Pompeii tour

The house of the Centaur is composed of three houses con-verted into one and has, to the right of the entrance, a beau-tiful cubicula decorated in the First Style. Beyond this is the House of Castor and Pollux, also obtained from the union of three older houses, partly recognizable, the union of which did not take place before the Augustan age. The atrium of the House of the Centaur, corresponding to the main entrance, is one of the most magnificent examples of a Corinthian atrium with twelve columns. In the room to the right of the tablinum there are the following pictures Birth of Adonis, and Scylla giving Minos the magic hat of his father. In the left hand room there is Apollo and Daphne, and Silenus with Nymph and the Infant Bacchus. Behind the tablinum there is a hand-some portico with Doric columns and at the rear, the shrine of the Lares. To the right of the atrium there is a second peri-style with a large pool of water in the centre. It is not so elegant and airy as that of the House of Meleager, but the walls are stili decorated, for the most part, in the Fourth Style fra-mes filled in with panels displaying richly ornamental elements and fantastic architecture.