Anderson, William J.; Spiers, Richard Phené; Ashby, Thomas [Hrsg.]: The architecture of Greece and Rome (2): The architecture of ancient Rome: an account of its historic development ... (London, 1927)

152 THE ARCHITECTURE OF ANCIENT ROME.

Assuming the two doors in the prothyrum or vestibule to be
open, and the curtains at the rear of the tablinum and the front
of the cecus drawn aside, the passer-by in the street commanded
a view of the interior of the
house from one end to the
other. This seems to have
been the leading principle on
which all the houses in Pompeii
were planned, and may account
in some cases for the elaborate
nature of some of the sculp-
tural accessories, even in the
smaller houses, such as that
of which Plate LXXXIII is
an example. Even in the case
of a small house, where the
peristyle terminated in a wall,
the wall was painted to repre-
sent a garden beyond.
Variations from the plan
just described are found in the
House of the Faun,1, where the
peristyle is turned the other
way and its axis is not the
same as that of the atrium
(Fig. 33). This was appar-
ently in consequence of there
being a second residence on one
side (probably occupied by
some member of the same
family, as there are three or
four doors communicating
between the two). All the
bedrooms of the family of the
principal house were on an upper floor over the oecus end
triclinium.
In the House of the Silver Wedding2 the atrium was tetrastyle—


I^FIG. 33.-PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF THE FAUN]
AT POMPEII.

1 The names given to the houses are derived from features found in them,
such as works of art or inscriptions with the names of persons.
2 So called because it was excavated in 1882, in the presence of the King
and Queen of Italy, on the celebration of their silver wedding.