Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life — John Shaqi
Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient LifeYaggy, L. W. (Levi W.)
History
Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life
Yaggy, L. W. (Levi W.)
Civilization, Ancient; Classical antiquities
30. The form of this hall is suitable to a triclinium, and its
situation, protected from the immediate action of the sun's rays,
would seem to mark it as a summer triclinium. Still the guests enjoyed
the view of the country and of the sea, by means of a door opening
upon the terrace. In front of the little chamber, 31, is a square
opening for the staircase, which descends to the point B upon the
floor below. It is to be remarked, that at the entrance of each
division of the building there is a lodge for a slave. No doubt each
suite of rooms had its peculiar keeper. The chamber, 10, seems to have
been reserved for the keeper of the peristyle; the apartment, 15,
belonged to the slave of the bed-chamber, who watched the apartment of
his master; a recess under the staircase, 35, was, without doubt, the
place of the atriensis, or attendant on the atrium, when the hall, 8,
was open, to give admission to the interior of the house; and when
this hall was closed, he attended in the chamber, 12, which commanded
the entrance through the passage, or fauces.
Lastly, the small lodge, 31, is so placed as to keep watch over all
communication between the upper floor, where is the peristyle, and
the lower floor, in which the apartments of the family seem to have
been chiefly situated.
32. Apartment, entirely ruined, to which it is difficult to assign a
name.
33. Large cyzicene œcus, about thirty-six feet by twenty-six. All the
windows of this apartment opened almost to the level of the floor, and
gave a view of the garden, the terraces and trellises which ornamented
them, as well as of the vast and beautiful prospect towards the sea
and Vesuvius.
34. Large terraces, perhaps formerly covered with trellises, which
communicate with the terraces over the gallery by which the garden is
surrounded.
35. Staircase leading to the upper floor, on which may have been the
gynæceum, or suite of apartments belonging to the women. So retired a
situation, however, did not always suit the taste of the Roman ladies.
Cornelius Nepos says that "they occupy for the most part the first
floor in the front of the house." Mazois was long impressed with the
idea that there must have been an upper story here, but for a long
time he could not find the staircase.
At last he discovered in this place marks in the plaster, which left
no doubt in his mind but that it had existed here, though being of
wood it disappeared with the other woodwork. He recognized the
inclination and the height of the steps, and found that they were high
and narrow, like those stone stairs which exist still in the same
dwelling.
36. A sort of vestibule at the entrance of the building, appropriated
to the offices. This lower court probably contained the kitchen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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