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.

Fig. 144.—Plan of the house near the Porta Marina.
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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.