The country seats manifested a greater diversity of plan than the city residences. They were relatively larger, containing spacious colonnades and gardens; as the proprietor was unrestricted in regard to space, not being confined to the limits of a lot, fuller opportunity was afforded for the display of individual taste in the arrangement of rooms. We can understand from the letters of Pliny the Younger, describing his two villas at Laurentum and Tifernum Tiberinum (now Città di Castello), and from the remains of the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, how far individuality might assert itself in the planning and building of a country home. The main entrance of a country seat, according to Vitruvius, should lead directly to a peristyle; one or more atriums might be placed further back. The living rooms would be grouped about the central spaces in the way that would best suit the configuration of the ground and meet the wishes of the owner. In farmhouses there would naturally be a court near the entrance; and the hearth, as we have seen, down to the latest times, was placed in the room that corresponded with the atrium of the city house. In most parts of Italy a large farmhouse would contain appliances for making wine and oil. The arrangement of the two types of country house in the vicinity of Pompeii may be briefly illustrated by reference to an example of each, the villa of Diomedes and the farmhouse recently excavated at Boscoreale. [Illustration: Fig. 183.--Plan of the villa of Diomedes. 1. Steps. 3. Peristyle. 8. Tablinum. 10. Exedra. 12. Dining room. 14. Sleeping room, with anteroom (13). 15. Passage leading to a garden at the level of the street. 17. Small court, with hearth (ε) and swimming tank (ζ). 18. Storeroom. 19-21. Bath. (19. Apodyterium. 20. Tepidarium. 21. Caldarium.) 22. Kitchen. 26. Colonnade, facing a terrace (28) over the front rooms of the lower part. _e_, _f_, _g_, _h_. Colonnade enclosing a large garden. _i_, _k_, _l_, _m_. Rooms. _r._ Fish pond. _s._ Arbor.] The location of the villa of Diomedes, beyond the last group of tombs at the left of the road leading from the Herculaneum Gate, is indicated in Plan V. An extensive establishment similar in character, the so-called villa of Cicero, lies nearer the Gate on the same side of the road; on the right there is a third villa, of which only a small part has been uncovered. The three seem to have belonged to a series of country seats situated on the ridge that extends back from Pompeii in the direction of Vesuvius. The villa of Diomedes, excavated in 1771-74, received its name from the tomb of Marcus Arrius Diomedes, facing the entrance, on the opposite side of the Street of Tombs (Plan V, 42).