Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

DOMUS.

144

houses at Pompeii, it had no vestibulum
according to the meaning given above. 1.
The ostium or entrance-hall, which is six

1

___LJ___

Ground-plan of a House at Pompeii.

feet wide and nearly thirty long. Near the
street-door there is a figure of a large fierce
dog worked in mosaic on the pavement, and
beneath it is written Cave Canem. The two
large rooms on each side of the vestibule ap-
pear from the large openings in front of them
to have been shops; they communicate with
the entrance-ball, and were therefore proba-
bly occupied by the master of the house.
2. The atrium, which is about twenty-eight
feet in length and twenty in breadth; its
implurium is near the centre of the room,
and its floor is paved with white tesserae,
spotted with black. 3. Chambers for the use
of the family, or intended for the reception of
guests, who were entitled to claim hospitali-
ty. 4. A small room with a staircase lead-
ing up to the upper rooms. 5. Alae. 6. The
tahtinum. 7. The fauces. 8. Peristyle,
ivith Doric columns and garden in the centre.
The large room on the right of the peristyle
is the triclinium; beside it is the kitchen;
and the smaller apartments are cubicula and
oth?r rooms for the use of the family.—Hav-
ing given a general description of the rooms
of a Roman house, it remains to speak of the
(1) floors, (2) wails, (3) ceilings, (4) win-

dows, and (5) the mode of warming the rooms.
For the doors, see Jaxua.—(1.) The floo;
(solum) of a room was seldom boarded: it
was generally covered with stone or marble,
or mosaics. The common floors were paved
with pieces of bricks, tiles, stones, &c, form-
ing a kind of composition called ruderatio.
Sometimes pieces of marble were imbedded
in a composition ground, and these probably
gave the idea of mosaics. As these floors
were beaten down (pavita) with rammers
(fistucae), the word pavimentum became the
general name for a floor. Mosaics, called by
Pliny lithostrota (Ai06crrp<uTu), though this
word has a more extensive meaning, first
came into use in Sulla's time, who made one
in the temple of Fortune at Praeneste. Mo-
saic work was afterwards called Musivum
opus, and was most extensively employed.
—(2.) The inner walls (parietes) of private
rooms were frequently lined with slabs of
marble, but were more usually covered by
paintings, which in the time of Augustus
were made upon the walls themselves. This
practice was so common that we find even
the small houses in Pompeii have paintings
upon their walls.—(3.) The ceilings seem
originally to have been left uncovered, the
beams which supported the roof or the upper
story being visible. Afterwards planks were
placed across these beams at certain intervals,
leaving hollow spaces, called lacunaria or la-
quearia, which were frequently covered with
gold and ivory, and sometimes with paint-
ings. There was an arched ceiling in com-
mon use, called Camaka.— (4.) The Koman
houses had few windows {fenestras). The
principal apartments, the atrium, peristyle,
&c, were lighted from above, and the cubi-
cula and other small rooms generally derived
their light from them, and not from windows
looking into the street. The rooms only
on the upper story seem to have been usually
lighted by windows. The windows appear
originally to have been merely openings in
the wall, closed by means of shutters, which
frequently had two leaves (bifores fenestrae).
Windows were also sometimes covered by a
kind of lattice or trellis work (clathri), and
sometimes by net-work, to prevent serpents
and other noxious reptiles from getting in.
Afterwards, however, windows were made of
a transparent stone, called lapis specularis
(mica) ; such windows were called specula-
ria. Windows made of glass (vitrum) are
first mentioned by Lactantius, who lived in
the fourth century of tbe Christian era; but
the discoveries at Pompeii prove that glass
was used for windows under the early empe-
rors.—(5.) The rooms were heated in winter
in different ways; hut the Romans had nc