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  • Prof: Good morning.

  • As you can see, the title of today's lecture is

  • "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Houses and Villas at

  • Pompeii."

  • We spoke last time about the public architecture of Pompeii,

  • about the forum, about the temples,

  • about the basilica, about the baths,

  • and also about shops, and tombs as well.

  • But today we're going to turn to the residential architecture

  • of Pompeii; residential architecture that

  • is extremely important, not only for what it tells us

  • about Pompeii, but what it also tells us about

  • domestic architecture in the first centuries B.C.

  • and the first century A.D., because there is no place where

  • the houses are better preserved than at Pompeii.

  • So it tells us again, not just about the city itself,

  • but also about residential architecture in Rome,

  • where we have very few examples, and elsewhere in the

  • Roman world.

  • I want to begin with the image that you see now on the screen,

  • which is a building--and we're talking about the one at the

  • left, front left--a building that is

  • on one of Pompeii's main thoroughfares,

  • the Via dell'Abbondanza, the Via dell'Abbondanza,

  • the Street of Abundance.

  • And the building in question is relatively well preserved,

  • and what is significant about it for us right now is the fact

  • that it is two-storied, as you can see here.

  • What we'll see in the course of today's presentation is that

  • most of the buildings, most of the houses,

  • in early Pompeii, are single-story dwellings,

  • but here we see one that is two-storied.

  • And this two-storied dwelling actually dates fairly late in

  • the history of residential architecture in Pompeii.

  • It dates sometime between the earthquake of 62 and the

  • eruption of Vesuvius of 79; so between 62 and 79 A.D.

  • And we see that it has two stories, in this instance.

  • A story down below that may have been--

  • that says has entranceways, might even have been opened up

  • as a shop, and then a second story that is

  • very interesting indeed.

  • And it has what we call cenaculae,

  • c-e-n-a-c-u-l-a-e, cenaculae,

  • which are second-story dining rooms that have open panoramic

  • windows, these windows,

  • as you can see, through columns.

  • So an interesting nod to Hellenization once again,

  • this idea of incorporating Greek elements into Roman

  • architecture -- elements that again are under-

  • that come into Roman architecture through the

  • influence of earlier Greek architecture,

  • and views out through those columns.

  • So two important points: one, that these have two

  • stories, and that adding a second story

  • to a Roman building, or a Pompeian building in this

  • instance, doesn't occur until between the

  • earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius;

  • and secondarily, this idea of the picture

  • window.

  • And we've talked about the importance for the Romans of

  • vista and panorama, and they're doing it here.

  • They're opening up that second floor so that you can sit in one

  • of these dining rooms and then have a very nice view out

  • through the columns of the street and the street life

  • below.

  • Now this building, on the Via dell'Abbondanza,

  • lies at the end of the development of Pompeian domestic

  • architecture.

  • And so what I'm going to do is take us back to the beginning

  • and trace Pompeian domestic architecture from the Samnite

  • period up through the eruption of Vesuvius.

  • With regard to the earliest houses at Pompeii,

  • these were done during again the Samnite period,

  • the fourth and third centuries B.C.

  • Keep in mind that the Samnites were an Italic tribe,

  • that is, indigenous to Italy from way back when--

  • I had mentioned to you that Pompeii was founded already in

  • the eighth century B.C.

  • And these Italic tribes built houses,

  • obviously, in which they lived already in the fourth and third

  • -- substantial houses -- in which

  • they lived already in the fourth and third centuries B.C.

  • I want to begin our conversation about domestic

  • architecture in Pompeii, and by extension in Rome

  • itself, with the so-called Domus Italica.

  • What was the Domus Italica?

  • The Domus Italica was an ideal Roman house plan,

  • and we know quite a bit about it because of the writings of

  • Vitruvius.

  • Vitruvius -- not to be confused with Vesuvius --

  • Vitruvius was an architectural theoretician who was writing in

  • the age of Augustus, Augustus being Rome's first

  • emperor.

  • And Vitruvius left a great deal of writings about all kinds of

  • architecture, including domestic

  • architecture, and he talks in detail about

  • the Domus Italica or what he considered the ideal Roman

  • house, and he describes all of its

  • parts.

  • And through his writings we can explore together what the ideal

  • Roman house was, and what you're going to find

  • very interesting, I believe, is the fact that the

  • actual houses at Pompeii conform,

  • or the earliest houses, conform very closely to this

  • ideal plan.

  • Let's run through it together, both in plan and in restored

  • view.

  • Again I'm going to need to go over a lot of terminology here,

  • but I guarantee you I'm going to repeat it enough today that

  • it will be indelibly marked on your minds and you won't even

  • have to-- I don't think you'll even have

  • to study this, when the time comes,

  • because you're going to know these parts of the houses so

  • well after we go through them today.

  • Here you see the plan of the typical Domus Italica.

  • You can see at number 1 is the entrance into the house.

  • The entrance to the house was called the fauces,

  • f-a-u-c-e-s; the fauces or the throat

  • of the house.

  • Sometimes the fauces had before it a vestibule,

  • called a vestibulum--and all of these words are on the

  • Monument List for you-- a vestibulum,

  • which was a place right before the beginning of the

  • fauces, underneath the eaves of the

  • house, where you could actually stand,

  • get in from the rain in case it was raining outside,

  • while you waited for the door to be opened.

  • But in these very early Domus Italica houses,

  • we don't tend to see the vestibulum.

  • So think it away for the moment, just the fauces

  • or throat of the house.

  • Then on either side of the fauces there are two

  • rooms, which are called cells or

  • cellae: cella in the singular and cellae,

  • c-e-l-l-a-e in the plural.

  • These can be treated in a number of different ways.

  • They can either be closed off from the street and used as

  • interior rooms for the house, extra bedrooms or living

  • spaces, or they can be, as you see them in this ideal

  • plan, opened up to the street.

  • When they are opened up to the street they take on the role of

  • shops or tabernae, t-a-b-e-r-n-a-e,

  • shops or tabernae.

  • And those shops could be either used by those who owned the

  • house, to make additional money, or they could be leased out to

  • others for their shops.

  • You see the fauces leads into the most important room of

  • a Roman house, the so-called atrium,

  • the famous atrium of the Roman house,

  • a-t-r-i-u-m.

  • The atrium was the audience hall of the house.

  • And it's important to mention from the outset that Roman

  • houses had a very different role in Roman society than houses do

  • for us today.

  • We tend to think of our houses today in large parts as

  • retreats, as places we can get away from

  • it all -- get away from work,

  • get away from schoolwork and so on,

  • and escape.

  • Although we do enjoy obviously having friends and family visit

  • us there, we tend to think of it as a place of retreat.

  • This was not true in Roman times, when the house was also a

  • place to do some very serious business.

  • The man of the house, the head of the household,

  • the paterfamilias, often greeted clients in the

  • atrium of the house, and when he was away on

  • business, or away at war, his wife, the

  • materfamilias, would stand in for him and she

  • would conduct business in the atrium.

  • So considered a very public part of the house,

  • a place where you wanted it to look its best because you were

  • going to be greeting