At the middle of the tenth Insula, in the same Region, is the house of the Anchor (VI. x. 7), so called from an anchor outlined in the black and white mosaic of the fauces. The peristyle here presents an interesting peculiarity of construction. The level of the street at the rear of the house was below that of Mercury Street. Instead of filling up the lot so as to raise the garden to the height of the front part, the builder constructed a kind of basement under the colonnade of the peristyle, the floor of which was thus adjusted to the level of the floors in the front rooms; the garden and the floor of the basement were on the same level as the street at the rear. The colonnade was higher on the north than on the other three sides (Fig. 180). The effect of the whole was far from unpleasing. Whether the projections seen in the niches below, at the level of the garden, are pedestals or small altars cannot be determined. The niches at the front end were made larger, and were three in number. In the middle niche was a diminutive temple; the other two had the form of an apse, and contained fountain figures. [Illustration: Fig. 181.--Plan of the house of the Citharist. 6. West atrium with connecting rooms, entered from Stabian Street. 17, 32. Peristyles belonging with the west atrium. 40, 41. Bath--tepidarium and caldarium. 42. Kitchen. 47. North atrium, entered from the continuation of Abbondanza Street. 56. Peristyle belonging with the north atrium.] Houses were sometimes enlarged at the expense of neighboring dwellings, which, in some cases, were destroyed to the foundations, in others remodelled or incorporated with slight change. An example is the house of the Citharist, which fills the greater part of the fourth Insula in Region I, on the east side of Stabian Street. A bronze statue of Apollo playing the cithara, found in the middle peristyle (Fig. 181, 17), gave its name to the house. It is apparently a faithful copy of a Greek masterpiece at Sparta, and is now in the Naples Museum. The house is sometimes referred to as that of Popidius Secundus. [Illustration: Fig. 182.--Orestes and Pylades before King Thoas. Wall painting from the house of the Citharist.] There are two atriums (6, 47) and three peristyles (17, 32, 56). A large part of the house, the west atrium (6), with the connecting rooms and the two peristyles, 17 and 32, was built in the Tufa Period, in the place of several older houses. The rooms east of the two peristyles, and the north atrium (47) and peristyle (56), with the adjoining rooms, were added in Roman times, probably near the end of the Republic; the house was afterwards decorated in the second style. Remains of the third and fourth styles also are found in some parts of the house. The better apartments are grouped about the peristyles; the rooms about the atriums were turned over to the slaves or used for domestic purposes.