The portico is surrounded by strong columns, and seems to have had a second order resting on the first, as may be inferred from some indications to the right of him who enters from the _fauces_. The walls are painted red and black, with architectural designs, candelabra, meanders, birds, winged Cupids, etc. There are also fourteen small pictures enclosed in red lines, eight of which represent landscapes and sea-shores, with fishermen, and the other six fruits and eatables. On the wall on the right side is the following _graffito_, or inscription, scratched with some sharp instrument: IIX. ID. IVL. AXVNGIA. PCC. ALIV. MANVPLOS. CCL. That is: "On the 25th July, hog's lard, two hundred pounds, Garlic, two hundred bunches." It seems, therefore, to be a domestic memorandum of articles either bought or sold. Around the portico are several rooms, all having marble thresholds, and closed by doors turning on bronze hinges. On the right hand of the peristyle, near the entrance, is a private door, or _posticum_, leading into the Street of the Theatres, by which the master of the house might escape his importunate clients. The rooms at the sides of the peristyle offer nothing remarkable, but the three chambers opposite to the tablinum are of considerable size, and contain some good pictures. The first on the right has two figures of Nereids traversing the sea, one on a sea-bull the other on a hippocampus. Both the monsters are guided by a Cupid with reins and whip, and followed by dolphins. Another painting opposite the entrance is too much effaced to be made out. The same wall has a feature not observed in any other Pompeian house, namely, a square aperture of rather more than a foot reaching down to the floor, and opening upon an enclosed place with a canal or drain for carrying off the water of the adjoining houses. It seems also to have been a receptacle for lamps, several of which were found there. Adjoining this room is a large _exedra_ with a little _impluvium_ in the middle, which seems to indicate an aperture in the roof, a construction hitherto found only in _atria_. The absence of any channels in the floor for conducting water seems to show that it could not have been a fountain. This exedra is remarkable for its paintings. In the wall in front is depicted Narcissus with a javelin in his hand, leaning over a rock and admiring himself in the water, in which his image is reflected; but great part of the painting is destroyed. A little Cupid is extinguishing his torch in the stream. In the background is a building with an image of the bearded Bacchus; and near it a terminal figure of Priapus Ithyphallicus, with grapes and other fruits. This picture was much damaged in the process of excavation.