In the vaulted ceiling of the frigidarium (8) and one of the rooms of
the bakery (3) is a round hole for ventilation, opening upon the
terrace above through a kind of chimney. The hollow walls of the
caldarium (7) are carried to the crown of the vault, at the middle of
which is a similar opening for the vent. The places of the three
openings in the floor of the terrace are seen in the plan (2, μ).
At one end of the larger room of the bakery (3) is the oven; at the
other two rectangular basins of masonry. In the corner near the basins
was found the skeleton of a man who at the time of the eruption had
taken refuge in this room and probably died of hunger. The appearance
of the room at the time of excavation is shown in a sketch published
by Mazois (Fig. 177).
The door near the corner, seen in the illustration, led outside the
city. The proprietor of the house perhaps had a special permit
enabling him to leave or enter the city at any time without
surveillance; none of the other houses along the edge of the city have
a private entrance of this kind.
CHAPTER XLIII
_OTHER NOTEWORTHY HOUSES_
The houses accorded a detailed description in the previous chapters
are few in comparison with the number of those worthy of special
study. He alone who has wandered day after day among the ruins,
returning again and again to explore the parts of the city which are
rarely seen by the hasty visitor, can realize what a wealth of
interesting material lies behind the barren walls lining the streets
on either side.
The location of the houses mentioned incidentally is given in Plan VI,
at the end of the volume. Such are, the house of Caecilius Jucundus,
on Stabian Street (V. i. 26), the tablinum of which contains one of
the most beautiful specimens of wall decoration yet discovered, in the
third style; the house of Lucretius, on the same street (IX. iii. 5),
with a little garden behind the tablinum adorned with quaint
sculptures; the house of the Hunt on Nola Street (VII. iv. 48), so
named from the large hunting scene on the wall at the rear of the
garden; and further down on Nola Street (IX. vii. 6) the extensive
house with three atriums and a large peristyle, excavated in 1879,
eighteen centuries after the destruction of the city, and hence called
the house of the Centenary, casa del Centenario.
In the same block with the house of the Hunt, opposite that of the
Faun, is the house of the Sculptured Capitals, casa dei Capitelli
Figurati (VII. iv. 57). It received its name from the figures carved
in the tufa capitals of the pilasters at the entrance, one of which is
shown in Fig. 178; the stucco with which the surface was coated has
now fallen off. Such figures are not infrequently met with in pilaster
capitals of the Tufa Period, the subjects being always taken, as here,
from the bacchic cycle; the satyr at the left is well rendered. The
plan of the house is simple, like that of other houses of moderate
size dating from the pre-Roman time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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