DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1083#0005
140 POMl'EIANA.
to Pliny or Lucullus, and still less with
the splendid imperial residence, yet, by
comparing their remains with the ordinary
houses, as described by Vitruvius, we shall
find them fully adequate to enable us to
form a tolerably accurate idea of the do-
mestic architecture of the inhabitants, if
not of the beauty and order of the more
costly edifices, of Rome.
A great feature in the arrangement of
the ancient house, as distinguished from
the modern, was the internal court. Courts
were usually formed, each surrounded with
apartments, which, lighted from within, at
first sight seem to have afforded little pos-
sibility of the domestic concerns of the
family being overlooked by any one not
included within the walls. But this was
an advantage they did not really possess,
as we may conclude from Plautus'; and
1 Forte fortuna per implavium hue despexi io proxumum,
Atque ego illam aspicio osculantem Philocomasium cum altero
Nescio quo adolescente. Mil. Glor. 2—3.
to Pliny or Lucullus, and still less with
the splendid imperial residence, yet, by
comparing their remains with the ordinary
houses, as described by Vitruvius, we shall
find them fully adequate to enable us to
form a tolerably accurate idea of the do-
mestic architecture of the inhabitants, if
not of the beauty and order of the more
costly edifices, of Rome.
A great feature in the arrangement of
the ancient house, as distinguished from
the modern, was the internal court. Courts
were usually formed, each surrounded with
apartments, which, lighted from within, at
first sight seem to have afforded little pos-
sibility of the domestic concerns of the
family being overlooked by any one not
included within the walls. But this was
an advantage they did not really possess,
as we may conclude from Plautus'; and
1 Forte fortuna per implavium hue despexi io proxumum,
Atque ego illam aspicio osculantem Philocomasium cum altero
Nescio quo adolescente. Mil. Glor. 2—3.