Transcript

Narration

Along the border are painted statues and plants, mirroring the real ones in the garden.

Hunt scenes were a popular motif, also used to decorate the small interior garden in the House of the Ceii.

So the decoration on the walls and floors in the main public quarters would have served not only to create a pleasant living environment but also to impress visitors.

Visitors seem to have been present in most areas of the house. Many of the small rooms off the atrium are traditionally referred to as cubicula or bedrooms. But literary sources suggest they had a wider range of uses, including greeting guests or conducting small business meetings.

Further rooms were often situated in an upper storey, like this one, which is still preserved in The House of the Lovers, although we don’t know what the rooms were used for.

In this house the service quarters were grouped along one side of the peristyle. The more functional rooms of the house were usually separated in some way from the more public living quarters.

How this was achieved varies from house to house. Here the service quarters consist of storerooms - some with internal windows on to the court - and probably used for storing food stuffs to be consumed by the household.

Next door is a kitchen with a raised work surface where the food was prepared.

And in the far corner of the peristyle, a lavatory, with a narrow window to the outside.

In the House of the Vettii a service court leads off the atrium. The first room is a smaller atrium and may originally have been part of a separate house. Overlooking the impluvium is a lararium or shrine.

Beyond the second atrium are the kitchen and storeroom.

There is little decoration in these functional rooms, apart from the shrine, a focus for domestic worship by the household.

This shrine displays symbols of cult worship; a snake - here associated with the genius or spirit of the household, who is shown here flanked by household gods or lares.

Images on other shrines reveal an Egyptian influence - this one in the House of the Golden Cupids shows the goddess Isis with the gods Serapis and, on the left, Anubis. These decorative themes reflect the breadth of cultural influences on the household. Also in the House of the Golden Cupids is this more traditional lararium. Its design reflects the architecture of public buildings.

The use of columns, pediments and monumental facades is also seen in wall paintings. The illusion possibly evoked in the visitor the feeling that this space is more than just a private house.

In a room off the peristyle in the House of the Vettii, this illusionist painting is juxtaposed with panels showing scenes from Greek mythology and literature.

The infant Hercules wrestling with snakes; Dirce and the bull; and Pentheus ripped apart by the Bacchae.

In order to understand the scenes depicted, a viewer would have to know the stories and this is a statement about the educated status of the householder, or the image he wished to project. It’s often difficult to identify the actual householders at Pompeii, but it’s believed that this man - Pacquius Proculus - owned this house. It’s interesting to speculate on what he was like, by looking at the architectural features.

Here we have a richly decorated entrance, a large open atrium with views through tablinum to peristyle.

Stairs to an upper storey, an apparent lack of cubicula and an elaborate, predominantly black and white mosaic floor.

Around the impluvium the mosaic creates the illusion of arches, framing nautical images, such as anchors and dolphins, as well as depicting exotic wildlife.

Beyond are two tablina, each with a decorative hearth, leading to a grand peristyle garden, decorated with fountains. All these suggest that Pacquius Proculus was a man of wealth and status.

In the context of Pompeii the houses of the elite were used to create and display personal identity.

But what about houses in other areas of the Empire? To what extent were they also used to create personal identities? And how did those identities differ from those being created by the inhabitants of Pompeii? To address these questions we’ll be looking at housing from four different cities in Asia and the Roman province of Africa.