garden and extending to the street is a small house (α-ι) which had been joined to the larger establishment; it was connected with this by a small door under the stairs in the corner of the atrium (β), which opened into a side room (e) of the large atrium.

The essential parts of the house date from the Tufa Period. Alterations were made from time to time in the course of the two centuries during which it was occupied, but they were not so extensive as to obscure the original plan. The most obvious changes were those affecting the wall decoration.

In the small rooms at the right of the atrium are traces of the decoration of the first style, which was in vogue when the house was built. Toward the end of the Republic almost the whole interior was redecorated in the second style, but without paintings. Brilliant blocks and panels dating from this renovation may still be seen upon the upper part of the walls of the atrium and on those of the oecus, the exedra, the two bedrooms next to the exedra, and the front part of the long apodyterium.

Afterwards a few rooms were done over in the third style, of which scanty remains are found.

Lastly, after the fourth style had come into vogue, but before 60 A.D.—as shown by an inscription on a column of the peristyle—a large part of the house was redecorated in the fourth style, including the tablinum, the andron and the room at the right (q), the peristyle, the long dining room (w), and the inner portion of the apodyterium. The lower part of the walls of the atrium were also painted over, but with designs and coloring that harmonized well with the decoration of the second style above. In this house the history of Pompeian wall decoration can be followed from the century after the Second Punic War to the middle of the first century of our era, from the time of Cato the Elder to that of Claudius and Nero. There are few paintings, however, and they are not of special interest.

In marked contrast with the atriums in the house of the Faun and the other houses which we have examined, the atrium here had a relatively large compluvium (Fig. 147); all parts of the room must have been brilliantly lighted. In summer some kind of protection against the sun was a necessity. It was probably afforded by hanging curtains between the columns; on the side of each column, facing the corner of the atrium, is a bronze ring through which a cord might have been passed to use in drawing the curtains back and forth. The large compluvium with its supporting columns suggests the arrangement of the Corinthian atrium.

The dimensions of the atrium are monumental. The length is approximately 54 feet, the breadth 40; and the Corinthian columns of tufa coated with stucco, are 22¾ feet high.

At the rear of the impluvium is a fluted cistern curb of white marble (seen in Fig. 8). In the impluvium near the edge is the square pedestal of a fountain figure, which threw a jet into a round marble basin in front.

The doors of the rooms at the sides of the atrium were originally more than thirteen feet high; those which we now see are comparatively low. The height was reduced because a second floor was placed in the rooms, thus making low chambers, which were reached by three stairways, one (g) at the right of the atrium, the other two (k and m) on the opposite side. The upper rooms were lighted by small windows, part of which opened into the atrium, others upon the garden on the left side of the house. These changes were completed before the atrium received its decoration in the second style. There was no second story over the alae, the tablinum, or the rooms about the peristyle. In the left ala was once a large window opening on the garden, but it was afterwards walled up (p. 259).

The curtain fastenings on the pilasters at the front of the tablinum have been referred to in another connection (p. 256). The arrangement of the rooms at the sides is not unlike that in the house of Sallust; one, n, retained its original form; the other was divided up into an andron (p), with a bedroom (q) at one side.

The peristyle is remarkably well preserved. We find not only the columns in their full height, but also, except on the north side, large portions of the entablature, with its stucco ornamentation intact, supported on a line of planks placed upon the columns at the time of excavation; and the decoration of the walls retains much of its brilliancy of coloring.

The colonnade of this peristyle has been mentioned elsewhere as illustrating the Rhodian form (p. 260). The difference in height between the colonnade in front and on the other three sides was accentuated in the decoration. On the walls in front are large red panels separated by architectural designs on a yellow background; the walls under the lower part of the colonnade were painted with black panels, the designs of the narrow intermediate sections being on a white background. The lower third of the columns in front was yellow; at the sides and rear, dark red, like that on the lower part of the high columns in the atrium. Thus a pleasing contrast was made between the portions of the colonnade designed to receive the sunshine, particularly in winter, and the shadier parts; and the higher front served as an intermediate member between the lofty atrium with its stately tablinum and the lower rear division of the house.

The ornamentation of the architrave retains no trace of the decorative forms in vogue at the time when it was constructed. The surface, moulded in stucco, is divided into sections, corresponding with the capitals and intercolumniations, as in the colonnade of the Stabian Baths (Fig. 89); in these sections are small figures of birds and animals and other suitable designs, the effect being heightened by the use of color.

That the decoration of the peristyle received its present form before the earthquake is evident from an inscription scratched upon the plaster of one of the columns on the north side:

Nerone Caesare Augusto
Cosso Lentulo Cossi fil[io] co[n]s[ulibus]
VIII Idus Febr[u]arias
Dies Solis, Luna XIIIIX, nun[dinae] Cumis, V nun. Pompeis,—

'In the consulship of Nero and of Cossus Lentulus the son of Cossus,' that is 60 A.D. The dates given in the rest of the inscription are difficult to explain, and the reading of the number after Luna is uncertain. The memorandum seems to indicate that the eighth day before the Ides of February in this year was the market day at Cumae, being Sunday and the sixteenth day after the New Moon; and that the market day at Pompeii came three days later. The inscription is the earliest yet found in which a day of the week is named in connection with a date.

The garden plot enclosed by the peristyle was watered by means of two jets at the front corners, fed by pipes under the floor. In the middle was a slight elevation on which were found two crocodiles, a huge toad, and a frog of a whitish glazed earthenware, apparently made in Egypt. The figures are about sixteen inches long.

Each of the bedrooms at the rear had an alcove for a bed, the ceiling being vaulted over the alcove, flat between this and the door; a distinction between the two parts of the room was made also in the wall decoration and in the floor, of black and white mosaic. The frescoing on the walls of the sleeping rooms presents a brilliant variety of colors; the decoration of the exedra is in yellow. One of the bedrooms has a small side door (p. 261). In the large dining room at the right (w) the place for the table is indicated by an ornamental design in the mosaic floor; in the oecus (4) the part of the room designed for the table and couches is distinguished from the rest by a difference in the decoration both of the floor and of the wall.

In the oecus, the excavation was made from which the house received its name. The peristyle had already been cleared, and the volcanic débris had been, for the most part, removed from the front part of the oecus, leaving a layer at the bottom about two feet deep. The King and Queen of Italy, with the Emperor and Empress of Germany and a small suite, stationed themselves in the corner of the peristyle opposite the opening of the oecus; when all was ready a line of workmen proceeded to draw back the loose fragments of pumice stone, exposing the floor to view. Here nothing was found except the bronze fastenings of the large doors; but a more fruitful outcome followed a similar search in a room of a small house adjoining the oecus on the south, in which several vessels of bronze were brought to light.

The bath is unusually complete for a private house, comprising a long, narrow apodyterium (v), an open-air swimming tank in the garden (1), a tepidarium (u), and a caldarium (t). Steps led down into the swimming tank at the corner nearest the door of the apodyterium, and also on the side furthest from the house; on the same side a jet fell into it from a marble standard adorned with a lion's head. If we imagine a thick growth of shrubs and flowers about the tank, we have the setting which explains the tasteful decoration of the frigidarium in the Stabian Baths (p. 191) and in the Baths near the Forum.

The pavement of the apodyterium is especially effective, being composed of small bits of black, white, dark red, green, and yellow marble and stone; near the rear wall a place for a couch is left white.

The caldarium and the side of the tepidarium next to it were provided with hollow walls; a hollow floor extended under both rooms. In the left wall of the tepidarium is the bronze mouth of a water pipe; perhaps in winter a cold bath was taken here rather than in the swimming tank. In the caldarium the niche for the labrum remains; the bath basin probably stood opposite the entrance, where it could be easily heated from the kitchen.

Above the broad hearth of the kitchen (s), which stands against the wall adjoining the garden, are the vestiges of a painting of the two Lares; near them a serpent is seen coiled around an altar, on which is a large pine cone. At the end next the caldarium is a depression in the floor, for convenience in building a fire to heat the bath rooms. In the corner is a foundation of masonry to support the vessel, of lead, in which water was kept for the bath.

The colonnade at the left of the house (6 on the Plan; see Fig. 148), with its slender eight-sided columns, seems to have been thrown down by the earthquake of 63, and removed. In the place of four of the columns an open-air triclinium was made, like that in the house of Sallust. It is well preserved, and shows an interesting peculiarity of construction. When the table was not in use, a jet of water would spring from the foundation of masonry supporting the round top. The water was conveyed by a lead pipe, and at the rear of the colonnade one may still see the stopcock by which the flow was regulated.

The stairway at the left of the small atrium (β) led to rooms over the front of the house. Over the rooms at the rear, a bedroom (γ), a central room (δ) taking the place of the tablinum, and a corridor (ε), was a dining room, the front of which was supported by columns (p. 275), the stairway being in the corridor; fragments of the tufa columns are lying on the floor. At the back of the house was originally only the small sleeping room (ζ) with a simple decoration in the first style, and a colonnade (η) with Doric columns opening on the garden (κ). Later the colonnade was turned into an apartment, and two rooms were built at the left, a dining room (θ) and a bedroom (ι).

In the front of one of the rooms (λ) is an unusually well preserved niche for the images of the household gods, ornamented with stucco reliefs and painted in the last style. On the rear wall stands Hercules, with the lion's skin hanging from his left arm, his club on the left shoulder. In his right hand he holds a large bowl above a round altar; at the left is a hog ready to be offered as a victim.

Chapter XXXIX. The House of Epidius Rufus

The house of Epidius Rufus, built, like those previously described, in the pre-Roman time, presents a pleasing example of a Corinthian atrium. In one respect it resembles the oldest Pompeian houses, such as that of the Surgeon; in the place of the peristyle is a garden extending back from a colonnade at the rear of the tablinum. In a period when large peristyles were the fashion, a Pompeian of wealth and taste, whose building lot was ample enough to admit of an extension of his house toward the rear, contented himself with a single group of rooms arranged about one central apartment.

The arrangement of rooms is seen at a glance (Fig. 149). The vestibule, like that of the principal entrance in the house of the Faun, had a triple door at the end toward the street (shown in Fig. 150), which was no doubt left open in the daytime. Entering, one would pass into the fauces ordinarily through the small door at the right (p. 248), the large double doors between the vestibule and the fauces only being opened for the reception of clients or on special occasions.

The front of each ala (7, 13) is adorned with two Ionic columns. At the corners of the entrances are pilasters, the Corinthian capitals of which have a striking ornament, a female head, moulded in stucco, looking out from the midst of the acanthus leaves. The eyes and hair are painted, and in one instance the features of a bacchante can be recognized.

In the right ala is an elaborate house shrine, built like a temple with a façade supported by columns, raised on a podium five feet high (Fig. 151). On the front of the podium is a dedicatory inscription to the Genius of the master (p. 270).

The tablinum originally opened on the atrium in its full width, the entrance being set off by pilasters at the corners. It was then higher; when the entrance was changed the height was reduced to about twelve feet. The sixteen Doric columns about the impluvium, well preserved for the most part, are only a trifle over fourteen feet high.

The contrast between this atrium and the lofty halls of the houses of Sallust and the Faun was indeed marked. Here the atrium had become more like a court than a hall; yet the impluvium, paved with tufa, was retained, and we find the same arrangement for the flow of water as in many houses with Tuscan and tetrastyle atriums. On the edge of the impluvium at the rear is the pedestal of a fountain figure which threw a jet into a basin resting on two rectangular standards; the places of these, as well as the course of the feed pipe, are indicated on the plan. Behind the pedestal is a round cistern curb; another jet rose in the middle of the impluvium.

The apartment at the right of the tablinum (20) was a dining room. Of the smaller rooms about the atrium, three (6, 8, and 12) were sleeping rooms for members of the family; some of the others were so poorly decorated as to prompt the suggestion that they were intended for slaves. That next the stairs (14) was a storeroom; the traces of the shelving are easily distinguished. Under the stairs was a low room (16), perhaps used for a similar purpose; the small double room (17) was also low, and used as a sleeping room.

The domestic apartments were reached by the andron (18). In the kitchen (21) is a broad hearth (b); a dim light was furnished by narrow windows. The little room at the entrance of the kitchen (a) was perhaps a storeroom; the closet, as often, was in the corner of the kitchen.

At the opposite end of the colonnade is the gardener's room (23). The main part of the garden (24), as indicated by the arrangement of the ground, was used for vegetables; the small flower garden at the rear (25) was on a higher level.

In the house originally there was no second floor. In the Roman period, apparently near the end of the Republic, a large upper room—probably a dining room—was built over the kitchen; and there may have been one or two small storerooms at the head of the stairway which was built in one of the side rooms of the atrium.

Traces of the first and third decorative styles are found in the atrium; but the most interesting remains are those of the last style. The alae and several rooms were redecorated shortly before the destruction of the city. The dining room (20) contains a series of paintings illustrating the contest between Apollo and Marsyas; they are skilfully displayed in a light architectural framework on a white ground. On the wall at the left (at a) Apollo is seen with left foot advanced, striking with his right hand a large cithara which rests against his left shoulder. Opposite him (at b) is Marsyas, playing the double flute; on the intervening panels (d, e) are the Muses, who are acting as judges in the contest of skill. The painting at c seems to relate to Apollo, but the subject has not been explained. The choice of subjects such as these may have been influenced by the cult of the early divinity of the city; but it probably implies a taste for poetry and music on the part of the proprietor.

There were no shops in the front of this house, but in one respect our restoration of the façade (Fig. 150) can not be taken as indicating the appearance of such houses in general. Here the front line was set back several feet from that of the adjoining houses on either side, and the space thus gained was given to a terrace or ramp about four feet high, mounted by steps at either end. The elevation of the front entrance above the sidewalk and the placing of the approaches at the ends of the ramp gave the house an appearance of seclusion.

Chapter XL. The House of the Tragic Poet

In the "Last Days of Pompeii" the house of the Tragic Poet is presented to us as the home of Glaucus. Though not large, it was among the most attractive in the city. It received its present form and decoration not many years before the eruption, apparently after the earthquake of 63, and well illustrates the arrangements of the Pompeian house of the last years.

The house received its name at the time of excavation, in consequence of a curious misinterpretation of a painting—now in the Naples Museum—which was found in the tablinum. The subject is the delivery to Admetus of the oracle which declared that he must die unless some one should voluntarily meet death in his place. On one side sits Admetus, with his devoted queen Alcestis; opposite them is the messenger who is reading the oracle from a roll of papyrus. The excavators thought that the scene represented a poet reciting his verses; and since they found, in the floor of the tablinum, a mosaic picture in which an actor is seen making preparations for the stage, they concluded that the figure with the papyrus in the wall painting must be a tragic poet.

The plan (Fig. 152) presents slight irregularities; yet in essential points the arrangement of rooms does not differ materially from that which we have found in the houses of the pre-Roman time. As our section (Fig. 154) shows, all the parts of the house are comparatively low; the ceiling of the atrium and of the large dining room at the rear (15) were only a few feet higher than the colonnade of the peristyle. The entrances of the ala—here there is but one—and of the tablinum are not adorned with pilasters; plain wooden casings were used instead. The second story rooms are not an afterthought but a part of the architect's design; the stairways (4) leading to them are symmetrically placed at the sides of the atrium. There was no upper floor, however, over the fauces, the atrium, or the tablinum. To a modern visitor this dwelling would have seemed more homelike and comfortable than the monumental houses of the earlier time.

The large shops (2) are both connected with the house by doors opening into the fauces (1). They were doubtless the proprietor's place of business. In one of them gold ornaments were found, but we should scarcely be warranted in assuming from this fact that the master of the house was a goldsmith.

In the floor of the fauces, immediately behind the double front door, is a dog, attached to a chain, outlined in black and white mosaic, with the inscription, cave canem, 'Beware of the dog!' The picture was for many years in the Naples Museum. The black and white mosaic is well preserved in the atrium, the tablinum (Fig. 153), and the dining room opening on the peristyle, as well as in the fauces.

The purpose of the various rooms is in most cases easy to determine. The first at the left of the atrium (5) was the room of the porter, atriensis. The three rooms marked 6 were sleeping rooms, as were also 12 and 14 opening on the peristyle; 6' was a storeroom, 13 the kitchen. There was a colonnade on three sides of the peristyle; against the wall at the rear stands the shrine of the household gods (seen in Fig. 153) in which was found a marble statuette of a satyr carrying fruits in the fold of a skin hanging in front of him.

The decoration of the large dining room (15) is especially effective. In the front of the room is a broad door opening into the colonnade of the peristyle; each of the three sides contains three panels, in the midst of a light but carefully finished architectural framework. In the central panels are large paintings: at r, a young couple looking at a nest of Cupids; at q, Theseus going on board ship, leaving behind him the beautiful Ariadne; and at p a composition in which Artemis is the principal figure. In four of the smaller panels are the Seasons, represented as graceful female figures hovering in the air; the others present youthful warriors with helmet, shield, sword, and spear, all well conceived and executed with much delicacy.

The atrium, unlike most of those at Pompeii, was rich in wall paintings. Six panels, more than four feet high, presented a series of scenes from the story of the Trojan war, as told in the "Iliad." These were united with the decorative framework in such a way as to make a harmonious and pleasing whole; the main divisions of the right wall of the atrium, as well as of the fauces and tablinum, are indicated in Fig. 154.

In arranging the pictures, the decorators had little regard for the order of events. The subjects were the Nuptials of Zeus and Hera (at a on the plan); the judgment of Paris (b)—though this is doubtful, as the picture is now entirely obliterated; the delivery of Briseis to the messenger of Agamemnon (c); the departure of Chryseis (d), and seemingly Thetis bringing arms across the sea to Achilles (f). Of the painting at e only a fragment remained, too small to make it possible to recognize the subject. The fragment at f, in which were seen a Triton, two figures riding on a sea horse, and a Cupid on a dolphin, is now entirely faded. Half of the painting in which Chryseis appears was already ruined at the time of excavation; the other half was transferred to the Naples Museum, together with the paintings that were best preserved, the Nuptials of Zeus and Hera, and the sending away of Briseis.

The two pictures last mentioned are among the best known of the Pompeian paintings, and have often been reproduced. In one (Fig. 273) we see Zeus sitting at the right, while Hypnos presents to him Hera, whose left wrist he gently grasps in his right hand as if to draw her to him. Hera seems half reluctant, and her face, which the artist, in order to enhance the effect, has directed toward the beholder rather than toward Zeus, is queenly in its majesty and power. The scene is located on Mt. Ida. In the background stands a pillar, on which are three small figures of lions; below at the side are two pipes, cymbals, and a tambourine, all sacred to the potent divinity of Mt. Ida, Cybele. Three youths, crowned with garlands, appear in the lower right hand corner of the picture; they are perhaps the Dactyli, demons skilled in the working of metals who followed in the train of Cybele.

A higher degree of dramatic interest is manifested in the other painting, which we present in outline (Fig. 155). In the foreground at the right, Patroclus leads forward the weeping Briseis. In the middle Achilles, seated, looks toward Patroclus with an expression of anger, and with an impatient gesture of the right hand directs him to deliver up the beautiful captive to the messenger of Agamemnon, who stands at the left waiting to receive her. Behind Achilles is Phoenix, his faithful companion, who tries to soften his anger with comforting words. Further back the helmeted heads of warriors are seen, and at the rear the tent of Achilles.

The scene is well conceived. Yet in both this picture and the one previously described, the composition seems to lack depth and perspective. The artist is remarkably skilful in portraying facial expression, and foreground details; his limitations are apparent in the handling of groups. We have the feeling that the first designs were not made freely with brush or pencil, but that the artist was here translating into painting designs which he found already worked out in reliefs. The original paintings, of which these are copies, very likely go back to the fourth century B.C.

Another painting worthy of more than passing mention was found on a wall of the peristyle (at o), and removed to the Naples Museum. The subject is the sacrifice of Iphigenia, who was to be offered up to Artemis that a favorable departure from Aulis might be granted to the Greek fleet assembled for the expedition against Troy (Fig. 156).

At the right stands Calchas, deeply troubled, his sheath in his left hand, his unsheathed sword in his right, his finger upon his lips. The hapless maid with arms outstretched in supplication is held by two men, one of whom is perhaps Ulysses. At the left is Agamemnon, with face averted and veiled head, overcome with grief. Beside him leans his sceptre, and on a pillar near by we see an archaic statue of Artemis with a torch in each hand, a dog on either side. Just as the girl is to be slain, Artemis appears in the sky at the right, and from the clouds opposite a nymph emerges bringing a deer, which the goddess accepts as a substitute.

In this painting, also, though the style is entirely different from that of the others, we perceive the limitations of the artist in the treatment of the background. Nevertheless the boldness of the conception, and the skill manifested in the handling of several of the figures, seem to point to an original of more than ordinary merit.

Not far from 400 B.C. the sacrifice of Iphigenia was made the subject of a painting by Timanthes, in which the maiden was represented as standing beside the altar. We are told that the artist painted Calchas sorrowful, Ulysses more sorrowful, Ajax lamenting, and Menelaus in sorrow so deep that deeper sorrow could not be expressed; finding it impossible to portray the grief of the father, Agamemnon, Timanthes represented him with veiled head.

The veiled Agamemnon appears in our painting, and the figure of Calchas perhaps reflects the conception of Timanthes. For the rest, it is difficult to establish a relation between the two pictures; even if we did not know that Iphigenia, in the painting of Timanthes, stood beside an altar, we could scarcely believe that a great painter would have represented her thus awkwardly carried. Undoubtedly the Pompeian painting, or its original, is indebted to the masterpiece of the Greek artist; but the decorative painter has adapted this to suit his purpose, omitting the figures, the facial expression of which was most difficult to reproduce, and at the same time attempting to heighten the effect by making more prominent the helplessness and terror of the victim.

Chapter XLI. The House of the Vettii

The house of the Vettii, excavated in the years 1894-1895, bears the same relation to the other houses built in the Roman period that the house of the Faun does to those of the earlier time; it is the most important representative of its class. It was situated in a quiet part of the city, and was not conspicuous by reason of its size; its interest for us lies chiefly in its paintings and in the adornment of the well preserved peristyle.

The relationship between the two owners, Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva (p. 508) is not known. They were perhaps freedmen, manumitted by the same master; Conviva, as we learn from a painted inscription, was a member of the Brotherhood of Augustus,—Vetti Conviva, Augustal[is].

The exterior of the house (Fig. 157) was unpretentious. The main entrance was on the east side, and there was a side door near the southeast corner; elsewhere the street walls were unbroken except by small, square windows, part of which were in low second story rooms.

The vestibule (Fig. 158, a), as in the house of Epidius Rufus (p. 248), was connected with the fauces (b) by a large double door and also by a small door at the right. The atrium (c) is without a tablinum; at the rear it opens directly on the peristyle. One of the alae (h) at the time of the eruption was used as a wardrobe. At the sides of the atrium were two money chests; the one at the right is seen in Fig. 159.

Opening on the peristyle are three large apartments (n, p, q), and two smaller rooms (o, r). A door at the right leads into a small side peristyle (s, shown in Fig. 160), with a quiet dining room (t) and bedroom (u).

The domestic apartments were near the front of the house. At the right of the principal atrium is a small side atrium (v) without a separate street entrance. Grouped about it were rooms for the slaves and the kitchen (w) with a large hearth (Fig. 125). Beyond the kitchen is a room for the cook (x'). At the rear of the small atrium is the niche for the household gods (Fig. 127).

The corridor at the left of the principal atrium (γ) led to an unimportant room (β) with a door opening on a side street. In this corridor there was a stairway to the second story, which extended over this corner of the house (above e, f, h, n, o, β, δ). Along the front also were low chambers, over the fauces and the small rooms on either side (d, k), and over the rooms adjoining the small atrium (x, y, z).

In the accompanying sections two restorations of the interior are given. In the first (Fig. 159) we are looking toward the right side of the atrium and the inner end of the peristyle; the depth of the peristyle more than equals that of the atrium, together with the vestibule and fauces. The difference in height between the atrium and the peristyle, as in the house of the Tragic Poet, is much less than in the houses built in the pre-Roman period; and the corners of the alae were protected by simple wooden casings, altogether unlike the stately pilasters of the olden time.

The transverse section (Fig. 160) presents the long side of the peristyle next to the atrium, with the side of the small peristyle at the north end. The extent of the house is greater measured across the two peristyles (along the line C-D on the plan) than from front to rear. Of the three entrances from the atrium into the peristyle, that in the middle is broader and higher than the other two, which are not much wider than ordinary doors; the arrangement of the openings is similar to that in houses having a tablinum open toward the peristyle with an andron on one side, and on the other a room with a door corresponding with the door of the andron.

The columns of the peristyle are well preserved (Fig. 161). They are white, with ornate capitals moulded in stucco and painted with a variety of colors. Part of the entablature also remains; the architrave is ornamented with an acanthus arabesque in white stucco relief on a yellow background.

The roof of the greater part of the colonnade has been restored, and the garden has been planted with shrubs in accordance with the arrangement indicated by the appearance of the ground at the time of excavation. Nowhere else in Pompeii will the visitor so easily gain an impression of the aspect presented by a peristyle in ancient times. The main part of the house was searched for objects of value after the eruption, but the garden was left undisturbed, and we see in it to-day the fountain basins, statuettes, and other sculptures placed there by the proprietor.

In each corner of the colonnade is a round fountain basin (indicated on the plan), at each side an oblong basin, all of marble. Jets fell into them from statuettes standing on pedestals beside the columns; there were two figures for each side basin, one each for those at the corners. The two statuettes at the inner end of the colonnade (Fig. 162) are of bronze; they represent a boy with a duck, from the bill of which the water spurted. The rest are of marble, and not of special interest. Among them are a Bacchus and two satyrs. The water pipes were so well preserved that it has been found possible to place them in repair, and they are now ready for use. There were also two fountains in the garden.

Near the middle of the garden is a round, marble table. Three others stand under the colonnade, one of which, at the right near the inner end, is particularly elegant. The three feet are carved to represent lions' claws; the heads above are well executed, and there are traces of yellow color on the manes. On two pillars in the garden are double busts, the subjects of which are taken from the bacchic cycle. One represents Bacchus and a bacchante (Fig. 257), the other Bacchus and Ariadne; there are traces of painting on the hair, beard, and eyes.

The wall paintings of this house are the most remarkable yet discovered at Pompeii. Although the decoration of which they form a part is throughout of the fourth style, they fall into two groups, an earlier and a later, distinguished by differences in composition and handling that are easily perceived.

The earlier paintings are found in the atrium (c), the alae (h, i), and the large room at the end of the peristyle (q). At the time when they were painted the left ala (h) was connected with the room behind it (n) by a door, and had a large window opening on the peristyle like that in the other ala (seen in Fig. 160). Afterwards both window and door were walled up and the ala was turned into a wardrobe. After this change had been made, as the remains of the masonry show, the earthquake of 63 threw down a part of the wall between the ala and the peristyle. The earlier paintings, then, must have been placed upon the walls before the year 63, in the reign of Claudius or the earlier part of the reign of Nero.

The later pictures are on the walls of the fauces (b), the large apartment at the left of the atrium (e), the colonnade of the peristyle (l), the two dining rooms opening on the peristyle (n, p), and the small peristyle (s) with the adjoining rooms (t, u); to the same class belongs also the painting of the Genius with the Lares in the side atrium (v), which, aside from this, contains no pictures. The remaining rooms present nothing of interest.

The paintings of the first group are characterized by refinement in the choice of subjects, fertility in the composition, firmness of touch in the drawing, and exquisite finish in even the smallest details. The colors used are simple and harmonious, violent contrasts being avoided. A number of these pictures show the hand of a true artist, whose work has been found in no other house, and the system of decoration is the most effective of its kind in Pompeii.

The decoration of the walls painted after the earthquake is not unlike that found in other houses upon walls of the fourth style. The designs are sketchy and without painstaking in the handling of details; the lines are coarse, the colors sometimes crude. The pictures in the panels are by different painters, some of whom were not without skill, yet none far above the average. One of the decorators had a fondness for representing mythological death scenes, manifesting a taste little short of barbarous.

The contrast between the earlier and the later decoration is so marked that it seems impossible to explain except on the assumption of a change of owners. We may well believe that about the middle of the first century this was the home of a family of culture and standing, who secured for the decoration of it the best artist that could be obtained, bringing him perhaps from Rome or from a Greek city. But within a score of years afterwards the house passed into the hands of the Vettii, freedmen, perhaps, whose taste in matters of art was far inferior to that of the former occupants, and a number of rooms were redecorated.

The excellent preservation of a large part of both the earlier and the later decoration gives the house the appearance of an art gallery. To describe fully and interpret all the paintings would require a small volume. The limitations of space make it possible to present here only the more important; we commence with those in the large room at the right of the peristyle, which are the most interesting of the entire series.

This apartment (q) may have been used either as a dining room or as a sitting room. The scheme of decoration is indicated in Fig. 163, which presents the division of the end wall; the side walls had five large panels instead of three.

The ground of the base is black. The stripe separating the base from the main part of the wall is red, except the small sections (4, 4), which have a black ground; the vertical stripes between the panels are black, and the same color forms the background of the border above. The ground of the panels is cinnabar red. The painting in the central panel (1) has not been preserved; in those at the sides (2) are floating figures. The upper division of the wall (6) is filled with an architectural framework upon a white background, against which many figures, skilfully disposed, stand out with unusual distinctness.

The floating figures in the side panels differ from those found elsewhere in the choice of subjects. Here instead of satyrs and bacchantes we find gods and heroes. In one panel is Poseidon with a female figure, perhaps Amymone; in another, Apollo with Daphne. Bacchus and Ariadne also appear, and Perseus with Andromeda.

The figures in the upper part of the wall at the end of the room belong to the bacchic cycle,—Silenus, satyrs, and bacchantes. Of those at the sides, one, near the right-hand corner, represents a poet with a roll of papyrus against his chin, the open manuscript case, scrinium, at his feet; opposite him sits a maiden clothed in white, drinking in his words. A comic mask on the left wall seems to suggest a writer of comedy, and the scene reminds one of the letter of Glycera to Menander, in Alciphron: "What is Athens without Menander, what Menander without Glycera? Without me, who make ready your masks, who lay out your costume, and then stand behind the scenes pressing my finger tips into the palms of my hands till the applause breaks forth. Then all a-trembling I breathe again, and enfold you, godlike poet, in my arms."

The figures in which we are specially interested, however, are not those in the upper or middle division of the wall, but those in the black stripes (3), nine and ten inches wide, under the panels, in the narrow sections (4) and in the corresponding sections of the base.

In each of the sections at the bottom is a standing figure. In those of the end wall (5) are a satyr and a bacchante; in the two nearest the middle of each side wall are Amazons, in the rest female figures with implements of sacrifice. The Amazons, armed with battle-axe and shield, are full of life; they are distinguished by the colors of their mantles and their Phrygian caps.

In the narrow sections on the end walls (4), and all but four of the others, were Psyches gathering flowers. Only a part of the scenes are preserved; in each are three figures, grouped with a pleasing variety and rendered with singular delicacy of touch. In one, the Psyches are sprightly children (Fig. 164); in another, young girls; and in a third we see a lady sitting at ease and plucking the flowers close at hand, while two maids gather the blossoms beyond her reach.

The two narrow sections nearest the middle panel of each side wall contained mythological scenes, of which three are preserved. The subjects are taken from the cycle of myths relating to Apollo and Artemis. In one of the pictures both the divinities appear. Apollo has just slain the Python, which lies coiled about the Omphalos, the sacred symbol of the god as the giver of oracles at Delphi. His bow and quiver are hanging upon a column in the background, and he moves forward with vigorous step singing the Paean with an accompaniment upon the cithara. At the right, Artemis, with a quiver and long hunting spear, leans upon a pillar looking at her brother. Nearer the Omphalos are a priest and a female attendant, with a bull intended for sacrifice; the relation of these to the rest of the scene is not clear (Plate VIII.).

The companion picture takes us to a sanctuary dedicated to Artemis. At the left a gilt bronze image of the goddess, in hunting costume, stands upon a pillar, to the side of which a bow, quiver, and boar's head are fastened. On one side of the round altar in the middle is a white hind, sacred to the goddess; on the other, moving toward it with a sword in the uplifted right hand, is a kingly figure, the face turned with a wild and threatening look toward a frightened attendant; another attendant, back of the hind, seems not yet to have noticed the sacrilegious intruder. The composition is full of dramatic power; the subject can be none other than the slaying of the hind of Artemis by the impious Agamemnon (Plate VIII.).

The third of these small paintings presents a scene not infrequently met with on Pompeian walls, Orestes and Pylades at Tauris in the presence of King Thoas, and of Iphigenia, who is now a priestess of Artemis. The conception is akin to that of the painting in the house of the Citharist (Fig. 182), but the picture is partially obliterated.

The long stripe below the panels is preserved in more than half its length, on the end wall (3), on that at the right, and on the short sections of the front wall; there is also a fragment on the left side. It contains a series of charming pictures representing Cupids and Psyches. Some of the little creatures are engaged in sports, others are celebrating a festival, while others still are busying themselves with the manifold work of everyday life. The execution is less careful than in the small mythological pictures; yet the figures are so full of life, their movements are so purposeful, and their bearing so suggestive that we seem to catch the expression of the tiny faces. The Cupids and Psyches, whether playing the part of children or of men and women in elegant attire, whether garland makers or vinedressers or smiths, are always Cupids and Psyches still; we instinctively recognize them as such, not by reason of outward attributes so much as by their bearing. Prosaic daily toil has nowhere been more happily idealized.

The Cupids at the left of the entrance are playing with a duck. One holds the duck under his arm ready to let it go; the other stretches out his hands to catch it as it tries to escape. The group on the other side are throwing at a wooden mark. One is setting up the target. Two are making ready to throw, one of them being mounted on the back of a companion; the successful contestant in such games was called "the king," the loser, "the ass," because he had to carry the others upon his back. A fifth stands ruefully beside the target, awaiting his turn to carry the victor.

Among the most attractive groups are those of the flower dealers, at the end of the right wall near the entrance. First we see the gardener leading to market a goat laden with roses; his little son trudges along behind the animal, carrying a basket of roses suspended from a stick on the left shoulder. Next is the dealer, who stands behind a broad marble table covered with garlands; he is handing two to a youth who already has several, while a Psyche near by is placing the garlands in a basket. Beyond these, workmen are making garlands, which hang in profusion from a wooden frame. At the extreme left is a lady asking the price. One of the workmen holds up two fingers, signifying two asses. The price of a wreath is given in a graffito as three asses (p. 497).

In the following scene Cupids appear as makers and sellers of oil (Fig. 165). At the right is the oil press. It stands upon a square stone, the upper surface of which contains a semicircular incision to catch the oil and carry it to a round vessel standing in front. The two sides, each with a broad vertical opening, are securely fastened by a crosspiece at the top. The ends of four horizontal boards are fitted to the openings, in which they move up and down. The olives are placed under the lowest board; in the spaces between the others, and between the upper board and the crosspiece, thick wooden wedges are driven. As the workmen drive in the wedges with heavy mallets, the pressure upon the olives is increased, and the oil is forced out. The arrangement may be more plainly seen in Fig. 166, from a wall painting at Herculaneum, in which a similar press appears.

At the left of the press is a large kettle resting on a tripod. The oil is being stirred as it is heated; a similar kettle appears in the scene in a shop presented in the other part of the picture. Further on are two figures beside a deep vessel, but the process represented is not clear.

The rest of the picture relates to the selling of oil. In the background is a cupboard, with a statuette—possibly an Aphrodite—on the upper shelf. In front is an open chest resting on four legs. Both the cupboard and the box contain bottles and jars of various shapes and sizes for holding oil; a Cupid has just taken one up. On the top of the chest is a roll of papyrus with a pair of scales; oil was sold by weight. A memorandum on the wall of an adjoining house reads: XIII. K. Fe. oli. p. DCCCXXXX,—'January 20, 840 pounds of oil.'

The central figure of the group at the left is the lady who has come to make a purchase. A cushioned seat has been placed for her, with a footstool; the maid stands motionless behind, a large fan resting on the right shoulder. The proprietor holds in his right hand a spoon containing a sample which he has just taken from the jar under his arm; the lady seems to be testing the quality on the back of her wrist. The article sold is doubtless the fine perfumed oil, not the common variety.

Hardly less animated are the scenes in which Cupids take the place of goldsmiths (Fig. 167). At the right is the furnace, adorned with the head of Hephaestus, the patron divinity of workers in metals. In front is a Cupid with a blowpipe and pincers. Behind it another is working with a graver's tool upon a large gold vessel. The pose, suggesting at the same time exertion and perfect steadiness, is rendered with remarkable skill.

Next is a figure at a small anvil; then the counter for the sale of jewellery, which is displayed in three open drawers. Behind the case containing the drawers a large and a smaller pair of scales are seen.

The first two figures in the other half of the picture represent a lady purchaser, seated, and the proprietor, who weighs out an object with a small pair of scales. The left hands of both point to the balance; they are deeply interested in the weighing. Lastly, we see two figures at an anvil. Nothing could be more natural than the pose of the one at the left, holding the metal upon the anvil for his companion to strike, yet drawing back as far as possible in order to avoid the sparks.

The processes of the fullery also are illustrated,—treading the clothes in vats, carding, inspection of the cloth to see if the work is properly done, and folding the finished garments for delivery to the owners.

Three of the pictures—two on the end wall and one on the left side—relate to wine.

The first is a vintage scene (Fig. 168), of which only a part is distinct. At the left is a Cupid gathering grapes, from vines trained to run from tree to tree. The press is worked on a different principle from the one shown in Fig. 165. Here two Cupids are turning a windlass by means of long levers. The windlass is connected by a pulley with a press beam above; as the end of this is gradually lowered, the pressure upon the grapes underneath is increased.

The triumph of Bacchus is presented in another picture, which is fortunately in a better state of preservation. At the head of the procession is a bacchante, riding on a panther. Bacchus sits in a four-wheeled chariot drawn by goats; the coachman is a satyr. Behind the triumphal car is Pan, dancing and playing the double flute; last comes a vine-crowned Cupid, dancing, with a large mixing bowl upon his shoulder. The skill shown in the pose of the dancing figures is especially noteworthy; they stand lightly erect, seeming not to feel their weight or the exertion of rapid movement.

In the last of this series, upon the left wall, Cupids appear as wine dealers; the part of the picture that has been preserved is shown in Fig. 169. The rustic bearing of the seller, at the left, is in pleasing contrast with the free and graceful carriage of the well-bred buyer, to whom he is handing a sample of the wine in a cup. At the right two servants are drawing another sample from an amphora; one tips the amphora so cautiously that the other, who is holding the bowl, presses the neck gently with his left hand in order to make the slender stream flow faster.

Rapidity of movement reaches a climax in the middle picture of the right wall, which represents the games of the Circus. The scene is laid in the country; each goal is marked by three trees. Antelopes take the place of horses, and the groups are conceived with wonderful realism. The tiny, fluttering garments of the drivers display the colors of the four parties,—green, red, white, and blue.

Two of the pictures on the end wall are so damaged that it is not easy to make out the details. One of them, like that just described, presents a purely Roman subject—the festival of Vesta (Fig. 170). Cupids and Psyches are reclining at ease about a serving table in the shape of a deep platter with two handles, on which drinking vessels are seen; in the background are two asses, sacred to Vesta (p. 98). Some, at least, of the Cupid pictures could not have been taken from Greek originals.

In the atrium also there was a black stripe containing Cupids similar to those already described, but the figures are not so well preserved. The most interesting scene represents a sacrifice to Fortuna. Cupids appear also riding and driving. Some are mounted on goats and engaged in a contest. One stands on a crab, guiding the ungainly creature with reins and plying the whip; another is similarly mounted on a lobster. A few are in chariots, the chariot in one case being drawn by two dolphins.

In each division of the wall of the atrium near the bottom is the half-length figure of a child, painted on a dark red ground. The children are busied with vessels of all kinds, apparently intended for sacrifice. The seriousness of their task, the importance which they attach to their helpfulness, is finely expressed in the faces, which are individualized in the manner of a true artist.

We may dismiss the later paintings of the house with few words. In the fauces (b) are small monochrome panels containing a pair of deer, a cock fight, vases, and a wallet with a herald's staff, attributes of Mercury, who perhaps had a place among the Penates of the house.

In the room at the left of the atrium (e) is a painting of Cyparissus, the youth beloved of Apollo, with his wounded deer on the ground near him; in another part of the room is the wrestling match between Pan and Eros. Among the figures seen in the architectural framework of the upper division of the wall is Zeus, sitting on his throne, represented as a youth, unbearded; Leda with the swan also appears, and Danaë holding out her robe to catch the golden rain.

The direction of the owner's tastes is perhaps indicated by a painting in the peristyle, at the middle of the wall under the colonnade at the left. It contains a portrait, probably of an author; near by is a manuscript case with rolls of papyrus.

The paintings in the two dining rooms opening on the peristyle, n and p, are in a better state of preservation than those of any other part of the house. In the first room, n, the simple and restful decoration surrounding the large pictures is in striking contrast with the pictures themselves, one of which is placed at the middle of each of the three walls. Here we see the infant Hercules strangling the serpents, there Pentheus and the Maenads about to tear him in pieces; the subject of the third painting is the punishment of Dirce, the treatment being not unlike that of the sculptured Farnese group in the Naples Museum.

The decorative effect of the other room, p, is more harmonious. The divisions of the wall space, the relation of the three principal paintings to the decorative design, and the distribution of ornament are indicated in our illustration (Plate IX); but no reproduction can do justice to the richness of the coloring.

The painting in the middle panel at the right brings before us Bacchus with his train as they come upon the sleeping Ariadne. On the left wall opposite is Daedalus, pointing out the wooden cow that he has made to Pasiphae, who hands to him a golden arm band. The subject of the third picture is here met with for the first time at Pompeii—the punishment of Ixion.

The tragedy of the scene (Fig. 171) is plainly suggested, but not forced upon the beholder; we see, at the left, only half of the ever revolving wheel to which the wretched victim is bound. The other figures are more prominent and, with one exception, convey no suggestion of pain or sympathy in either pose or expression of face. Nearest the wheel is Hephaestus, who has just fastened Ixion upon it; his pincers, hammer, and anvil are lying upon the ground in the corner. In front of him is Hermes, who, in obedience to the command of Zeus, brought the offender to the place of punishment.

A sad-faced female figure with veiled head sits in the foreground—a personification of the spirit of one who has died, a shade introduced to indicate that the place of punishment is the Underworld. The left hand is involuntarily raised with the shock that the thought of the victim's suffering brings; the face has been thought by some to resemble that often given to the Madonna.

The two figures at the right of the picture are of the upper world, not directly connected with the main action, yet well conceived and skilfully introduced. Nearer the foreground Hera sits enthroned, her sceptre in her left hand; behind her stands Iris, faithful messenger, who points out to her the well deserved fate of him who dared to offer an affront to the queen of heaven.

Chapter XLII. Three Houses of Unusual Plan

In the houses described in the preceding chapters the distribution of the rooms is characterized by a certain regularity, which makes it possible to indicate the arrangements by reference to an ideal or normal plan. A wide departure, however, is occasionally noted; and by way of illustration three houses of unusual plan will be briefly presented here, first a house without an atrium, then one having an atrium but no compluvium, and, lastly, a large establishment built on terraces at different levels.

I. The House of Acceptus and Euhodia

Sometimes a few rooms of a large house were cut off from the atrium and used as a separate dwelling; the original plan in such cases is easily determined. The number of houses built without an atrium in the beginning is exceedingly small. Among the pleasantest was the modest dwelling of Acceptus and Euhodia, on the south side of the double Insula in the eighth Region (VIII. v.-vi. 39); the names are taken from a couple of election notices painted on the front, in which they appear together.

From the street one passed directly under a colonnade (Fig. 172, a) in two stories, facing a small garden (b), from which it was separated by a low wall. At one end of the garden was an open-air triclinium (k), which still remains. The rest of the plot, used as a flower garden, was profusely ornamented; five heads of herms, a frog and other objects of marble were found in it, besides a couple of alabaster basins and five statuettes of Egyptian divinities made of glazed pottery. In the corner of the colonnade, between the garden and the entrance, is a small hearth, conveniently placed for serving the open-air triclinium; in the opposite corner at the left the excavators found the remains of a cupboard, together with vessels of bronze, glass, and clay. At the further end of the colonnade one passed into another small garden (g).

A bedroom (d) opened on the colonnade near the entrance. A corridor (e) led to the kitchen (c) behind it. Beyond the corridor is the dining room (f). Another sleeping room (i) with places for two beds is entered through a kind of anteroom (h) at the rear of the house.

The rooms of the second story corresponded closely with those underneath, and were entered from the second story of the colonnade; the stairs, partly of wood, started in the kitchen. The appearance of the house as one looked from the garden at the right toward the colonnade may be inferred from our restoration, which gives a longitudinal section (Fig. 173); the letters under the section refer to the rooms as they are indicated in the plan.

The house was decorated in the fourth style. On the south wall of the kitchen there is a painting of Fortuna, with the usual attributes, a cornucopia and a rudder resting on a ball. The Genius and the Lares nowhere appear, and as a lotus blossom is painted on the forehead of the goddess, who is thus conceived of as a form of Isis, we may suppose that Acceptus and his wife were adherents of the Egyptian cult. Besides the statuettes of Egyptian divinities there was found in the garden the foot of a marble table with a Greek inscription "of Serapion," an Egyptian name. Acceptus and Euhodia may have come from Alexandria and thence have introduced into Pompeii this type of house, so unlike the native form. The Latin name of Acceptus does not stand in the way of this explanation, for he was probably a freedman, who in Egypt may have had a Roman master.

II. A House without a Compluvium

The accompanying plan (Fig. 174) shows the arrangement of a small house on the north side of Nola Street in the fifth Region (V. v. 2). The problem of lighting the atrium (e), the roof of which sloped toward the back, was met in a simple way.

At the rear a light court (f) was constructed, which furnished light and air by means of broad windows, not only to the atrium, but also to the adjoining room g and indirectly to the dining room k, which had a window opening on g.

This arrangement, however, is in part the result of later changes. Originally the room marked g belonged to the court, f, and the house consisted of two parts, separated by a narrow area. The kitchen was then in the low room (i) above which was a correspondingly low chamber, the height of the two rooms being only equal to that of the dining room (k). In later times, however, the hearth was moved to the corner of the atrium (1), the smoke being let out through a small window in the wall. A stairway, partly of wood, led to the upper rooms at the front of the house. Along the street ran a stone bench, protected by a roof projecting over it.

The water from the roofs fell into the light court f, and was collected in a cistern. We give a transverse section across f and g (Fig. 175), showing the arrangement of the roofs, doors, and window at the rear.

On the wall of g is scratched the inscription, Fures foras, frugi intro,—'Let thieves keep out, let honest folk come in!'

III. The House of the Emperor Joseph II

A good example of a house extended over terraces at different levels may be seen on the edge of the hill west of the Forum Triangulare (VIII. ii. 39), that of the Emperor Joseph II, casa dell' Imperatore Giuseppe II. The name was given in commemoration of a visit of this emperor to Pompeii, in 1769, when a special excavation in his honor was made in a part of the house.

The uppermost of the three terraces on which the house is built (Fig. 176, 1) is at the level of the street (Vico della Regina, Plan VI), the lowest (3) in part occupies the place of the old city wall; the middle terrace is adjusted to the intervening slope. The arrangement of the stairways between the terraces and the distribution of the rooms may be more easily understood from an inspection of the plan in connection with the key below than from description.

There was a second story over a part of the rooms on the upper terrace, as indicated by the stairways at e and n and in the corner of u, but the extent of it is not easy to determine. The traces of the upper rooms of the middle terrace, however, are clearly seen, and their arrangement is indicated on the plan (4); the height of θ and κ, which were in one story, was equal to that of the smaller rooms with the chambers above.

• 1. Upper terrace at the level of the street.
• a. Fauces.
• b. Atrium.
• c. House chapel.
• g, h. Alae, with a wardrobe (i) at the rear of h.
• u. Room with two stairways, leading up to second floor and down to middle terrace.
• w. Middle room opening on a colonnade (y) which faces the rear of the terrace (z).
• x, v. Dining rooms, opening on the colonnade.
• 2. Middle terrace.
• α. Corridor, entered from stairway in u above.
• β. Corridor.
• γ, δ. Low vaulted rooms.
• ε. Stairway leading to lower terrace.
• η. Middle room.
• θ. Dining room, with a window opening on the terrace at the rear.
• κ. Small dining room.
• ι, λ, ζ. Sleeping rooms.
• 3. Lower terrace.
• 1. Corridor leading down from the foot of the stairway in ε.
• 3, 4. Bakery.
• 6-8. Bath. (6. Tepidarium. 7. Caldarium. 8. Frigidarium.)
• 4. Upper rooms of the middle terrace.
• I. Excavated room used as a cellar.
• II, III. Rooms over ι, λ.
• VI. Room over ζ, connected with V (over γ, δ) by a gallery over the stairway ε, and with η by a ladder or stairway.

The front of the house, the large Tuscan atrium with the adjoining rooms, dates from the Tufa Period; the atrium was originally one of the most richly decorated at Pompeii. The rooms back of the atrium opening toward the rear, and those of the middle and lower terraces, are a later addition, built after the city wall at this point had been removed, perhaps not long before the end of the Republic; traces of the second style of decoration are found in one of the lowest rooms, the tepidarium of the bath. Remains of the first style are found in the fauces, but the greater part of the house is decorated in the last style.

One of the small rooms (c) opening on the atrium, originally a bedroom, was in later times turned into a house chapel. In the right wall is a small niche, on the back of which a Genius of the ordinary type is painted. Near him and also offering a libation is a female figure with the attributes of Juno, a diadem, and a sceptre. The two figures represent the Genii of the master and mistress of the house (p. 270). Under the niche, and at the sides are iron nails, driven into the plaster to hold wreaths and garlands.

On either side of the broad middle room (w) is a dining room (v, x), connected with it by two large windows. All three rooms open upon the colonnade (y), and this again opens out upon a terrace (z).

The principal room of the middle story (2. η, under z) takes the place of an atrium; it is lighted by a door and two windows opening upon a terrace (μ). Connected with it are two dining rooms (θ, κ), considerably higher than the other apartments of this story, and three sleeping rooms (ι, λ, ζ). A dark corridor (β) separated these rooms from the solid earth at the rear, and furnished access, by means of ladders, to two low upper rooms (over ι and λ; see 4. II, III), perhaps used as storerooms. From β one could also reach, in the same way, an oblong chamber excavated in the earth (I), designed originally as a cistern, but used as a cellar at the time of the eruption. Of the remaining upper rooms one (IV) was built on the solid ground at the side of the stairway leading from the upper floor (α); the other two (V, over γ, δ and VI, over ζ) were connected by a gallery or bridge over the stairway leading to the lower floor (ε); this gallery could be reached also by a ladder or wooden stairway in the large middle room (η). The outermost room (VI) was perhaps a washroom; there is a rectangular basin in one corner.

The lower floor was given up to a bath (frigidarium, 8; tepidarium, 6; caldarium, 7) and to a bakery (3, 4).

In the vaulted ceiling of the frigidarium (8) and one of the rooms of the bakery (3) is a round hole for ventilation, opening upon the terrace above through a kind of chimney. The hollow walls of the caldarium (7) are carried to the crown of the vault, at the middle of which is a similar opening for the vent. The places of the three openings in the floor of the terrace are seen in the plan (2, μ).

At one end of the larger room of the bakery (3) is the oven; at the other two rectangular basins of masonry. In the corner near the basins was found the skeleton of a man who at the time of the eruption had taken refuge in this room and probably died of hunger. The appearance of the room at the time of excavation is shown in a sketch published by Mazois (Fig. 177).

The door near the corner, seen in the illustration, led outside the city. The proprietor of the house perhaps had a special permit enabling him to leave or enter the city at any time without surveillance; none of the other houses along the edge of the city have a private entrance of this kind.

Chapter XLIII. Other Noteworthy Houses

The houses accorded a detailed description in the previous chapters are few in comparison with the number of those worthy of special study. He alone who has wandered day after day among the ruins, returning again and again to explore the parts of the city which are rarely seen by the hasty visitor, can realize what a wealth of interesting material lies behind the barren walls lining the streets on either side.

The location of the houses mentioned incidentally is given in Plan VI, at the end of the volume. Such are, the house of Caecilius Jucundus, on Stabian Street (V. i. 26), the tablinum of which contains one of the most beautiful specimens of wall decoration yet discovered, in the third style; the house of Lucretius, on the same street (IX. iii. 5), with a little garden behind the tablinum adorned with quaint sculptures; the house of the Hunt on Nola Street (VII. iv. 48), so named from the large hunting scene on the wall at the rear of the garden; and further down on Nola Street (IX. vii. 6) the extensive house with three atriums and a large peristyle, excavated in 1879, eighteen centuries after the destruction of the city, and hence called the house of the Centenary, casa del Centenario.

In the same block with the house of the Hunt, opposite that of the Faun, is the house of the Sculptured Capitals, casa dei Capitelli Figurati (VII. iv. 57). It received its name from the figures carved in the tufa capitals of the pilasters at the entrance, one of which is shown in Fig. 178; the stucco with which the surface was coated has now fallen off. Such figures are not infrequently met with in pilaster capitals of the Tufa Period, the subjects being always taken, as here, from the bacchic cycle; the satyr at the left is well rendered. The plan of the house is simple, like that of other houses of moderate size dating from the pre-Roman time.

Near the west end of Nola Street is the house of Pansa, which occupies the whole of the sixth Insula of Region VI. Although of approximately the same size as the house of the Faun, and built in the same period, it contained fewer large rooms; its proportions were less impressive, its finish less elegant. The walls present many evidences of repairs and alterations, but of the wall decoration nothing remains.

The plan (Fig. 179) is of interest on account of its regularity. It well illustrates the extent to which, at Pompeii, rooms not required for household purposes were utilized as shops and small separate dwellings, which were rented to tenants, and doubtless formed an important source of income.

The vestibule and fauces have been mentioned previously (p. 249). The living rooms are grouped about a single atrium (2) and a large peristyle (9). A colonnade at the rear of the house faces the garden, which, as indicated by the appearance of the ground at the time of excavation, was used for vegetables. Opening on the colonnade is the gardener's room (a).

In the front were shops, one of which (35) was connected with the house and served as the proprietor's place of business; another (33) was used as a salesroom for the bakery, which occupied the rooms numbered 28-34. On the same side of the house were three small two-story dwellings, one of which (22-23) contained windows opening into an adjoining room (12) of the house and into the peristyle; it was doubtless occupied by some one connected with the household. The dwellings on the other street (A, B, C) were larger. Fiorelli thought that this Insula belonged to Alleius Nigidius Maius (p. 489); the name of Pansa was given to it from an election notice painted on the front.

There is a remarkable group of houses near the north end of Mercury Street. The first in importance is the house of Castor and Pollux (VI. ix. 6), which is so named from the figures of the Dioscuri, holding their horses by the bridle, painted on the walls of the principal fauces. Between the two atriums, one of which is of the Corinthian type, lies a large peristyle; and behind the Corinthian atrium is a garden with a colonnade in front. The decoration of the house is especially effective; that of the larger tablinum was by one of the best artists who worked at Pompeii. The paintings in the two central panels of this room are often mentioned; on the right wall, the recognition of Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes; on the left, the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. The representation of Venus Pompeiana shown in Fig. 4 is from the peristyle.

Beyond the house of Castor and Pollux is that of the Centaur (VI. ix. 3), which received its name from a painting in which Hercules, Deianira, and Nessus appear; the end of a bedroom in this house is shown in Fig. 122. The rest of the insula belongs to the large house of Meleager, named from a picture representing Meleager and Atalanta. The walls contained numerous mythological pictures, part of which were transferred to the Naples Museum; those left on the walls have suffered from exposure to the weather.

The house of Apollo also (VI. vii. 23), on the opposite side of the street, is noteworthy on account of its decoration, in the last style; the god appears in a series of paintings. Two houses in the next insula, on the south, have in their gardens fountain niches veneered with bright mosaics, the casa della Fontana Grande (VI. viii. 22) and the casa della Fontana Piccola (VI. viii. 23).

At the middle of the tenth Insula, in the same Region, is the house of the Anchor (VI. x. 7), so called from an anchor outlined in the black and white mosaic of the fauces. The peristyle here presents an interesting peculiarity of construction. The level of the street at the rear of the house was below that of Mercury Street. Instead of filling up the lot so as to raise the garden to the height of the front part, the builder constructed a kind of basement under the colonnade of the peristyle, the floor of which was thus adjusted to the level of the floors in the front rooms; the garden and the floor of the basement were on the same level as the street at the rear. The colonnade was higher on the north than on the other three sides (Fig. 180). The effect of the whole was far from unpleasing. Whether the projections seen in the niches below, at the level of the garden, are pedestals or small altars cannot be determined. The niches at the front end were made larger, and were three in number. In the middle niche was a diminutive temple; the other two had the form of an apse, and contained fountain figures.

Houses were sometimes enlarged at the expense of neighboring dwellings, which, in some cases, were destroyed to the foundations, in others remodelled or incorporated with slight change. An example is the house of the Citharist, which fills the greater part of the fourth Insula in Region I, on the east side of Stabian Street. A bronze statue of Apollo playing the cithara, found in the middle peristyle (Fig. 181, 17), gave its name to the house. It is apparently a faithful copy of a Greek masterpiece at Sparta, and is now in the Naples Museum. The house is sometimes referred to as that of Popidius Secundus.

There are two atriums (6, 47) and three peristyles (17, 32, 56). A large part of the house, the west atrium (6), with the connecting rooms and the two peristyles, 17 and 32, was built in the Tufa Period, in the place of several older houses. The rooms east of the two peristyles, and the north atrium (47) and peristyle (56), with the adjoining rooms, were added in Roman times, probably near the end of the Republic; the house was afterwards decorated in the second style. Remains of the third and fourth styles also are found in some parts of the house. The better apartments are grouped about the peristyles; the rooms about the atriums were turned over to the slaves or used for domestic purposes.

In the large room (35) opening on the south peristyle were two paintings of unusual merit, both of which were transferred to the Naples Museum. The subject of one was the finding of the deserted Ariadne by Bacchus; in the other Orestes and Pylades appear as captives before Thoas, the king of Tauris (Fig. 182).

At the right of the picture sits Thoas, looking at the captives, his sword lying across his knees, his hands resting upon the end of his sceptre. Behind him stands a guard with a long spear in the right hand. Another guard with two spears stands behind Orestes and Pylades, whose hands are bound. Orestes, upon whose head is a wreath of laurel, looks downward, an expression of sadness and resignation upon his finely chiselled features. Pylades is not without anxiety, but is alert and hopeful. Between the two groups is an altar on which incense is burning. In the background Iphigenia is seen moving slowly forward; the head is entirely obliterated. It is unfortunate that the painting is so badly preserved. The faces of the two youths are individualized with remarkable skill, and the picture here used as the centre of a decorative framework of the fourth style is evidently a copy of a masterpiece.

On the south side of Abbondanza Street, opposite the Stabian Baths, is the house of Cornelius Rufus (VIII. iv. 15), a view of the interior of which has already been given. The name of the proprietor is known from the dedication on the herm (seen in Fig. 121), C. Cornelio Rufo; the carved table supports behind the impluvium are among the finest yet discovered.

In the same block is the house of Marcus Holconius (VIII. iv. 4), a good example of a house completely restored and decorated after the earthquake of 63. The right ala was fitted up with shelves, on which at the time of the eruption were kitchen vessels of bronze, iron, and terra cotta. The colonnade about the peristyle was in two stories. From the columns at the front six jets of water, at a height of about four feet, fell forward into the gutter; and there was an equal number at the rear. There was also a little fountain in the exedra at the rear of the peristyle.

Chapter XLIV. Roman Villas.—The Villa of Diomedes

Two classes of villas were distinguished by the Romans,—the country seat, villa pseudourbana, and the farmhouse, villa rustica. The former was a city house, adapted to rural conditions; the arrangements of the latter were determined by the requirements of farm life.

The country seats manifested a greater diversity of plan than the city residences. They were relatively larger, containing spacious colonnades and gardens; as the proprietor was unrestricted in regard to space, not being confined to the limits of a lot, fuller opportunity was afforded for the display of individual taste in the arrangement of rooms. We can understand from the letters of Pliny the Younger, describing his two villas at Laurentum and Tifernum Tiberinum (now Città di Castello), and from the remains of the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, how far individuality might assert itself in the planning and building of a country home.

The main entrance of a country seat, according to Vitruvius, should lead directly to a peristyle; one or more atriums might be placed further back. The living rooms would be grouped about the central spaces in the way that would best suit the configuration of the ground and meet the wishes of the owner. In farmhouses there would naturally be a court near the entrance; and the hearth, as we have seen, down to the latest times, was placed in the room that corresponded with the atrium of the city house. In most parts of Italy a large farmhouse would contain appliances for making wine and oil.

The arrangement of the two types of country house in the vicinity of Pompeii may be briefly illustrated by reference to an example of each, the villa of Diomedes and the farmhouse recently excavated at Boscoreale.

The location of the villa of Diomedes, beyond the last group of tombs at the left of the road leading from the Herculaneum Gate, is indicated in Plan V. An extensive establishment similar in character, the so-called villa of Cicero, lies nearer the Gate on the same side of the road; on the right there is a third villa, of which only a small part has been uncovered. The three seem to have belonged to a series of country seats situated on the ridge that extends back from Pompeii in the direction of Vesuvius. The villa of Diomedes, excavated in 1771-74, received its name from the tomb of Marcus Arrius Diomedes, facing the entrance, on the opposite side of the Street of Tombs (Plan V, 42).

The front of the villa forms a sharp angle with the street. The orientation of the building was determined by an abrupt descent in the ground, which runs across the middle and divides it into two parts. The front part, the rooms of which are numbered on the plan (Fig. 183), is a few feet above the level of the street at the entrance. The rear portion, as may be seen from our section (Fig. 184), is considerably lower; on the plan the rooms of this portion are designated by letters. From traces of the second style of decoration found in two of the rooms, and from the character of the masonry, we infer that the villa was built in Roman times, but before the reign of Augustus.

In front of the door was a narrow porch (Fig. 184). The door opened directly into the peristyle (3 on the plan), in the middle of which was a garden. At the left is a small triangular court (17) containing a swimming tank (ζ) and a hearth (ε) on which a kettle and several pots were found; the Romans partook of warm refreshments after a bath. The wall back of the swimming tank was in part decorated with a garden scene, not unlike those in the frigidariums of the two older public baths. Over the tank was a roof supported by two columns, and on the other two sides of the court there was a low but well proportioned colonnade.

The arrangements of the bath were unusually complete, comprising an apodyterium (19), a tepidarium (20), and a caldarium (21), from which the tepidarium was warmed by means of an opening in the wall; the caldarium had a hollow floor and walls, and was heated from the kitchen (22). In the tepidarium were found four panes of glass about 10½ inches square, together with the remains of the wooden frame in which they were set. The caldarium, like those of the public baths, had a bath basin and a semicircular niche for the labrum.

A small oven stands on one end of the hearth in the kitchen, and a stone table is built against the wall on the long side. The room in the corner (23) was used as a reservoir for water, which was brought into it by means of a feed pipe and thence distributed through smaller pipes leading to the bath rooms and other parts of the house.

At the left of the peristyle is a passage (15) leading to a garden which has not yet been excavated. The only apartment of special interest in this portion of the house is the semicircular sleeping room (14) built out into the garden. It faced the south, and had three large windows; it was separated from the rest of the house by an anteroom, procoeton (13), at one end of which is a small division (β) designed for the bed of an attendant. In the semicircular room are an alcove for a bed (γ) and a stationary wash bowl of masonry (δ). The plan is similar to that of a bedroom in Pliny's villa at Laurentum. Another sleeping room (9) was provided with both a large and a small door (p. 261).

The large room (8) at the rear of the peristyle may be loosely called a tablinum; it could be closed at the rear. Back of the tablinum was originally a colonnade (26), which was later turned into a corridor, with rooms at either end; the original form is assumed in our restoration. Beyond the colonnade was a broad terrace (28) extending to the edge of the garden. It commanded a magnificent view of Stabiae, the coast in the direction of Sorrento, and the Bay. Connected with it was an unroofed promenade over the colonnade (e, f, g, h) surrounding the large garden below. A rectangular room (27, indicated on the plan but not in the restoration) was afterwards built on the terrace.

Members of the family could pass into the lower portion of the villa by means of a stairway, at b; the slaves could use a long corridor (a), which was more directly connected with the domestic apartments. The flat roof of the quadrangular colonnade (e, f, g, h) was carried on the outside by a wall, on the inside by square pillars (Fig. 184). The rooms (i, k) opening into the front of the colonnade were vaulted, and the decoration, in the last style, is well preserved; the ceiling of the corner rooms (l, m) is flat, and the decoration of one of them (l) is noteworthy; green and red stars are painted on a white ground. In the narrow space between i and c a cistern was built, from which water could be drawn by means of a faucet in front.

At the opposite corners of the colonnade were two airy garden rooms (n, o). Outside of the left arm (e, f) was a broad walk (u), at the upper end of which were steps leading to the garden above.

The garden enclosed by the colonnade was planted with trees, charred remains of which were found at the time of excavation. In the middle was a fish pond (r), in which was a fountain. Back of it was a platform, over which vines were trained on a framework supported by six columns, making a pleasant arbor in which meals were doubtless often served.

The door at the rear of the garden led into the fields. Near it were found the skeletons of two men. One of them had a large key, doubtless the key of this door; he wore a gold ring on his finger, and was carrying a considerable sum of money—ten gold and eighty-eight silver coins. He was probably the master of the house who had started out, accompanied by a single slave, in order to find means of escape.

The floor of the three sides of the colonnade was a few feet higher than that of the front. Underneath was a wine cellar, lighted by small windows in the wall on the side of the garden; it contained a large number of amphorae.

At the time of the eruption many members of the family took refuge in the cellar. Here were found the skeletons of eighteen adults and two children: at the time of excavation the impressions of their bodies, and in some instances traces of the clothing, could be seen in the hardened ashes. Among the women was one adorned with two necklaces and two arm bands, besides four gold rings and two of silver. The victims were suffocated by the damp ashes that drifted in through the small windows. According to the report of the excavations, fourteen skeletons of men were found in other parts of the house, together with the skeletons of a dog and a goat.

KEY TO PLAN IV

• A. Court.
• 1, 5. Cistern curbs.
• 2. Wash basin of masonry.
• 3. Lead reservoir from which water was conducted to the reservoir in the kitchen supplying the bath.
• 4. Steps leading to the reservoir.
• B. Kitchen.
• 1. Hearth.
• 2. Reservoir containing water for the bath.
• 3. Stairway to rooms over the bath.
• 4. Entrance to cellar under the inner end of the first wine press, in which were the fastenings of the standard of the press beam.
• C-F. Bath.
• C. Furnace room.
• D. Apodyterium.
• E. Tepidarium.
• F. Caldarium.
• H. Stable.
• J. Tool Room.
• K, L. Sleeping Rooms.
• N. Dining Room.
• M. Anteroom.
• O. Bakery.
• 1. Mill.
• 2. Oven.
• P. Room with Two Wine Presses.
• 1, 1. Foundations of the presses.
• 2, 2, 2. Receptacles for the grape juice, dolia.
• 3. Cistern for the product of the second pressing, lacus.
• 4. Holes for the standards of the press beams.
• 5, 5. Holes for the posts at the ends of the two windlasses used in raising and lowering the press beams.
• 6. Pit affording access to the framework by which the windlass posts were tied down.
• Q. Corridor.
• 1. Round vats, dolia.
• R. Court for the Fermentation of Wine.
• 1. Channel for the fresh grape juice coming from P.
• 2. Fermentation vats, dolia.
• 3. Lead kettle over a fireplace.
• 4. Cistern curb.
• S. Barn, nubilarium (?).
• T. Threshing Floor, area.
• U. Open Cistern for the Water falling on the Threshing Floor.
• V-V. Sleeping Rooms.
• W. Entrance to Cellar under the Inner End of the Second Wine Press; see B. 4.
• X. Room with Hand Mill.
• Y. Room with Oil Press.
• 1. Foundation of the press.
• 2. Hole for the standard of the press beam.
• 3. Entrance to cellar with appliances for securing the press beam.
• 4. Holes for the windlass posts.
• 5. Hole affording access to the fastenings of the windlass posts.
• 6. Receptacle for the oil, gemellar.
• Z. Room containing the Olive Crusher.

Chapter XLV. The Villa Rustica at Boscoreale

Less than two miles north of Pompeii, near the village of Boscoreale, a farmhouse was excavated in 1893-94 on the property of Vincenzo de Prisco. In the last century similar buildings were brought to light in the vicinity of Castellammare, but they were covered up again. Especial importance attaches to this villa rustica, both on account of the extreme rarity of examples of the type and because of the character of the remains, which makes it possible to determine the arrangements with certainty.

The living rooms, the stable, and the rooms used for the making of wine and oil were all under one roof. The size of the building is not so great as might have been assumed from the variety of purposes which it served; the enclosed area, exclusive of the threshing floor, measures about 130 by 82 feet. The plan (Plan IV) is regular, the principal entrance being near the middle of the southwest side.

The entrance was wide enough for carts and wagons, which were kept in the court (A). Along three sides of the court ran a colonnade, over which at the front were upper rooms; the roof on the left side and the rear rested on columns connected by a parapet. Under the colonnade at the further corner is a cistern curb (1), on one side of which is a large wash basin of masonry (2); on the other is a pillar supporting a small reservoir of lead (3). The reservoir, reached by means of steps (4), was filled from the cistern.

In a Roman farmhouse the kitchen was the large, central room (p. 253). Vitruvius recommends that it be placed on the warmest side of the court; and in our villa rustica it lies at the north corner (B) where, in winter, it would receive the full benefit of the sunshine. The hearth (1), on which remains of fire were found, stands in the middle of the room; in the wall at the rear is a niche, ornamented to resemble the façade of a diminutive temple, in which were placed the images of the household gods.

A large door in the right wall of the kitchen opened into the stable (H). Near it was a stairway (3) leading to upper rooms; in the corner was a pit (4) affording access to a small cellar in which the standard of the press beam in the adjoining room (P, 4) was made fast. In the opposite corner was a reservoir of lead (2) standing on a foundation of masonry; it received water from the reservoir in the court (A, 3) and supplied the bath. On the same side of the room is the entrance to the bath and to the closet (G).

The arrangements of this bath are in a better state of preservation than those of any other Roman bath yet discovered; the tank and reservoir with the connecting pipes may now be seen at Pompeii in the little Museum near the Forum fitted up for the exhibition of the objects found in this villa. The bath rooms comprised an apodyterium (D), a tepidarium (E), and a caldarium (F) with a bath basin at one end and a labrum in a semicircular recess at the other. The bath was heated from a small furnace room (C). Over the hot air flue leading from the furnace into the hollow space under the floor of the caldarium was a water heater in the form of a half cylinder similar to the one found in the Stabian Baths (p. 194). The tepidarium, as well as the caldarium, had a hollow floor and walls.

Over the furnace stood a round lead tank, the lower part of which was encased in masonry; the pipes connecting it with the reservoir in the corner of the kitchen and with the bath rooms were found in place, and are shown in Fig. 185. The middle pipe supplied the tank with cold water; the flow could be regulated by means of a stopcock. The lower pipe started from the reservoir, but before reaching the tank was divided, the left arm leading into the tank, the other into the bath basin. As there were stopcocks in the main pipe and in the arm entering the tank, by adjusting these the bath basin could be supplied with either hot or cold water through a single pipe. The upper pipe was divided in the same way, one arm leading to the labrum. In the public baths there was a separate tank for lukewarm water; here a moderate temperature was obtained by mixing hot and cold water.

At the bottom of the tank (seen at the right) is a short bibcock used when the water was drawn off. On the side of the reservoir we see the end of the feed pipe leading from the reservoir in the court; at the right is a supply pipe which conducted to the stable (H) water not needed for the bath.

On the same side of the court is a tool room (J), in which were found remains of tools; several sickles were hanging on the walls. Next are two sleeping rooms (K, L); a passage between them leads to the bakery, with a single mill (1) and oven (2). In the corner is a dining room (N) in which the remains of three couches were found; it was separated from the court by an anteroom (M).

Over the colonnade on the front side of the court was a sleeping room with a large room adjoining, perhaps the bedroom of the overseer, villicus, which, according to Varro should be near the entrance.

The oblong room at the northeast side of the court contained appliances for making wine. At each end was a large press with a raised floor (forum, 1). The presses were operated on the same principle as that previously described (p. 336, Fig. 168).

At the rear of each press was a strong standard (arbor, 4), to which the inner end of the press beam (prelum) was attached. In front stood two posts (stipites, 5-5), to which were fitted the ends of a horizontal windlass. By means of a pulley and a rope passed around the windlass, the outer end of the press beam could be raised or lowered. When it was lowered in order to increase the pressure on the grapes, both standard and windlass posts would be pulled out of the ground unless firmly braced. Under the rear of each press was a small cellar, in which was placed a framework for holding the standard in place. One was entered from a pit in the corner of the kitchen (B, 4), the other from a similar depression in a small separate room (W); at 6 was a pit for fastening the windlass posts.

The grape juice ran into round vats (2, 2) sunk in the ground. In front of the first press are two, in front of the second only one; a cistern of which the curb (3) is indicated on the plan, here takes the place of the other vat. The cistern could be filled also from the first press by means of a lead pipe under the floor. The round vats were for the pure juice of the first pressing. Into the other was conducted the product of the second pressing; the remains of the grapes, after the juice had ceased to flow, were drenched with water and again subjected to pressure.

In Pliny's "Natural History" (XIV. xxi. 136) we read that in Campania the best wine underwent fermentation in the open air, exposed to sun, rain, and wind. This villa supplies an interesting confirmation of the statement; the round fermentation vats fill a large court (R), the walls of which are pierced with openings in order to give readier access to the wind. Along one side runs a channel of masonry about three feet above the ground (1), protected by a narrow roof; thence the grape juice was distributed through lead pipes to the vats. During the vintage season, the inner end of the channel was connected with the press room by means of a temporary pipe or channel entering the wall above the cistern (P, 3).

The surface of this court is higher than that of the rest of the building; instead of excavating in order to set the large earthen vats in the ground, the proprietor filled in with earth around them. In one corner is a lead kettle (3) with a place for building a fire underneath; perhaps wine was heated in it. The vats in the court seem not to have been used exclusively for wine. In one were found remains of wheat, in another of millet. Other vats stood in the passageway on the side of the court (Q, 1).

Three of the small rooms toward the rear were sleeping rooms (V-V). In another (X) was found a hand mill. At the end of the passageway was a double room containing the appliances for making oil, a press (in Y) and a crusher (in Z). The press was like the wine press described above, only much smaller, with a raised floor (1), a standard for the press beam (2), a pit for bracing the standard of the press beam (3), two posts at the ends of the windlass (4, 4), a pit from which a crosspiece connecting these posts could be reached, and a vat (6) at one side for receiving the oil. This vat, for some reason not understood, was divided into two parts by a partition in the middle.

The olive crusher, trapetum, now in the Museum at Pompeii mentioned above, is shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 186). It was designed to separate the pulp of the olives from the stones, which were thought to impair the flavor of the oil. It consists of a deep circular basin of lava, so hollowed out as to leave in the centre a strong standard of the stone, miliarium. In the top of this standard was set an iron pin, on which was fitted a revolving wooden crosspiece (shown in Fig. 186, restored). This carried two wheels of lava, having the shape of half a lens, which travelled in the basin. The wheels were carefully balanced so that they would not press against the side of the basin and crush the stones of the olives.

In the long room S remains of bean straw and parts of a wagon were found. South of it is the threshing floor (T), the surface of which is raised above the ground and covered with Signia pavement. The water that fell upon the threshing floor was conducted to a small open cistern (U).

For at least a part of the year the proprietor of the villa probably lived in it. So elaborate a bath would not have been built for the use of slaves; and in the second story was a modest but comfortable series of apartments (over V, W, X, and part of Q), apparently designed for the master's use, as was also the dining room (N) with K and L.

In a place where such a find would least have been anticipated—the cistern in the room of the wine presses—was made a remarkable discovery of treasure. Here a man had taken refuge, and with his skeleton were found about a thousand gold coins, four gold bracelets, ear-rings, a gold chain, and the beautiful collection of silver ware (p. 380) afterwards presented by Baron Rothschild to the Louvre.

Chapter XLVI. Household Furniture

Much less large furniture has been found at Pompeii than is ordinarily supposed. In not a single sleeping room has a bed been preserved; and in only one of all the dining rooms have sufficient remains of the dining couches been found to make it possible to reconstruct them. Beds, couches, chairs, and tables were ordinarily of wood, which crumbled away, leaving slight traces. Reference has been made elsewhere to the marble tables standing in the atrium, and occasionally in other parts of the house. Tables of bronze are infrequently met with, while bronze chairs are almost as rare as bronze couches.

Wood was not a suitable material for many classes of smaller articles, and these, made of bronze, clay, glass, or stone, are found in great numbers. Such are the lamps, the bronze lamp stands, the kitchen utensils, the table furnishings, and the toilet articles of bronze, ivory, or bone.

The wooden frame and end board of one of the dining couches just mentioned was completely charred, but the form was clearly indicated, and the woodwork has been restored (Fig. 188). The couch is now in the Naples Museum, as are also the other articles of furniture illustrated in this chapter.

The half figures on the front of the end board, shown more plainly in the detail at the left of the illustration, were cast; the rest of the mounting was repoussé work. The bronze on the side toward the table was inlaid with silver. The end boards were placed at the head of the upper couch and the foot of the lower one (p. 263); the middle couch did not have a raised end. The mattress rested on straps stretched across the frame. The dining room in which the couches were found adjoins the tablinum of a house in the seventh Region (VII. ii. 18).

The carved marble supports of a gartibulum are shown in Fig. 121; a complete table of a plainer type is seen in Plate VII. An example of a round marble table, found in 1827 in a house near the Forum, is presented in Fig. 189. The three legs are carved to represent those of lions, a lion's head being placed at the top of each. A table of similar design was found in the peristyle of the house of the Vettii, with traces of yellow color on the manes of the lions (p. 326).

Among the best examples of ornamental carving is the marble table leg in the form of a sphinx, found in the second peristyle of the house of the Faun (Fig. 190). Effective also is the bold carving of the gartibulum in the north atrium of the house of Siricus (VII. i. 25).

Small tables or stands of bronze supported by three slender legs were called tripods. The top was flat, but not infrequently surrounded by a deep rim, making a convenient receptacle for light objects. The rim of the example shown in Fig. 191 is ornamented with festoons and bucrania, while the upper parts of the legs are modelled to represent winged sphinxes. This stand was not found in the temple of Isis, as is often stated, but probably in Herculaneum.

The bisellium, the 'seat of double width,' was a chair of simple design without a back, used in the Theatre and Amphitheatre by members of the city council and others upon whom the "honor of the bisellium" had been conferred. The remains of one with bronze mountings have been restored. The restoration, however, does not seem to be correct in all particulars, and instead of presenting it we may refer the reader to the somewhat conventional bisellium carved on the tomb of Calventius Quietus (Fig. 242).

The lamps are found in a great variety of forms. The essential parts are the body, containing the oil, which was poured in through an opening in the top, and the nozzle with a hole for the wick (Fig. 192). Hand lamps were usually provided with a handle, hanging lamps with projections containing holes through which the chains could be passed.

The opening for the admission of oil was often closed by an ornamental cover (Figs. 195, ). In front of it, near the base of the nozzle, was frequently a much smaller orifice through which a large needle could be inserted to pick up the wick when it had burned out and sunk back into the oil, and air could be admitted when the cover was closed.

The material of the lamps was clay or bronze. The bronze lamps were more costly and ordinarily more freely ornamented. Those of clay were left unglazed, or covered with a red glazing like that of the Arretian ware; lamps with a greenish glaze are occasionally found.

The light furnished by the wicks was dim and smoky. A more brilliant light was obtained by increasing the number of nozzles. Lamps with two nozzles are often found. These were sometimes placed at one end, the handle being at the other; sometimes in the case of hanging lamps, at opposite ends, as in the example shown in Fig. 193.

Lamps with several nozzles are not infrequently met with. The shape is often circular, as in two of the examples presented in Fig. 194, one of which had six wicks, the other twelve. Sometimes a more ornamental form was adopted. Lamps having the shape of a boat are not uncommon; the one represented in Fig. 194 was provided with nozzles for fourteen wicks.

The hanging lamps were sometimes made with a single nozzle, as the curious one having the shape of a mask shown in Fig. 197, at the left; sometimes with two nozzles (Fig. 193). Bronze hanging lamps with three arms, each of which contained a place for a wick, are occasionally found; an example is given in Fig. 197, at the right. Still more elaborate are those with a large number of nozzles, as the one represented in the same illustration, which had nine wicks.

The name of the maker is often stamped upon the bottom of the lamp, sometimes in the nominative case, as Pulcher, in the example given in Fig. 192, more often in the genitive and in an abbreviated form.

The variety displayed in the ornamentation of lamps was as great as that manifested in the forms. Ornament was applied to all parts,—the body, the handle, the cover, and even the nozzle. The covers of the two bronze lamps shown in Fig. 196 are adorned with figures. On one is a Cupid struggling with a goose. The chain attached to the right hand of the figure on the other is fastened to a hooked needle for pulling out the wick.

The object of which we give a representation in Fig. 198, often erroneously classed as a lamp, is a nursing bottle, biberon. The material is clay, and the figure of a gladiator is stamped on it, symbolizing the hope that the infant will develop strength and vigor. On some bottles of this kind the figure of a thriving child is seen, on others a mother suckling a child.

Three kinds of supports for lamps may be distinguished according to their size: lamp standards, which stood on the floor and ranged in height from 2½ to 5 feet; lamp holders, not far from 20 inches high, which were placed on tables; and small lamp stands, also used on the table. The general term candelabrum was originally applied to candle holders containing several candles (candelae). Such candle holders have been found in Etruscan graves, but the candelabra met with at Pompeii were all designed to carry lamps.

The lamp standards, of bronze, are often of graceful proportions and ornamented in good taste. The feet are modelled to represent the claws (Fig. 199) or hoofs of animals. The slender shaft rises sometimes directly from the union of the three legs at the centre, sometimes from a round, ornamented disk resting on the legs. Above the shaft is usually an ornamental form, a sphinx, as in our illustration, a head, or a vase-like capital sustaining the round flat top on which the lamp rested. Occasionally the shaft is replaced by a conventional plant form.

Adjustable standards also occur; the upper part slides up and down in the hollow shaft of the lower part, so that the height can be changed at will.

The bronze lamp holders were sometimes designed to support a single lamp (Fig. 200). Frequently the main part divides into two branches, each of which sustains a small round disk for a lamp; often the arms or branches were designed to carry hanging lamps. The example shown in Fig. 201 is from the villa of Diomedes.

In the lamp holders conventional plant forms are more frequently met with than in the standards. The trunk of a tree with spreading branches is especially common (Fig. 202).

The lamp stands, which resemble diminutive bronze tables, are found in a pleasing variety of form and ornament. The top is sometimes a round disk resting on a single leg supported by three feet; sometimes, as in the example presented in Fig. 203, the legs are carried to the top, and the intervening spaces are utilized for ornamentation. The lamp seen in this illustration is the same as that shown more clearly in Fig. 196, at the right.

Kitchen utensils of bronze and red earthenware have been found in great quantity; table furnishings more rarely. A group of typical examples is presented in Fig. 204. The forms are so similar to those of the utensils found in modern households that few words of explanation are needed.

The pastry mould (s) is of good size and neatly finished, and must have left a clear impression. Besides the two types of table spoons illustrated here (n, v) a third is represented by examples found at Pompeii, the cochlear, which had a bowl at one end and ran out into a point at the other. The point was used in picking shellfish out of their shells, the bowl in eating eggs.

The two long ladles were used in dipping wine out of the mixing bowl into the cups. The ancients ordinarily drank their wine mingled with water; for mixing the liquids they used a large bowl of earthenware or metal, which was often richly ornamented. The mixing bowl presented in Fig. 205 was found in a house on Abbondanza Street, near the entrance of the building of Eumachia. It is in part inlaid with silver, and nearly twenty-two inches high.

Hot water was often preferred for mixing with wine, and small heaters of ornamental design were sometimes used upon the table. The ancient name for these utensils is authepsa, 'self-cooker'; the appropriateness of it is apparent from an example found at Pompeii, in which the coals of fire were entirely concealed from view.

This heater (Fig. 206) has the form of an urn. In the middle is a tube, the bottom of which is closed by a diminutive grate; the arrangement is shown in the section at the right. In this tube the coals were placed, and when the water in the urn was hot, it could be drawn off by means of a faucet at the side. Back of the faucet is a small vertical vent tube.

In some cases the appearance of a heater was more suggestive of its purpose. One (Fig. 207) has the form of an ordinary brazier, the water being heated in the hollow space about the fire pan. In another instance (Fig. 208) the brazier is ornamented with towers and battlements like those of a diminutive fortress; the faucet can be seen in our illustration, on the left side.

An interesting group of toilet appliances for the bath was found in the Baths north of the Forum (Fig. 209). Hanging from a ring were an unguent flask, four scrapers (strigiles), and a shallow saucer with a handle in which the unguent was poured out when it was to be applied. One of the scrapers is repeated in a side view at the right, and both side and front views of the unguent saucer are given.

Small articles of toilet are discovered in a good state of preservation. The forms in most cases do not differ greatly from those to which we are accustomed.

The fine comb seen in Fig. 210 a is of bone; the two coarse combs (Fig. 210 b and Fig. 214 d) are of bronze.

The ends of the hairpins were often ornamented with figures. The specimens shown in Fig. 211 are of ivory. The designs in which female figures appear are in keeping with the use, but the ornamentation for the most part seems excessive.

The toilet boxes, of glass or ivory, were used for a variety of purposes. Of those presented in our illustrations, one (Fig. 211, at the right) probably contained perfumed oil. The round glass box (Fig. 212) was used for cosmetics, as was also the ivory box seen in Fig. 214, the outside of which is carved in low relief.

The mirrors were of metal, highly polished. The one seen in Fig. 214 was designed to stand upon a dressing case; the other three (Fig. 213) are hand mirrors. The frame of the rectangular mirror is modern; whether or not this had a handle is not clear.

Jewellery of gold and silver and other small objects wrought in the precious metals have now and then been found. A characteristic example of the jewellery is the large gold arm band in the form of a serpent, with eyes of rubies, found in the house of the Faun (Fig. 215). It weighs twenty-two ounces; to judge from the size, it must have been intended for the upper arm.

Much more important, from the aesthetic point of view, are the cups and other articles of silver designed for table use. As these do not differ essentially from objects of the same class found elsewhere, we should not be warranted in entering upon an extended discussion of them here; a few examples must suffice.

Of the three cups with repoussé reliefs shown in Fig. 216, one (a) has a simple but effective decoration of leaves. Another (c) presents the apotheosis of Homer; the bard is being carried to heaven by an eagle, while on either side (detail in b) sits an allegorical figure—the Iliad with helmet, shield, and spear, and the Odyssey with a sailor's cap and a steering paddle. On the third (d, detail in Fig. 216 e) we see a male and a female Centaur, with Bacchic emblems, conversing with Cupids posed gracefully on their backs. This last is one of a pair found in 1835.

The Boscoreale treasure contained a hundred and three specimens of silver ware, undoubtedly the collection of an amateur.

Of the purely decorative pieces the finest is the shallow bowl (phiala, patera) 8⅞ inches in diameter, with an allegorical representation of the city of Alexandria, in high relief (Fig. 187). The city is personified as a female divinity—alert, powerful, majestic. Upon her head are the spoils of an elephant; the trunk and tusks project above, while the huge ears, hanging down behind, are skilfully adjusted to the outline of the goddess's neck.

In the fold of her chiton, held by the right hand, and in the cornucopia resting on the left arm, are fruits of Egypt, among which grapes and pomegranates are easily distinguished. A representation of Helios appears in low relief upon the upper part of the cornucopia; below is the eagle, emblem of the Ptolemies. A lion is mounted on the right shoulder of the goddess; in her right hand she holds an asp, sacred to Isis, with head uplifted as in the representation described by Apuleius (Met. XI. 4); facing the asp is a female panther.

Around the group in low relief are the attributes (not all distinguishable in our illustration) of various divinities—the bow and quiver of Artemis, the club of Hercules, the sistrum of Isis, the forceps of Vulcan, the serpent of Aesculapius entwined around a staff, the sword of Mars in a scabbard, and the lyre of Apollo. A dolphin in the midst of waves (under the right hand) symbolizes the maritime relations of the city.

The central medallion (emblema) was made separately and attached to the bottom of the patera. Between it and the outer edge of the bowl is a band of pleasing ornament, composed of sprays of myrtle and laurel. The surface of the medallion was all gilded except the undraped portions of the goddess. The ears of the goddess were pierced for ear-rings, which were not found. The date of the patera can not be determined; it is perhaps as old as the reign of Augustus.

Among the cups, sixteen in number, two are especially noteworthy. They are four inches high, and form a pair; they are ornamented with skeletons in high relief, so grouped that each cup presents four scenes satirizing human life and its interpretation in poetry and philosophy.

Two scenes from one of the cups are shown in Fig. 217. At the left the Stoic Zeno appears, standing stiffly with his philosopher's staff in his left hand, his wallet hanging from his neck; with right hand extended he points the index finger in indignation and scorn at Epicurus, who, paying no heed to him, is taking a piece of a huge cake lying on the top of a small round table. Beside Epicurus an eager pig with snout and left foreleg uplifted is demanding a share. Over the cake is the inscription: τὸ τέλος ἡδονή, 'the end of life is pleasure.' The letters of the inscription, as of the names of the philosophers, are too small to be shown distinctly in our illustration.

No names are given with the figures in the other scene; a kind of genre picture is presented. The skeleton in the middle is placing a wreath of flowers upon his head. The one at the right holds in one hand a skull which he examines contemplatively—we are reminded of Hamlet in the scene with the gravedigger; in the other hand (not seen in the illustration) is a wreath of flowers. The third of the principal figures holds in his right hand a bag exceedingly heavy, as indicated by the adjustment of the bones of the right arm and leg; over the bag is the word φθόνοι, 'envyings.' The object in the left hand is so light that its weight is not felt; it is a butterfly, held by the wings, and above it is inscribed ψύχιον, a diminutive of ψυχή, 'soul'; we shall later find another instance of the representation of a disembodied soul as a butterfly (p. 398). It was perhaps the design of the artist to represent the figure as holding the bag behind him while presenting the butterfly to the one who is putting on the wreath.

On either side of the middle figure are two others less than half as large. One, under the butterfly, is playing the lyre; over his head is the word τέρψις, 'pleasure.' The second is clapping his hands, and above him is a Greek inscription which gives the thought of the whole design: 'So long as you live take your full share' of life, 'for the morrow is uncertain.'

Both cups had evidently long been in use; there are still some traces of gilding, which, however, seems not to have been applied to the skeletons. While the explanatory inscriptions are in Greek, a Latin name, Gavia, is inscribed on the under side of the second cup, in the same kind of letters as the record of weight (p. 508). The Gavii were a family of some prominence at Pompeii; we are perhaps warranted in concluding that the cups were made by a Greek for this Pompeian lady, and that afterward they came into the possession of another lady, Maxima, who formed the collection.