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Houses In Pompeii

Good Essays

The exterior of the house is fairly plain. The main entrance (pictured top right) opens off the west side of the Vico Dei Vettii just north of its junction with the Vicolo di Mercurio. Save for this entrance and a side door near the south east corner the exterior walls were unbroken except for small, square windows some of which were in low second storey rooms (an artist's reconstruction of what the house may have looked like is pictured right).

Like several other notable houses in Pompeii, the house was a casualty of bombing during the second World War. In late September 1943 allied bombs caused considerable damage to the property, particularly along the north side of the peristyle. The structural damage was repaired but some fourth style …show more content…

Entered through a narrow doorway at the east end of its south wall, the decoration is in the fourth style on a white ground with panels divided by red lines ornamented with decorative borders. The decoration (pictured lower right) was painted on a white ground probably to increase the amount of light in the room since the only source of light was the narrow entrance doorway.

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The walls of the peristyle are decorated with architectural motifs on a light ground separating black panels framed in red above a lower black frieze.

The central garden (i) (pictured below) contained statuary, columns, fountains and tables many of which have been restored to their original positions set in a recreation of the original garden based on traces left by plant roots.
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The simple, restful nature of the scheme is in stark contrast with the subject matter of the large mythological pictures placed in the middle of each of the three walls. These scenes are of Hercules strangling the serpents (pictured upper right), Pentheus being torn to Pieces by the Bacchants (in the centre of the picture above) and The torture of Dirce (pictured opposite). The upper zone consists of panels, garlands, and ornamental bands on a yellow ground. …show more content…

The seals bore the names of two freedmen brothers, Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva.
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The fauces opens onto the atrium (b) which has a marble lined impluvium in its centre. The atrium had safes on either side sheathed with iron, set on masonry bases. The fourth style decoration of the atrium (pictured left and below) consists of a lower frieze in yellow with red scenic panels featuring children busied with vessels of all kinds, apparently intended for sacrifice. Above this is a black band with various scenes depicting cupids, the most interesting of which represents a sacrifice to Fortuna.

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The large white panels contain mythological scenes including Leander swimming to her Hero and Ariadne being abandoned by Theseus (pictured opposite).

In the south east corner of the atrium is an oecus (d) which is decorated in the fourth style on a white ground with architectural motifs and mythological detail (pictured lower left). The central panels on each wall contain a mythological scene; on the north wall is a painting of Cyparissus, the youth beloved of Apollo, with his wounded deer on the ground near him while on the south wall the scene depicts a wrestling match between Pan and Eros (pictured below). The scenes on the east and west walls have been

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