Plan of Pansa’s house, at Pompeii.
But the part of the city to which we wish to conduct our friendly reader is that known by the name of the Campus Martius. It comprised the flat alluvial plain between the seven hills of older Rome and the Tiber. Before the close of the republican period, this field, once left bare for the athletic and warlike exercises of the people, had begun to be encroached upon by public buildings. Pompey had erected in it his theatre; soon after, Agrippa raised the Pantheon and its adjoining baths. But gradually it became occupied by private dwellings; while the hills, in the early empire the aristocratic portion of the city, were seized upon for greater edifices. Thus the Palatine, after Nero’s fire, became almost too small for the Imperial residence and its adjoining Circus Maximus. The Esquiline was usurped by Titus’s baths, built on the ruins of the Golden House, the Aventine by Caracalla’s; and at the period of which we write, the Emperor Dioclesian was covering the space sufficient for many lordly dwellings, by the erection of his Thermæ[1] on the Quirinal, not far from Sallust’s garden, just alluded to.
The particular spot in the Campus Martius to which we will direct our steps, is one whose situation is so definite, that we can accurately describe it to any one acquainted with the topography of ancient or modern Rome. In republican times there was a large square space in the Campus Martius, surrounded by boarding, and divided into pens, in which the Comitia, or meetings of the tribes of the people, were held, for giving their votes. This was called the Septa, or Ovile, from its resemblance to a sheepfold. Augustus carried out a plan, described by Cicero in a letter to Atticus,[2] of transforming this homely contrivance into a magnificent and solid structure. The Septa Julia, as it was thenceforth called, was a splendid portico of 1000 by 500 feet, supported by columns, and adorned with paintings. Its ruins are clearly traceable; and it occupied the space now covered by the Doria and Verospi palaces (running thus along the present Corso), the Roman College, the Church of St. Ignatius, and the Oratory of the Caravita.
The house to which we invite our reader is exactly opposite, and on the east side of this edifice, including in its area the present church of St. Marcellus, whence it extended back towards the foot of the Quirinal hill. It is thus found to cover, as noble Roman houses did, a considerable extent of ground. From the outside it presents but a blank and dead appearance. The walls are plain, without architectural ornament, not high, and scarcely broken by windows. In the middle of one side of this quadrangle is a door, in antis, that is, merely relieved by a tympanum or triangular cornice, resting on two half columns. Using our privilege as “artists of fiction,” of invisible ubiquity, we will enter in with our friend, or “shadow,” as he would have been anciently called. Passing through the porch, on the pavement of which we read with pleasure, in mosaic, the greeting Salve, or Welcome, we find ourselves in the atrium, or first court of the house, surrounded by a portico or colonnade.[3]
Door of Pansa’s house, with the greeting Salve or Welcome.
In the centre of the marble pavement a softly warbling jet of pure water, brought by the Claudian aqueduct from the Tusculan hills, springs into the air, now higher, now lower, and falls into an elevated basin of red marble, over the sides of which it flows in downy waves; and before reaching its lower and wider recipient, scatters a gentle shower on the rare and brilliant flowers placed in elegant vases around. Under the portico we see furniture disposed, of a rich and sometimes rare character; couches inlaid with ivory, and even silver; tables of oriental woods, bearing candelabra, lamps, and other household implements of bronze or silver; delicately chased busts, vases, tripods, and objects of mere art. On the walls are paintings evidently of a former period, still, however, retaining all their brightness of color and freshness of execution. These are separated by niches with statues, representing indeed, like the pictures, mythological or historical subjects; but we cannot help observing that nothing meets the eye which could offend the most delicate mind. Here and there an empty niche, or a covered painting, proves that this is not the result of accident.
