In this picture Perseus has yellow sandals and blue talaria. The action of the hand to conceal the Gorgon’s head is not so successful as in the sculpture; it is offensive to the spectator to see that openly which is supposed to carry so much horror with it. On the ground, at the feet of Andromeda, is a yellow casket, a white fan with red handle, and several white cockle shells, scattered on the ground, which give an appearance of petty detail. Two females are sitting on the rocks to the left, and seem to be gazing upon the vanquished monster rolling at the feet of Andromeda. The sword which Perseus bears is worth notice. It is the falx, and has a peculiar hook to it used for pruning. The falx and talaria or heel wings, are characteristic of Perseus. The graceful figures on each side of this central picture are from a house near the forum. To the left, a Cupid, with purple drapery, is supporting a pale-blue vase. Psyche, with purple butterfly wings and blue and green drapery, soars above, and seems helping to lift the vase by the handles. It forms a charming group. To the right of the chief picture are two Cupids carrying a basket with double arched handle. Both these groups are on a yellow ground.
14. Vestibulum, exactly the same as the one opposite.
15. Cubiculum or cella familiaris as next the vestibule. This chamber has white walls with yellow dado. The central picture facing Atrium represents Venus fishing; she holds the rod in the right hand, and, as usual, leans with the other hand on the seat, having the arm quite straight. A similar subject has already been described in [cubiculum 2]. Here the figures are larger and close together. Instead of Cupid, is a Genius,[59] with broad-spreading green wings. He holds a green branch in his right hand; his drapery purple. Venus is crowned with a diadem, white drapery hangs behind her left arm, and the lower part of her figure is covered by crimson folds with blue lining. The arrangement of sloping shields on each side is the same as in [chamber 3]. Above the chief painting is a landscape, with buildings, water and a boat. Over this little picture again is a Victory in a biga or chariot, with the horses painted entirely in yellow. The figure of Victory holds the palm branch in her left, and extends the right arm, grasping a wreath. Her wings are wide spread, but very much distorted. When Cupid was banished from Olympus for his impertinence, it is said that his wings were taken from him and transferred to Victory. In early art many of the divinities were winged. Diana on the chest of Cypselus (Pausanias, book v., ch. 19,) and so also is she represented upon the celebrated Clitias vase, at Florence. Many of the large figures of the Assyrian palaces, evidently acting as priests or attendants, are provided with wings, but they are never seen using them. Hebe is represented winged upon the famous cup of Sosias at Berlin, but these all belong to the undeveloped period of art. Among the Athenians Victory was represented unwinged—Apteros. After the battle of Marathon, Minerva is fabled to have confined Victory to her favourite spot, the Acropolis, by depriving her of her wings. A celebrated wooden statue of Wingless Victory, Niké Apteros, was at Athens, and a copy of it made by Calamis was sent to Olympia by the Mantineans. At Athens was the celebrated little temple of Wingless Victory, some of the sculptures from which are described in No. 57 of Greek Court catalogue. The right hand of the great ivory statue by Phidias, in the Parthenon, held a figure of Victory, Greek Court catalogue, pp. 29 and 30. To return to the painted Victory in this apartment. The highly decorated bar which seems attached to the collars of the horses is very peculiar. The gathering of the mane into a knot on the heads of the horses, and their breast collars are exactly like those on the carved lid of the Chimæra tomb from Xanthus, now in the British Museum. The top knot of the horses may be seen in several antique sculptures from Naples and Florence, Nos. 69 and 71 of Greek Catalogue, and seems to have been originally an eastern custom. The body of the chariot is quite plain. The horses viewed in front are very clumsily foreshortened. This group has been engraved in Mus. Bor., vol. xiv., tav. 45. On the light hand wall is a little compartment of a winged Cupid, with pedum and basket, running from a sitting lion. These paintings are all from the House of the Girl playing the Double-flute, called della Sonatrice, discovered in 1847 (H.B. p. 353).
[59] Called in Mr. Falkener’s book, p. 49, Victory.
16. Cubiculum, occupying the corresponding angle to [No. 2], also lighted with a window, is blue with black dado; copied from the House of the Second Fountain. The chief picture on the wall opposite the door is the deserted Ariadne, a subject many times repeated at Pompeii, and with a great variety of treatment. Ariadne is represented sitting on the shore of Naxos just awaking, and beginning to be aware of her forlorn situation; Cupid, at her side, points to a ship far away, with full-spread sail and many oars, which is bearing off Theseus, her faithless lover. A crimson cord, for necklace, is crossed also over her naked body, a purple drapery covers her lower limbs. The scene is indicated by wild crags, and the horizon is placed remarkably high up in the picture. The wings of Cupid are green, the ship yellow with a white sail. This picture is copied from one in the House of the Tragic Poet; it has been engraved in the Mus. Bor., vol. ii., tav. 62., and Zahn, vol. i., pl. 33. Gell’s Pompeiana, vol. i., pl. 43, page 169.
On each side is a graceful floating female figure, the one to the left holding a patera in one hand, and a garland in the other; the female on the other side, has a similar action, her drapery is yellow: both figures are remarkably elegant. On the opposite wall, next the door, is a picture of a very playful character; it is a Cupid seller. On the ground is a square strongly constructed cage, such as is used for birds, with an opening at the top, through which an old man is in the act of lifting out a Cupid; other Cupids are within the bars, and show by their gestures the irksomeness of their confinement. The old man dressed in the exomis, a garment peculiar to the working classes, lifts the struggling Cupid by one wing; he holds the square trap door in his left hand; a handsome lady who has come as a purchaser stands on the other side and looks up to a Cupid flying above, holding two bright stars; her right hand seems to point to the cage from which the object of her attention may have escaped. Another Cupid has eluded the vigilance of his keeper and hides himself behind the lady’s dress. The scene takes place in a handsome portico with two Ionic columns. This has been engraved in Zahn, 2nd series, taf. 18. Another picture, found at Stabiæ, of a female Love merchant is much more pleasingly and better composed. There the woman holds up the victim by both wings, and offers it like a live chicken to a lady who is seated on the other side. Another Cupid remains within the cage, which is elegantly made and circular. This well-known picture is engraved in the Pitt. Erc., vol. iii., tav. 7., and Mus. Bor., vol. i., tav. 3. To the left of the picture on this wall is a beautiful floating female figure, holding a tympanum or drum in the right hand, with the other raised holding a thyrsus. A nebris, or fawn-skin, passes over her right shoulder, her drapery is red lined with white, feet bare. The effect of colour upon the blue ground is very charming.
17. Cubiculum. A black chamber, corresponding to the one we first entered. This room has been copied, both in style and decoration, from the stanza nera of the House of the Bronzes. Opposite the window is a pleasing group of Cupid and Psyche, her drapery is purple and blue, and the wings purple. The picture opposite door represents three Cupids and Psyche surrounding a peacock. In this bird we recognise the favourite of Juno, and the Cupids appear to be feeding it, but the meaning of the subject is very vague. It has been engraved in the Mus. Bor., vol. xi., tav. 15. Thus we have completed the circuit of the atrium and its smaller chambers; we propose to pass into the less public parts of the house by the left hand fauces, [No. 7].
PERISTYLE.
18. Ambulatory, Ambulatio, also called Porticus by the Romans, and Stoa by the Greeks, is a colonnade on four sides, very like the cloisters of our cathedrals. The view looking through the fauces is bounded by a small shrine or chapel, called the Lararium. It is a niche raised on a pedestal, flanked by pilasters, and surmounted by a pediment. Within this were kept the Lares, the sacred household gods, that accompanied the inhabitants in their flight. No figures of this sort have ever been found in such places at Pompeii, although many representations of them remain depicted on the walls. They were generally represented as young men in short girt tunics, crowned and holding the drinking horn in one hand. (See Milman’s Horace, p. 168.) Their appearance was first ascertained by an inscription over the sculpture of an altar formerly in the Villa Medici, and now at Florence; a similar altar is in the Vatican, both inscribed LARIBVS AVGVSTIS. (See Galleria di Firenze, pl. 144 of statue, &c.; Mus. Pio. Clem., vol. iv., tav. 45; and Guattani Mon. Ined, vol. ii.; Maggio, 1785). The Lares presided especially over the domestic hearth. The cornice and entablature of Lararium are taken from the funeral Triclinium at Pompeii. The wall behind is a rich Pompeian red, with a yellow ornament, forming a panel on it, beautifully painted.
The roof of the ambulatory is panelled and decorated according to the prevailing style of the lighter coloured ceilings at Pompeii. The devices are formed of very thin lines of the brightest colours upon white. The Ionic capitals of the columns are from the Basilica. The shafts of the columns are not fluted at the lower part, the remaining unfluted surface, together with the mouldings upon the base, are painted bright red. This is a Pompeian peculiarity. Red is a prevailing colour at Pompeii, but in the House of the Surgical Instruments, the lower part of the columns was blue, a dwarf wall between them being painted red. (Gell, Pompeiana, first series, pl. 25, p. 170.)