THE PRIVATE HOUSES OF POMPEII

Ionic Capital.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF ITALY

THE first part having been employed in describing the public buildings which are preserved in Pompeii, the second will contain an account of the most remarkable houses which have been disinterred; of the paintings, domestic utensils, and other articles found in them; and such information upon the domestic manners of the ancient Italians as may seem requisite to the illustration of these remains. This branch of our subject is not less interesting, nor less extensive than the other. Temples and theatres, in equal preservation, and of greater splendour than those at Pompeii, may be seen in many places; but towards acquainting us with the habitations, the private luxuries and elegancies of ancient life, not all the scattered fragments of domestic architecture which exist elsewhere have done so much as this city, with its fellow-sufferer, Herculaneum. But as these ancient houses differ very much from any now in use, and as we shall have continual occasion to use the terms by which Vitruvius, and, after him, modern architects, have named their several apartments, it will be useful to preface our descriptions by a short account of the steps by which the Romans advanced from huts to palaces, as the residences of the more wealthy individuals among them may be termed, and of the distribution and purposes of the rooms, for a general resemblance is to be found in the ground-plan of all of them. We shall also give an explanation of those architectural terms which we shall have occasion most frequently to employ.

To the reign of the first Tarquin is ascribed the introduction at Rome of the Etruscan architecture, as well in the arrangement of houses, as in the magnificent public works, the walls, sewers, and Forum, which are said to have been built by him. But, to pass hastily over this doubtful ground, it is enough to state that we have authority for giving an Etruscan origin to the principal divisions of the Roman houses. These in the early ages were poor and mean. For the first five hundred years of the city, the use of tiles was unknown, thatch or shingles forming the materials of roofs, and a story is told that the consul Publicola, having built a house of such splendour, according to the notions of the age, as to excite the jealousy of the people, demolished it in a single night in hope of regaining his popularity; conclusive proof against the solidity, at least, of the building. Excessive expense was guarded against by sumptuary laws; and it was forbidden to build walls exceeding about a foot and a half in thickness. This restriction, with the weak nature of the materials employed in early times, at first unbaked bricks, then wooden frame-work filled up with masonry, limited the height of houses to one story, as we are told by Vitruvius : and even after baked bricks were known, their size, which exceeded the size of those now in use, rendered it difficult to break the joints, and bond the walls sufficiently for lofty erections. As population increased, and with it the value of ground in the city, economy of room was sought in added height, and the increased skill of the architect found means to raise houses of several stories. They were then surmounted by a terrace named solarium, from sol, the sun, whose genial warmth the inhabitants enjoyed there in the winter : while in the summer they frequented it for the sake of the cool evening breeze, and the magnificent prospects of the city and its environs. Here the Romans loved to take their evening repast, and hence the upper story received the name of coenaculum, the supper-room. At last houses reached such an extreme height, that Augustus forbade a greater elevation than seventy feet to be given them.

Towards the last years of the republic, the Romans naturalized the arts of Greece among themselves; and Grecian architecture came into fashion at Rome, as we may learn. among other sources, from the letters of Cicero to Atticus, which bear constant testimony to the strong interest which he took in ornamenting his several houses, and mention Cyrus, his Greek architect. At this time immense fortunes were easily made from the spoils of new conquests, or by peculation and maladministration of subject provinces, and the money thus ill and easily acquired was squandered in the most lavish luxury. One favourite mode of indulgence was in splendour of building. Lucius Cassius was the first who ornamented his house with columns of foreign marble : they were only six in number, and twelve feet high. fie was soon surpassed by Scaurus, who placed in his house columns of the black marble called Lucullian, thirty-eight feet high, and of such vast and unusual weight that the superintendent of sewers, as we are told by Pliny, took security for any injury which might happen to the works under his charge, before they were suffered to be conveyed along the streets. Another prodigal, by name Mamurra, set the example of lining his rooms with slabs of marble. The best estimate, however, of the growth of -architectural luxury about this time may be found in what we are told by Pliny, that, in the year of Rome 676, the house of Lepidus was the finest in the city, and thirty five years later it was not the hundredth. We may mention, as an example of the lavish expenditure of the Romans, that Domitius Ahenobarbus offered for the house of Crassus a sum amounting to near 148,500, which was refused by the owner. Nor were they less extravagant in their country houses. We may again quote Cicero, whose attachment to his Tusculan and Formian villas, and interest in ornamenting them, even in the most perilous times, is well known. Still more celebrated are the villas of Lucullus and Pollio; of the latter some remains are still to be seen near Pausilipo.

Augustus endeavoured by his example to check this extravagant passion, but he produced little effect. And in the palaces of the emperors, and especially the Aurea Domus, the Golden House of Nero, the domestic architecture of Rome, or, we might probably say, of the world, reached its extreme point of magnificence. But these wonders do not belong to our pages; and to dwell on them would but discredit the edifices which it is our province to describe, spacious in themselves and sumptuous, yet mean in comparison with those of which we have just spoken. We therefore proceed to offer to the reader a sketch of the arrangement of a Roman house of the better class.

This arrangement, though varied, of course, by local circumstances, and according to the rank and circumstances of the master, was pretty generally the same in all. The principal rooms, differing only in size and ornament, recur everywhere; those supplemental ones, which were invented only for convenience or luxury, vary according to the tastes and circumstances of the master.

Vitruvius directs our attention to one principle of distribution, strange to modern habits, but of importance towards understanding the construction of a Roman house; that every considerable mansion might be divided into two parts, once intended for public resort, the other destined for the private service of the family. The origin of this may be found in the constitution of Rome, by which every plebeian might choose from among the patricians a patron, whose client he became, and to whose house he resorted freely for advice or assistance. To have a large body of clients was esteemed both honourable and advantageous, as the patron might of course reckon on their votes and support in all civil matters. With this view, lawyers of eminence gave free access to all who wished to consult them; and generally by day-break, or before it, the vestibules and ante rooms of persons of any eminence, but especially of those who were distinguished by wealth or political power, were filled with a crowd, each coming with some particular object, one to recommend himself by the regularity of his attendance, another to request some favour, another from a wish to display his intimacy with the rich and powerful owner, others to receive the dole of meat or money which was distributed to needy retainers. This crowd was of course received in the outer rooms, so as to disturb as little as possible the privacy of the mansion. These rooms, which constituted what Vitruvius calls the public part, were the portico, vestibule, cav dium or atrium, tablinum, al , fauces, and others less important, added at the will of the owner or architect.

The private part comprised the peristyle, bed-chambers, triclinium, oeci, picture-gallery, library, baths, exedra, xystus, &c. We proceed to explain the meaning of these terms.

Before great mansions, but not in that class of houses which we find at Pompeii, there was generally a court or area, upon which the portico opened, either surrounding three sides of the area, or merely running along the front of the house. In smaller houses the portico ranged even with the street. Within the portico, or if there was no portico, opening directly to the street, was the vestibule, consisting of one or more spacious apartments. It was considered to be without the house, and was always open for the reception of those who came to wait there until the doors should be opened. The prothyrum, in Greek architecture, was the same as the vestibule. In Roman architecture, it was a passage-room, between the outer or house-door which opened to the vestibule, and an inner door which closed the entrance of the atrium. In the vestibule, or in an apartment opening upon it, the porter, ostiarius, usually had his seat.

The atrium, or cavaedium, for they appear to have signified the same thing, was the most important, and usually the most splendid apartment of the house. Here the owner received his crowd of morning visitors, who were not admitted to the inner apartments. The term is thus explained by Varro : "The hollow of the house (cavum dium) is a covered place within the walls, left open to the common use of all. It is called Tuscan, from the Tuscans, after the Romans began to imitate their cavaedium. The word atrium is derived from the Atriates, a people of Tuscany, from whom the pattern of it was taken." Originally, then, the atrium was the common room of resort for the whole family, the place of their domestic occupations; and such it probably continued in the humbler ranks of life. A general description of it may easily be given. It was a large apartment, roofed over, but with an opening in the centre, called compluvium, towards which the roof sloped, so as to throw the rain-water into a cistern in the floor called impluvium. impluvium. Vitruvius, however, distinguishes five species of atria.