A sumptuous suburban dwelling is the sixty-room Villa of the Mysteries outside Pompeii’s Herculaneum gate, the noblest and grandest known of its kind. It was built on a seaward-facing slope, with a terrace and subterranean vaults. A careful analysis by its excavator, Amedeo Maiuri, of its building materials and décor shows six phases, of which the earliest, in squared blocks of local limestone, includes the rectangular block of rooms numbered 2–8 and 11–21 in the plan (Fig. 8.7), and is dated 200–150 B.C. At this stage the villa was surrounded on three sides by a pleasant open portico, and the curved exedra or belvedere (see the plan) did not yet exist. The next stage is marked by the use of handsome light gray tufa instead of limestone, includes the peristyle and small _atrium_ (_atriolum_ in the plan), and the modest bathing rooms (42–44) beyond. It dates from the time of Sulla. The next two periods are dated from the prevalent styles of wall-painting, to be discussed in the section on art below. They take the villa’s building history through the reign of Augustus. In the Julio-Claudian period--the date is again made precise by the style of painting--the villa became useful as well as ornamental: the rustic quarters 52–60 were added, and an upper floor overlooking the vestibule. The latter is more elegant than the rustic quarters, less so than the noble eastern rooms. The inference is that in this period the owner used the villa only occasionally, leaving the management of its business end to a resident factor who lived on the upper floor (see the reconstruction, Fig. 8.8) where he could keep his eye on the bailiff and the slave farm-hands. The portico (P 1–4) was now provided with a windowed wall between its columns, and the sunrooms (9–10) were created, with their splendid view, open to the southern sunshine, ideal for a winter siesta. [Illustration: FIG. 8.7 Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries. (A. Maiuri, _La Villa dei Misteri_, p. 41)]