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.
Fig. 125.—Hearth of the kitchen in the house of the Vettii. The arched place underneath is for the storage of fuel.
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.