Capri tour

Almost two-thirds ofthe urban area of Pompei! was taken up with private buildings, including houses, shops, offices and inns. The houses varied, according to the social status of the occupier. The well-to-do class of the locai aristocrats land owners, and the middle-class consisting of business men, bankers, publicans, lawyers and orators which was also the leading politicai class lived in the more luxurious houses. They were in the Italie style, with the livingrooms around the atrium. Later, in the second century B.C., this basic style was enlarged with additions inspired by eastern Hellenistic architecture, with Greek names for the various rooms peristyle covered colonnade surrounding the garden, triclinium dining-room, oecus living area and so on. In the south-western area, where there is a marked drop to the Sarno volley, the houses are interesting above ali for their pano-rama development on two or three terraces which corresponded to the naturai slope of the land. The more modest and less well-to-do class was that of the freedmen, poorer traders and craftsmen. They lived in smaller houses without a true atrium, but with the rooms gathered around a covered atrium atrium testudinatum, a corri-dor this type of house was called a basilicale or a xystus, a small court-yard with one, two or three porticos a type of small peristyle or a viridarium enclosed garden. The deco-rations on the walls and floors were less luxurious, but there are stili some elegant examples.