Newly restored house in Pompeii offers glimpse of elite life

Table Of Content

• 'My body was shaking': The fake text message that led to Jenny's family losing their savings
• An Ancient Pompeii Home Filled With Erotic Frescoes Was Just Restored After Two Decades Of Work
• After 20 years of restoration work, Pompeii's opulent House of Vettii offers glimpse into lives of former slaves
• House of the Vettii, Pompeii
• Institutional Portal of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii
• A Brief History of Scent With Saskia Wilson-Brown
• In Colonial Williamsburg, Thieving Rats Save History

Domestic spaces, in particular, offer a rich resource for examining ancient lives that, in some cases, ended abruptly. Pompeii was thriving up until the moment of its destruction and in studying its life interrupted, we arrive at important insights about what it was like to live in the Roman Mediterranean. The final mythological scene in the south-east triclinium is Achilles on Skyros, painted on the east wall. After learning that Achilles would die during the Trojan War, his mother, Thetis, sent him to live on the island of Skyros. Odysseus displays gifts in front of the King's daughter, including arms and armor. The final mythological scene in the southern triclinium is the Infant Herakles strangling the snakes, located on the north wall.

'My body was shaking': The fake text message that led to Jenny's family losing their savings

It depicts Cyparissus, Apollo's lover, who was turned into a cypress tree after killing Apollo's beloved stag. The mythological scene, Wrestling match between Pan and Eros is located in the south-east triclinium, surrounding the large atrium, on the south wall. The Death of Pentheus scene is located in the southern triclinium, surrounding the large peristyle, and painted on the east wall. The scene depicts Pentheus, the legendary King of Thebes, being killed by the female followers of Dionysus. When Dionysus returned to Thebes, Pentheus refused to believe Dionysus divinity as a god and imprisoned him, banning his worship. Dionysus escaped and enchanted Pentheus to go to Mt. Cithairon, disguised as a maenad.

What Pompeii’s ruins say about its enslaved, prostituted women - Aeon

What Pompeii’s ruins say about its enslaved, prostituted women.

Posted: Tue, 04 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

An Ancient Pompeii Home Filled With Erotic Frescoes Was Just Restored After Two Decades Of Work

It offers visitors a glimpse of Ancient Roman life in the corner of Italy frozen in time after Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 AD. In the living room, known as the Hall of Pentheus, a fresco depicts Hercules as a child, crushing two snakes, in an illustration of an episode from the Greek hero's life. Mr Zuchtriegel said fresh "readings" of the revived fresco painting reveal the "dreams and imagination and anxieties of the owners because they lived between these images'', which include Greek mythological figures. The house was constructed using a variety of materials, including opus craticium (a framework of timber filled in with rubble), opus incertum (small stones set in concrete), and opus reticulatum (a diamond pattern of small, pyramidal stones).

After 20 years of restoration work, Pompeii's opulent House of Vettii offers glimpse into lives of former slaves

The office of the head of household (paterfamilias), known as the tablinum, links the public part of the house (pars urbana) to the private part of the house (pars rustica). This latter area often focuses on an open, colonnaded courtyard (peristylium) and serves as the center of family life, with the kitchen (culina), dining room(s) (triclinium or oecus), and often a small garden (hortus). Many houses also had a second level that may have contained additional sleeping spaces and perhaps storage. A house is, of course, a dwelling—but it is also a stage on which the rituals of daily life and social hierarchy would be performed.

Uses and the Role in Society

Continue until you reach the junction with Vicolo Meridionale, turn right, and you will find the House of the Vettii on your left. This strategic location within the archaeological site ensures easy accessibility for all visitors keen to glimpse into Pompeii’s illustrious past. In recent years, however, they have also started broadening their focus, excavating sites such as a middle-class home and an enslaved family’s living quarters. In the cubiculum next to the large atrium, Ariadne abandoned by Theseus is painted on the north wall.

The only surviving mythological scene in the triclinium next to the small peristyle is Herakles and Auge, painted on south wall. This scene depicts the myth of the rape of Auge, who was the daughter of the King of Taega and the priestess of Athena, by a drunken Herakles. The second mythological scene in the southern triclinium is the Punishment of Dirce, which is located on the south wall.

Institutional Portal of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii

The construction of the house and its decorations belong to the final period of Pompeii’s occupation and therefore provides important evidence of the aesthetics of the city on the eve of its destruction. Plan, House of the Vettii, Late Republican-Early Imperial domus, destroyed 79 C.E.

A Brief History of Scent With Saskia Wilson-Brown

Most art historians point to the house’s decorative schema as being representative of a key transitional phase, between the Third and Fourth styles of Pompeian wall painting. Some scholars consider it among the finest examples of the Fourth Style at Pompeii. Paul Zanker sees the Fourth Style wall paintings as being imitations of higher art forms, reckoning that the chosen pictures aim to turn the rooms into picture galleries (pinacothecae).

Since Republican society operated on the basis of this patron-client relationship, the domus played a key part in the reinforcement of social hierarchy as the patron (patronus) would receive his clients (clientes) in the atrium of his domus each business day. While visiting with the patron, each client would get an eyeful of the patron’s household wealth, thus applying implicit pressure on the patron to ensure that his house was tasteful and fashionable. Leaving the residential part of the house through a doorway beside the main entrance, we come into the area where the servants worked and lived. In the small Atrium we find the Lararium, the altar to the domestic gods, on which we can see a scene depicting the Genius with two Lares dancing on either side above a serpent, the symbol of regenerative power. The House of the Vettii is one of the most important and spectacular sites in Pompeii.

Eventually Antiope escaped and reunited with her now adult sons but was recaptured by Dirce, who ordered that Antiope be put to death by being dragged by a bull. Amphion and Zethus saved their mother and killed Dirce in the same manner she was going to have their mother put to death. The wall facing the entrance is decorated with a Fresco of Priapus weighing his phallus on a pair of scales and a sheep with the attributes of Mercury, the god of financial income, which here serve to protect the house from bad luck and as propitiatory symbols of wealth. The Atrium is decorated with scenes depicting sacrifices, hunts and cupids while two strong-boxes are anchored to stone blocks in the floor. First unearthed during archaeological excavations in the late 19th century, the domus was closed in 2002 for urgent restoration work, including shoring up roofing.

After being welcomed into Olympus by the god, Ixion grew to lust after Zeus's wife, Hera. After Ixion attempts to seduce her, Zeus creates the cloud goddess Nephele in the image of Hera. As punishment, Zeus banishes Ixion from Olympus and orders Hermes to tie Ixion to a winged fiery wheel, which is to spin for eternity. Beyond the twelve mythological paintings, many more artworks are displayed in the House of the Vettii. The next room is decorated with frescoes depicting the struggle between Cupid and Pan, Cyparissus who is transformed into a cypress tree after killing a sacred stag and, lastly, some images of Jupiter in the upper section of the wall. The two rooms (alae) opening off the Atrium just before it leads into the garden have frescoes painted on a yellow background; these depict a cock fight on the left, and two medallions portraying the heads of Medusa and Silenus on the right.

The specific Romans who inhabited the House of the Vettii were Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva, wine merchants who made their fortunes after being freed from slavery. The strongboxes, paired with a painting of the god Priapus in the vestibule, serve to underscore the wealth of the brothers Vettii. This painting, which shows Priapus weighing his own phallus against a bag of money, may represent the socio-economic ambitions of the Vettii and perhaps indicates that those ambitions were different from those of high-ranking citizen families.

The residence "represents the Pompeiian domus par excellence, not only because of the frescoes of exceptional importance, but also because of its layout and architecture," she said. Stefania Giudice, director of fresco restoration, said it "resulted in them becoming very blurred over time, because very thick and opaque layers formed, making it difficult to 'read' the fresco". Previous restoration work involved repeated application of paraffin over the frescoed walls in the hopes of preserving them. We believe art has the power to transform lives and to build understanding across cultures. Smarthistory’s free, award-winning digital content unlocks the expertise of hundreds of leading scholars, making the history of art accessible and engaging to more people, in more places, than any other publisher. William C. Archer, “The paintings in the alae of the Casa dei Vettii and the definition of the Fourth Pompeian style,” American Journal of Archaeology, volume 94, number 1 (1990), pp. 95–123.

Now, thanks to meticulous restoration efforts that lasted two decades, one of the doomed town’s most opulent homes, the House of the Vettii, has been brought back to life. Marco Cantile/LightRocket via Getty ImagesRestored frescoes in the House of the Vettii. An inscription discovered on a wall gives the name of the enslaved person who worked here in Casa dei Vetti, Eutychis, describing her as a "Greek of beautiful manners" alongside an engraving that lists her services, ranging from one to 16 asses (a local currency). After being buried under rubble for nearly two millennia, Pompeii's House of the Vettii has reopened to the public following 20 years of restoration work. The tantalising fresh insights into the everyday life of one of the most celebrated remnants of the ancient world has delighted tourists and rewarded experts.

The unveiling of the restored home has proved yet another sign of the rebirth of Pompeii, following decades of modern bureaucratic neglect, flooding and pillaging by thieves in search of artefacts to sell. These are just some of the many fascinating features you can explore in this unique snapshot of ancient Roman life. In ancient Roman society, homes often served dual or even multiple functions as spaces for commerce, display, and entertainment, in addition to their role as a personal retreat. As such, the House of the Vettii is a prime example of this multi-role function, standing as a silent but eloquent testament to the societal norms and practices of affluent Romans in Pompeii.