Small house’s frescoes resemble Pompeii mansions – History

Excavations of the island (neighborhood) along Pompeii’s main street have revealed the remains of a house that was small but richly decorated, as well as the larger luxury villas on the block, and that worked like its immediate neighbor, the House of the Painter , and the House of Chaste Lovers. One of the vivid frescoes depicts the myth of Hippolytus and Phaedra, leading archaeologists to call it the House of Phaedra.

The design of Roman villas in the 1st century AD remained unchanged for about six hundred years. The model home is centered around an atrium. It has a swimming pool (rain) medium and small rooms (wing and Room) on both sides. this dining room (Banquet Hall) A room used to receive guests during the day, he didn’t (a room leading from the entrance through the atrium to the colonnaded garden behind) is where the portraits of the family ancestors and the trophies won by the family owners in the wars are displayed. By the 2nd century, the atrium would be replaced by a central gallery courtyard, into which both public and private rooms opened.

The first signs of this architectural transformation can be seen in some of the houses trapped by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Of the 1,076 dwellings excavated in Pompeii, 20% had atriums. The vast majority of the rest are storefronts with residential areas behind or apartments above. A small but significant number of residences have the ornate, high-quality finishes of a luxury villa but forego the traditional atrium. This is not because these homes lack the space to accommodate atriums. Some houses have the same dimensions but squeeze atriums into them, albeit with limited area. House Phaedra is one of those ultra-modern, atrium-less houses.

The two rooms currently being investigated are located at the rear of the house. The first, in addition to mythological paintings of Hippolytus and Phaedra, the richly decorated walls of the fourth style show other scenes taken from the classical mythological repertoire: an embrace between a satyr and a nymph is depicted (Embrace ), the painting features a divine couple, perhaps Venus and Adonis, and a scene, unfortunately ruined by the Bourbon expedition, in which one may recognize the Judgment of Paris.

Next to the small painting of Hippolytus and Phaedra there is a window that leads to a small courtyard where building work was in progress at the time of the eruption, and at the entrance there is a small lalarium (domestic altar), There are rich altars inside. Decoration with painted plant and animal patterns on a white background.

The courtyard has a covered area with a large pool in front, the walls of which are painted red. There is a small channel around it that carries rainwater to a wellhead connected to a cistern below.
In the decoration of the cheer house, what stands out in the upper part is a bird of prey in flight, possibly an eagle, clutching a palm branch in its talons, and the main scene in the lower part consists of two snakes facing each other, with Snakes form an altar. A circular fluted shaft on which offerings were placed. From the left we can make out: pinecones, raised elements that support the eggs, what look like figs and dates. In the background of the scene are two shrubs with lanceolate leaves and yellow and red berries, on which three sparrows move.

The actual Lalarium Altar mirrors the offerings depicted in the frescoes. Archaeologists discovered the last offerings still in niches as Mount Vesuvius buried the city. There are traces of burning on the censer and lamp, and behind there are branches of aromatic plants and the remains of dried figs. Colored marble strips and small reliefs of Dionysian figures, most likely Silenus, were also found on the altar’s surface. The front of the altar has a molded marble base and an iron sword.

Excavations at Casa Phaedra are still ongoing, but it has provided archaeologists with insights into everything from a villa with an atrium to a home with luxurious amenities but a much smaller footprint and architectural styles that differ from those of six hundred years ago. opportunities for transformation.

The atrium was an architectural expression of Roman social hierarchy. In the morning, clients of powerful people come here to petition their patrons and fulfill their obligations to them greeting. The nobility of the family, their ancestors, war trophies, current wealth, their position in society The political structure is conveyed throughout the atrium. The architectural changes reflect the transformation of Roman society during the Imperial era. Ancient tradition makes the atrium a direct representation of the owners dignity (history/reputation/status) no longer applies to a new era of upward mobility in which freedmen and merchants without ancestral portraits or great-great-grandfather’s Punic War spoils to display could rise to the top of the sociopolitical ladder . They also had other, more personal ways of showing rank, such as wearing fashionable clothes and jewelry, which were also easily portable in an era of increasing travel in an expanding empire.