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Importance of Decoration
The Social Importance of Decoration in the Homes of the Wealthy of Pompeii
To the wealthy homeowner of Pompeii, the domus was the primary means through which status was conveyed and business was conducted, making elaborate decoration a necessity. My aim is to determine how the villas of the wealthy portrayed the affluence of their owners and how these villas compared to one another. Were common themes found throughout villas signifiers of a particular social status or was originality the favored means through which the wealthy depicted their station in the community? By focusing on four particular villas and the floor mosaics found within them, I will analyze the general themes used to demonstrate wealth and any commonalities or differences. The Casa del Menandro, Casa del Poeta Tragico, Casa del Fauno, and the Casa di Paquius Proculus are foremost examples of houses of Pompeii’s wealthy and of the impact that mosaic floors could have on a visitor to a home. Through a comparison of the mosaics in these homes, we will ascertain whether or not the elite used similar expressions of wealth or if there was a competition between villa owners to include the most elaborate and individualized displays.
Due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79 A.D., which buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum until their rediscovery in the nineteenth century, the mosaics found at Pompeii are confined to examples of work created during or before the first century. While the mosaics in Pompeii are more limited in style than those of other regions of the Roman Empire, they still demonstrate a wide variety of styles and shows the progression of the art of tessellatum. Pompeii was extremely well preserved by a covering of ash, and mosaics were largely found intact and present a thorough view of the craft as it was used in the context of an entire city. This is an important aspect of research that is missing in many other areas of the Empire, since in many regions there may be only a few remaining villas where there used to an entire community. In these circumstances, the researcher must debate whether the mosaics in that area were the norm or the exception. Fortunately, this shortage of preserved homes and mosaic evidence is far less of an issue in Pompeii, making a more thorough examination of the common themes used in adornment possible.
While it was still an active city, Pompeii did not hold the same importance that it does today. According to Shelley Hales, Pompeii was rather insignificant in relation to other cities in the Roman Empire. It was a prosperous market town and was known to the rest of the region for a famous amphitheatre riot. It only became well known after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.[1] The city covered sixty-seven hectares within its walls and during the late third, early second centuries B.C. it began to expand beyond the southwest corner of the walls of the city. The city employed a grid network of streets and, like the majority of Roman towns, they ran north to south, east to west. [2] After its rediscovery in the mid-nineteenth century, Giuseppe Fiorelli divided the city into nine separate regions to aid in the excavation process. When he created the sections, Fiorelli was under the impression that since Pompeii had a unique layout in terms of its two decumani, the main thoroughfares running east to west, it would make sense for it to have two cardo, the main streets which ran north to south through the city. Pompeii in fact does not have two cardo, however Fiorelli designated the boundaries of the nine regions before a full excavation had been completed.[3]
To historians and archeologists, Pompeii plays a more important role now that it did when it was a living community, because the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the ensuing blanket of ash preserved the town in its entirety and provides us with a largely intact picture of how the city functioned and how social status was expressed. Mosaic floors point directly to the luxury conveyed by the elite. Less than one-fifth of the houses in Pompeii contain mosaic floors, however mosaic floors are found in over half the homes in the top quartile of the population in comparison to the bottom quartile, where the inclusion of mosaic floors in the domus is extremely rare. Even more rare though, are the rich panel mosaics that create the centerpiece of a room, almost all of which are found in the homes of the elite.[4]
In order to understand the implications of mosaic decoration in the homes of Pompeii’s elite, one must have an understanding of the domus in terms of degrees of public access and the influence this had on interactions between the master of the house and his visitors. Roman houses looked inward and consisted of a central atrium surrounded by smaller rooms, occasionally with a later addition of a colonnaded courtyard known as a peristylium (see Figure 1). [5] The atrium was typically the principal room of a house consisting of a rectangular opening in the ceiling known as a compluvium. The roof of the atrium would slant downwards towards the compluvium so that water could gather in the shallow basin in the floor directly below the compluvium, known as the impluvium. From the impluvium there would be two outlets, one that led to a cistern to collect water for use within the household, and the other outside to the street for any excess water. Some larger homes, such as the Casa del Fauno, contained a fountain within the impluvium. The atrium was used mainly for social functions and as a formal reception area.[6]
Figure 1– Casa del Menandro Floor Plan from http://www.stoa.org/projects/ph/house?id=9
Vitruvius, a Roman writer, architect, and engineer during the first century BC, distinguished five different styles of atriums in his analysis of Roman housing.[7] The first style, Tuscan, is the most commonly found design of atrium. The roof of this style of atrium is held up by a complicated system of interlocking beams and the only source of support came from the outer walls. The ‘tetrastyle’ atrium showed the addition of four columns at each corner of the impluvium to provide additional support to the roof. While this did obstruct a visitor’s view through the atrium, the columns added a sense of grandeur and added to the owner’s visual display of his wealth. The third style, known as the Corinthian atrium, draws its name from the colonnade that surrounded a larger impluvium. The fourth style, or ‘displuviate’ atrium was very different in basic design from the previous three in that its roof sloped away from the compluvium so that rainwater ran off the sides of the house. Finally, the ‘testudinate’ atrium did not possess either a compluvium or impluvium, but rather had a complete roof. [8] For example, the Casa del Fauno has one Tuscan atrium and one tetrastyle atrium (see Figure 8).
In all of these homes the atrium was the first room reached from the street after passing through a narrow passageway, known as the fauces, which connected each house to the street. Many houses, including the Casa del Poeta Tragico and the Casa di Paquius Proculus, decorated the fauces with a ‘Beware of Dog’ mosaic on the floor (see Figures 2 & 3).[9] As Shelley Hales notes
“The decoration of the vestibule is instrumental in mediating between reality and fantasy. Numerous vestibules in Pompeii were covered with mosaics that face towards the viewer who is standing on the threshold into the domus … It allows the homeowner to demonstrate their own personalities and interests.”[10]
Figure 2 – Casa di Paquius Proculus Figure 3– Casa del Poeta Tragico
‘Beware of Dog’ fauces mosaic from ‘Beware of Dog’ fauces mosaic from
www.pompeiiinpictures.com www.pompeiiinpictures.com
The owner may have also chosen to clearly demarcate the threshold between the fauces and the atrium with a strip mosaic. In the Casa di Paquius Proculus, there is a threshold mosaic depicting centaurs, beyond which is the atrium, the floor of which is essentially carpeted with an extensive mosaic of weapons and animals that faces several different viewpoints (see Figure 4). Shelley Hales found that “This mosaic is crucial in implying that, beyond the vestibule, the space is no longer the sole preserve of the outside viewer and that this viewer no longer occupies the mosaicist as his main priority.”[11] The emphasis instead becomes the invited guest and the image that the homeowner wishes to portray to those who he has invited into his home.
Figure 4 – Casa di Paquius Proculus threshold mosaic looking into atrium from www.pompeiiinpictures.com
At the opposite end of the atrium was a large room known as a tablinum, which opened from the atrium along its entire width, but, which could be closed off through the use of a curtain.[12] When combined, the fauces, atrium, and tablinum essentially formed a theatre for the master of the house to present himself to the public. Not only were these rooms general reception areas which could be used for formal functions, but were also visible from the street and conveyed the owner’s status to the general population of Pompeii as they walked by. The fact that homeowners kept the outside viewer in mind when designing their homes is apparent in the layout of the Casa del Poeta Tragico (see Figure 6), in that there is just enough of a peristyle built to convince an outside viewer that a larger peristyle exists. However, the peristyle only has two columned sides, which can only be seen from within the house.[13] The lararium, a shrine to household gods, of the Casa del Poeta Tragico also demonstrates this mindfulness of the outside viewer. The niche of the shrine is located along the central axis of house based on the location of the front entrance; however, when actually standing inside the Casa del Poeta Tragico, the lararium is extremely off centered based on the actual central axis of the room and appears to have been shoved to a corner.[14]
Figure 6 – Floor Plan of the Casa del Poeta Tragico from http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/Places/Property/884878
Additions to the homes of the elite were focused around the peristyle, which consisted of a garden surrounded by a full colonnade. Because of its location, the peristyle essentially coordinated movement between the different rooms of the house. For the inhabitants of houses with peristyles, there was no way to live in the home and not have to traverse through the peristyle.[15] To the sides of the peristyle there would have been a series of rooms serving various purposes, dining rooms being a common addition as well as oecus, formal and typically elaborately decorated reception rooms. Reception rooms played a vital role in public relations for homeowners. They were a place to receive guests as well as conduct business.[16]
During this period, there was not the distinct separation between public and private that exists today, especially in terms of the domus. Instead there were varying degrees of privacy depending on the section of the house and who was being entertained. How far into a house visitors were invited depended on the closeness of their relationship with the head of the household.[17] The part of the house centered around the fauces and atrium were the most public rooms, whereas those further back in the residence were the more private and elusive areas. Keeping this in mind, visitors of lower social stature would typically be relegated to the atrium. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill developed the axes of differentiation for the interpretation of space within a domus (see Figure 7).[18]
Figure 7– Wallace-Hadrill’s Axis of Differentiation
This overlap between private and public necessitated the elaborate decorations found in the homes of the wealthy. Luxury was not a senseless waste, rather it was a “social necessity in a highly competitive society.”[19] The need for elegance in the domus can be explicitly linked to social status. Within their own homes, the wealthy could portray themselves to visitors how they would like to be seen. Outside of the home, the wealthy were merely homeowners, however within the confines of their residence, homeowners no longer had competition and could display their own status and wealth. As Wallace-Hadrill has remarked, “The essence of the Roman suite is that it provides an ample context for a crowded social life, allows guests to pass in astonishment from one room to another, and enables the master to hold court wherever the whim of the season or moment takes him.”[20]
While personal expression played an important role in the development and implementation of decoration within the domus, there were themes that were popular among the elite, and trends did have an impact on the types of designs that archeologists have discovered in Pompeii. There needed to be balance between expressions of individuality and local customs and trends in decoration. Hales asserts that
“Competition for public recognition was so fierce that nobody dared go out on a limb in the way they presented themselves, and, second, the cult of individualism, paramount n the modern west, is very different from Roman attitudes. A Roman identity depended on adherence to the family and to the community as much as on the self. To be seen to stand alone would be a disaster.”[21]
A correlating example of themes observed in decorations can be found in wall paintings adorning the homes of the wealthy. Even though the wealthy used their homes as a means of identifying themselves and their place in society, it was possible to essentially watch a trend sweep through Pompeii. Painting focused on animal hunting scenes, deities, or the seasons could be found in numerous homes and represent some of the same general themes used in floor mosaics.[22]