Where there was a large upper room at the rear of the atrium, no place
was left for the high tablinum; in a house in the seventh Region (casa
dell' Amore Punito, VII. ii. 23) the cenaculum was in front. On the
front wall of the atrium one may still see part of the carefully hewn
stones on which the columns of the second story rested, and fragments
of these columns were found on the floor below.
XII. THE SHOPS
The outer parts of the houses fronting on the principal thoroughfares
were utilized as shops. On the more retired side streets there were
fewer shops, and we often find a façade of masonry unbroken except for
the front door and an occasional window.
[Illustration: Fig. 130.--Plan of a Pompeian shop.
1. Entrance.
2. Counter.
3. Place for a fire.
4. Stairway to upper floor.
5, 5. Back rooms.]
The shop fronts were open to the street. The counter, frequently of
masonry, has in most cases the shape indicated on our plan (Fig. 130,
2), being so arranged that customers could make their purchases, if
they wished, without going inside the shop. Large jars were often set
in it, to serve as receptacles for the wares and edibles exposed for
sale. Sometimes on the end next to the wall there are little steps, on
which, as seen in our restoration (Fig. 131), measuring cups and other
small vessels were placed. At the inner end we see now and then a
depression (3) over which a vessel could be heated, a fire being
kindled underneath as on a hearth. In the wineshops a separate hearth
is sometimes found, and occasionally a leaden vessel for heating
water.
In the houses of the Tufa Period the shops, as the front doors and the
rooms about the atrium, were relatively high. Those of the house of
Caecilius Jucundus measured nearly 16 feet; those of the house of the
Faun, 19 feet; the appearance of the latter may be suggested by our
restoration (Fig. 139). The height was divided by an upper floor,
_pergula_, 10 or 12 feet above the ground, along the open front of
which was a balustrade; the stairs leading to it were inside the shop.
On such a pergula Apelles, according to Pliny (N. H. xxxv. 84), was
accustomed to display his paintings; and in the Digest reference is
more than once made to cases in which a person passing along the
street was injured by an object falling upon him from the second story
of a shop. 'Shops with their upper floors' are advertised for rent in
one of the painted inscriptions found at Pompeii (p. 489).
[Illustration: Fig. 131.--A shop for the sale of edibles, restored.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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