Tours of Pompeii

Despite the modest entrance and atrium, this house was one of the most beautiful in Pompeii, not for its size, but for the magnificent internal walls. From certain graffiti found it is assumed that it belonged to the family Poppaeus, a rich Pompeian family possibily related to Nero through Poppaea. In the two cubicles to the sides of the entrance there is stili the decoration in the First Style, including the jutting out cornice, left in place when the walls were painted again. These rooms were without a doubt for the servants. On the threshold of the tablinum, which has its wall painting and floor mosaic almost intact, there is a series of paintings, the centrai ones showing a libatory vase. From the peristyle, with its floor of ‘cocciopesto’, decora-ted with white and coloured tiles, one enters, to the left, an entertainment room with a large rose mosaic at the centre. The wall paintings are of the Third Style, and show Acchiles between Briseis and Patroclus in the tent Thesis visiting the workshop of Vulcan to buy new weapons for his son Achilles and Jason in front of Pelias before fleeing with Medea. From here it is possible to see the well-kept garden between the columns, with its flower beds, hermae small sculptures on columns and marble tables sculptured with Dionysian subjects. These include miniatures to be found around the centrai pool which is covered in stucco- work, and along which is a series of small sculptured animals a wild boar attacked by a dog which is biting its right ear and a dog tearing a bird to pieces, ali facing the direction of the pool. Altogether it gives the impression of good taste and the masks, hung between the columns, and the ‘oscilla’ marble discs swinging in the wind to ward off the evil eye add to this impression. At the centre of the western arcade there is a large triclinium with two smaller side rooms. In the right hand one are murai paintings showing Diana and Actaeon, Leda and Venus as a Fisherwoman. In the southern arcade, next to a large decorated room, we find the cubicle with the famous ‘gilded Cupids’ from which the house takes its name.