DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61387#0068
36
THE RUINS OF POMPEII.
which derived its name from the town of Signia, the place probably where it
was invented. In the middle of the peristyle was an impluvium surrounded
with fourteen columns. The water received in the piscina fed a cistern
below. The peristyle was surrounded with bed-rooms and other offices in
the usual fashion. On the side of it next the street, to the left of the entrance,
was a private bath on a large scale, with a small portico, and the usual suite
of apartments and other appurtenances found in the public baths, such as an
apodyterium, frigidarium, tepidarium, &c. On the opposite, or further
side of the peristyle, in the place usually occupied by the tablinum in
Roman houses, was a sort of large hall, with other adjoining apartments;
behind which ran a long gallery with windows looking over two terraces
towards the garden. Between these terraces was a large hall, or oecus^ with
a window reaching almost to the ground, and affording a splendid prospect
over the Bay of Naples from Castellamare to Torre Annunziata, including
in the distance the islands of Capri, Procida, and Ischia. The decorations
of the apartments were elegant and in good taste; but no remarkable pic-
tures or mosaics were discovered in them, though many articles of value were
found. At the back of the villa was a garden upwards of one hundred feet
square, surrounded with a crypto-porticus at a considerably lower level than
the peristyle and gallery. Under the peristyle, as we have before said, were
various apartments, destined apparently for servants and household purposes,
but in so ruinous a state that it is impossible to guess at their destination.
In them was found the skeleton of a man, and near it that of a goat, with a
bell round its neck. In the middle of the garden was a large quadrangular
basin with a jet-d’eau, and behind an enclosed space covered with a trellis.
At each corner of the extremity of the garden were two small apartments,
one perhaps an oratory. A cellar ran underneath three sides of the portico
surrounding the garden, the floor of which was raised four steps above the
level of the garden, in order to give the cellar the requisite height. A great
many amphorae showed that it was used as a wine cellar. It was near the
entrance of it that the eighteen skeletons were found, which we have already
described, besides the bodies at the garden gate, supposed to be those of the
master and his slave. Altogether the remains of thirty-three persons were
discovered in this house.
We must now retrace our steps up the Street of the Tombs, in order to
enter Pompeii by the Gate of Herculaneum. In size and arrangement it
bears some resemblance to Temple Bar, consisting of a central entrance for
THE RUINS OF POMPEII.
which derived its name from the town of Signia, the place probably where it
was invented. In the middle of the peristyle was an impluvium surrounded
with fourteen columns. The water received in the piscina fed a cistern
below. The peristyle was surrounded with bed-rooms and other offices in
the usual fashion. On the side of it next the street, to the left of the entrance,
was a private bath on a large scale, with a small portico, and the usual suite
of apartments and other appurtenances found in the public baths, such as an
apodyterium, frigidarium, tepidarium, &c. On the opposite, or further
side of the peristyle, in the place usually occupied by the tablinum in
Roman houses, was a sort of large hall, with other adjoining apartments;
behind which ran a long gallery with windows looking over two terraces
towards the garden. Between these terraces was a large hall, or oecus^ with
a window reaching almost to the ground, and affording a splendid prospect
over the Bay of Naples from Castellamare to Torre Annunziata, including
in the distance the islands of Capri, Procida, and Ischia. The decorations
of the apartments were elegant and in good taste; but no remarkable pic-
tures or mosaics were discovered in them, though many articles of value were
found. At the back of the villa was a garden upwards of one hundred feet
square, surrounded with a crypto-porticus at a considerably lower level than
the peristyle and gallery. Under the peristyle, as we have before said, were
various apartments, destined apparently for servants and household purposes,
but in so ruinous a state that it is impossible to guess at their destination.
In them was found the skeleton of a man, and near it that of a goat, with a
bell round its neck. In the middle of the garden was a large quadrangular
basin with a jet-d’eau, and behind an enclosed space covered with a trellis.
At each corner of the extremity of the garden were two small apartments,
one perhaps an oratory. A cellar ran underneath three sides of the portico
surrounding the garden, the floor of which was raised four steps above the
level of the garden, in order to give the cellar the requisite height. A great
many amphorae showed that it was used as a wine cellar. It was near the
entrance of it that the eighteen skeletons were found, which we have already
described, besides the bodies at the garden gate, supposed to be those of the
master and his slave. Altogether the remains of thirty-three persons were
discovered in this house.
We must now retrace our steps up the Street of the Tombs, in order to
enter Pompeii by the Gate of Herculaneum. In size and arrangement it
bears some resemblance to Temple Bar, consisting of a central entrance for