Pompeii, Its Life and Art

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.

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.

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.