Some of the leading works which contain illustrations of Pompeii, will be found enumerated in the list of books at the end of the description of the Roman Court, and others of more immediate importance have been referred to in the text when requisite.
DESCRIPTION OF THE POMPEIAN HOUSE.
The outer walls are supposed to be surrounded by the street, and the entire house forms what the Romans called an insula; that is, a detached building. The tiling, more conspicuous from the gallery, has been faithfully copied from an ancient example, from the House of the Female Musician. The roof of a house was found complete in April, 1853, with the upper part of the ridge carefully guarded by cement. The principal entrance faces the nave; it is flanked by two pilasters, the capitals of which are copied from the back entrance of a house excavated in 1834 (Mus. Bor., vol. x., tav. A, B), and from sketches taken on the spot.
The general proportions of the doorway are taken from the house of Pansa (Gell, Pompeiana, series i., pl. 34.); the grating, or lattice-work[55] over the door, is introduced upon the authority of Mr. Donaldson in his work upon doorways. The external windows are devised to throw more light into the chambers, and to afford a more ready means of looking into the inner recesses. This apparent innovation is authorised by the windows of the Tragic Poet’s house which open upon the street, although much higher up, being raised more than six feet above the level of the foot-pavement. They seem to have been closed by sliding shutters and were sometimes glazed. Glass was much used at Pompeii both for drinking vessels and windows; sheets of glass have been found there, and a convex glass for a lamp remained in the wall, dividing two apartments in the public baths near the forum. The front part of the entrance was called Vestibulum; the remaining part of the passage, Prothyrum, which latter was bounded by a second door which closed in the Atrium. The door is quadrivalve, and the panelling is taken from the false door painted on the wall of the Chalcidicum near the statue of Eumachia (Gell, Pompeiana, 2nd series, page 21, plate 9).
[55] Called by Vitruvius Hypaetrum. Smith, s. v. Janua. p. 626. Compare a latticed window in vol. i., p. 229 of “Pitture d’Ercolano.”
The inlaid marble on the threshhold, representing a dog, is found at the entrance to the House of the Tragic Poet (Mus. Bor., vol. ii., tav. 56). A similar device was painted at the entrance of Trimalchio’s house, described by Petronius, who was alarmed at the first sight of the furious animal at the full stretch of his chain so skilfully represented in the original mosaic (Petronius, Satyricon, ch. 29). The inscription on both is the same, CAVE CANEM, which means “Beware of the dog.”
The Prothyrum[56] or Ostium, was the passage between the street door (janua), and the house door (ostium), and corresponds to our entrance hall; a small square room on one side was sometimes devoted to the door-keeper or porter (janitor or ostiarius). They were called Cellæ Ostiariæ.
[56] Rich, s. v.
The walls and ceilings of these side apartments are white, with a red dado, that is, the lower part of the wall, answering to our surbase. The decoration of these rooms is imitated from the House of the Second Fountain. The walls of the Prothyrum itself are red, with a winged Cupid in a panel on each side. They are from the House of the Dioscuri. The dado is black, the ceilings of these three apartments are white and slightly arched.
Most of the ceilings in Pompeii were of this description, and composed of segmental vaults painted in fresco, like the walls beneath, only in lighter colours or more delicate and thinner patterns on a white ground. A small stucco cornice highly enriched with colour follows the lines of the archivolt. In the Villa of Diomed are some flat ceilings, and other examples have been published in the Pitture d’Ercolano.