The front of the villa forms a sharp angle with the street. The orientation of the building was determined by an abrupt descent in the ground, which runs across the middle and divides it into two parts. The front part, the rooms of which are numbered on the plan (Fig. 183), is a few feet above the level of the street at the entrance. The rear portion, as may be seen from our section (Fig. 184), is considerably lower; on the plan the rooms of this portion are designated by letters. From traces of the second style of decoration found in two of the rooms, and from the character of the masonry, we infer that the villa was built in Roman times, but before the reign of Augustus. In front of the door was a narrow porch (Fig. 184). The door opened directly into the peristyle (3 on the plan), in the middle of which was a garden. At the left is a small triangular court (17) containing a swimming tank (ζ) and a hearth (ε) on which a kettle and several pots were found; the Romans partook of warm refreshments after a bath. The wall back of the swimming tank was in part decorated with a garden scene, not unlike those in the frigidariums of the two older public baths. Over the tank was a roof supported by two columns, and on the other two sides of the court there was a low but well proportioned colonnade. The arrangements of the bath were unusually complete, comprising an apodyterium (19), a tepidarium (20), and a caldarium (21), from which the tepidarium was warmed by means of an opening in the wall; the caldarium had a hollow floor and walls, and was heated from the kitchen (22). In the tepidarium were found four panes of glass about 10½ inches square, together with the remains of the wooden frame in which they were set. The caldarium, like those of the public baths, had a bath basin and a semicircular niche for the labrum. A small oven stands on one end of the hearth in the kitchen, and a stone table is built against the wall on the long side. The room in the corner (23) was used as a reservoir for water, which was brought into it by means of a feed pipe and thence distributed through smaller pipes leading to the bath rooms and other parts of the house. At the left of the peristyle is a passage (15) leading to a garden which has not yet been excavated. The only apartment of special interest in this portion of the house is the semicircular sleeping room (14) built out into the garden. It faced the south, and had three large windows; it was separated from the rest of the house by an anteroom, _procoeton_ (13), at one end of which is a small division (β) designed for the bed of an attendant. In the semicircular room are an alcove for a bed (γ) and a stationary wash bowl of masonry (δ). The plan is similar to that of a bedroom in Pliny's villa at Laurentum. Another sleeping room (9) was provided with both a large and a small door (p. 261). [Illustration: Fig. 184.--Longitudinal section of the villa of Diomedes, restored.