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).

Fig. 180.—Section showing a part of the peristyle of the house of the Anchor, restored.
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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.

Fig. 181.—Plan of the house of the Citharist.
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