Anna Anguissola (ed.

Privata Luxuria - Towards an Archaeology of

Intimacy: Pompeii and Beyond

International Workshop
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(24-25 March 2011)

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M. Taylor Lauritsen
The Form and Function of Boundaries in the Campanian House
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General Index

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... 7

Preface ............................................................................................................................. 8

I. A Space of One's Own

1. A Bedroom of One's Own (Laura Nissinen) ....................................................... 15
2. The Dynamics of Seclusion. Observations on the Casa de! Labirinto
and the Casa degli Arnorini Dorati at Pompeii (Anna Anguissola) ................ 31

II. Work and Leisure under One Roof

1. Working and Living Under One Roof: Workshops in Pompeian Atrium
Houses (Miko Flohr) ................................................................................................. 51
2. Pompeian Cauponae in Their Spatial Context: Interaction between Bars,
Inns, and Houses (Antonio Calabro) ..................................................................... 73

Ill. Quantifying Privacy

1. The Form and Function of Boundaries in the Campanian House
(M Taylor Lauritsen) ............................................................................................... 95
2. Domestic Spaces and Commercial Activities in Selected Domus of
Regi.ones V and VI at Pompeii (Chiara Maratini) ............................................ 115

IV. Organizing Privacy

1. Spatial Organization in Middle-Class Houses of III and II c. B.C. at
Pompeii: The Example of the Casa de! Granduca Michele (VI 5,5)
(Dora D'Auria) ......................................................................................................... 131
2. Transformation of Domestic Space in the Vesuvian Cities: From the
Development of the Upper Floors and Fac;ades to a New Dimension of
Intimacy (Riccardo Helg) ........................................................................................ 143

V. Privacy beyond Pompeii

1. Intimacy in the Cubiculum: From Textual Sources to Material Evidence
in Roman Africa and Iberia (Margherita Carucci) ........................................... 165
2. Comparing Houses. Domestic Architecture in Ephesos from the Mid
Imperial Period to Late Antiquiry (Helmut Schwaiger) .................................. 187
Plates ........................................................................................................................... 203

Bibliographical Abbreviations ........................................................................... 209

Works Cited ............................................................................................................... 211

Index of sites and buildings ................................................................................ 229

Abstracts ........................................................:........................................................... 235

6
111.1

The Form and Function of Boundaries in the

Campanian House

M. Taylor Lauritsen

In 1986, Paul Veyne, the editor ofA History ofPrivate Life: From Pagan Rome
to Byzantium, wrote a foreword to Yvon Thebert's chapter discussing the
relationship between privacy and domestic architecture in North Africa. In
this brief commentary, he provided a summary of his thoughts on the Roman
house, in which he stated that it was "above all an empty space," noting that
"this could be sensed as soon as you reached the heart of a building, and in
some cases as soon as you crossed the threshold." 1 Though Veyne was presum-
ably thinking of Roman houses in North Africa when he made this statement,
its conceptual roots likely lie some SOO miles to the north, in the houses of
Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The notion of the house as an empty, boundless space has long pervaded
scholarly studies of dwellings in the Vesuvian cities. In the latter half of the
20th century, the perception crystallized into what I have elsewhere termed
the "empty house" paradigm. 2 The development of this paradigm can be at-

I would like to thank Pro( G. Proietti and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni
Archeologici di Pompei e Napoli for allowing me to conduct this research, as well as the
many custodi at Pompeii and Herculaneum who kindly provided assistance to our team on
site. The Doors ofPompeii and Herculaneum Project is funded jointly by the Roman Socie-
ty and the Departments of Archaeology and Classics at the University of Edinburgh -
many thanks go to these bodies for their financial support. I am also grateful to my advi-
sors, Pro(). Crow and Dr. L. Grig for their advice and assistance, and to Dr. A. Anguissola
for the invitation to contribute to this volume. Above all I would like to thank ).
Dietterich,). Dunkclbarger, C. Johnson and K. Macfarlane, whose hard work in the field
made this paper possible.
1
Veyne1987, 317.
2
Lauritsen 2011, 59.

95
tributed to a number of general trends prevalent in classical archaeology over
the last two centuries, broader issues which for reasons of space cannot be
discussed in depth here.
What is clear, however, is that this model has had a dramatic effect on the
way in which the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum have been interpreted,
particularly from a functional perspective. The seemingly boundless nature of
the modern remains has led to the house being construed as "visually trans-
parent"3 and "in no way private,"4 with domestic space functioning as "a stage
deliberately designed for the performance of social rituals."5
Though there can be little doubt that Campanian houses were socially sig-
nificant structures, to suggest that they were constructed primarily for the
purpose of maintaining social custom neglects their role as practical living
spaces. The key to understanding this dichotomy (private dwelling vs. socio-
cultural status symbol) lies in an understudied feature of domestic architec-
ture - the permeable boundary. Boundaries have played an essential role in
the development of modern spatial analytical methodology, and their signifi-
cance to the study of domestic space is well established. 6 In the houses of
Pompeii and Herculaneum, a focus on standing architecture and the decora-
tive elements of the domestic environment (frescos, mosaics, etc.) has taken
pride of place in scholarly research; as a result, little attention has been paid to
doors, partitions, and other bounding structures that are no longer extant.
The goals of this paper, then, are twofold: ( 1) to consider the various types of
boundaries present in the Campanian house and (2) to evaluate how these
boundaries may have structured domestic space.
The data summarized here were obtained during the second phase of the
Doors of Pompeii and Herculaneum Project, an architectural survey of door-
ways in 31 houses across the two Vesuvian cities. Following an intensive sur-
vey of four houses during the first phase, one of the primary goals of the se-
cond season was to establish a database large enough to develop broad-scale
functional and design typologies. As a result, the size of the survey was in-
creased significantly, including 27 additional dwellings. Because it was desira-
ble to consider the presence of boundaries in a diverse set of contexts, houses

3
W allace-Hadrill 1994, 44.
4
Clarke 1991, 2.
5
Wallace-Hadrill 1988, 96.
6
See Lavin (1981), Lawrence (1990, 77), and Hanson (1998, 6- 13) for discussion on the
importance of boundaries in the organization of domestic and social space.

96
of varying sizes, decorative styles, and preservation were selected to make up
the sample (table 1).

..
Jfouse
,::i1>i~"l
Regio . . Insula Number Name 1
Number : .. y :•. ·.· +
1 I 6 4 Casa del Larario di Achille
2 I 6 11 Casa di Casca Longus
3 I 6 15 Casadei Ceii
4 I 7 3 Casa di Fabio Amandio
5 I 7 10,11,12 Casa dell'Efebo
6 I 8 17 Casadei Quattro Stili
7 I 9 5,6,7 Casa del Frutteto
8 I 10 4 Casa del Menandro
9 I 10 8 Casa di Minucio
10 I 11 6,7 Casa della Venere in Bikini
11 I IS 2 Casa della Nave Europa
12 v 2 4 Casa del T riclinio
13 v 4 A Casa di M. Lucretius Fronto
14 VI 6 I Casa di Pansa
15 VI 8 3,4,S Casa del Poeta Tragico
16 VI 8 23 Casa della Fontana Piccola
17 VI 11 9,10 Casa de! Labirinto
18 VII l 40 Domus M. Caesii Blandi
19 VII 4 48 Casa della Caccia Anrica
20 VII 4 57 Casadei Capirelli Figurati
21 VIII 2 26
22 VIII 2 34
23 4 4 Casa dell'Akova
24 5 l Casa Sannitica
25 5 30 Casa dell'Atrio Corinzio
26 5 35 Casa de! Gran Portale
27 6 11 Casa de! Salone Nero

Table 1: Houses Surveyed, Door of Pompeii and Herculaneum Project Phase II

97
Boundary form and location
Three types of permeable boundaries were employed in the houses of Pompeii
and Herculaneum: doors, partitions, and curtains. Each type required differ-
ent mechanisms and hardware packages to function properly. To a degree,
these variations are useful, as the architectural markers left behind by the
hardware provide the opportunity for a more refined understanding of certain
forms. On the other hand, boundaries that have a reduced impact on the
standing architecture (e.g. curtains) are difficult to identify using architectural
survey alone. The following paragraphs in this section will address these prob-
lems more specifically by discussing each type of boundary individually.

Doors
Doors in Campanian domestic space appear in three primary forms: double
doors (bifores), folding doors (valvae), and single-leaf doors. All three turned
on metal pivots, or cardines, that were placed into cuts in the threshold near
the door jamb.7 Each door type was generally associated with the size of the
doorway itself In narrow doorways, for instance, bifores were the preferred
type (fig. 1, left). In wide doorways, valvae were more commonly used, com-
bined in some cases with a single leaf (fig. 1, right). Though Pompeian frescos
indicate that folding doors were also regularly employed in narrow openings,
this arrangement rarely appeared in the sample. 8
Most Campanian doorways were quite narrow, so it is not surprising that
bifores proved to be the most common type of door found in the survey. In
doorways that provided clear evidence for the presence of a door in antiquity
(considered to be "diagnostic" in this study), bifores were found 71 % of the
time. Valvae were present in 11 % of diagnostic doorways, while single-leaf
doors appeared quite rarely (6%). In the remaining 13% of the sample, the
presence of doors could be confirmed, but the type was unable to be identi-
fied.

7
Racher chan ucilizing che cardo syscem, some doors hung on hinges connecced directly co
the frame of che doorway; valvae likewise employed hinges of varying types as a means of
conneccing the individual leaves.
8
Nocable frescos include those on the norch and south walls of che tablinum in the Casa di
Marcus Lucrecius Pronto (V 4,A) and the north, east, and south walls of che tablinum in
che Casa di Meleagro (VI 9,2).

98
 Fig. I: Pompeii, Villa dei Misteri. Casts of bifores and valvae (author)

Partitions
Only eight examples of partitions were identified in the Doors of Pompeii and
Herculaneum Project's second phase. In defining the difference between a
door and a partition in this context, a few explanatory comments are in order.
First, it is worth noting that the word "partition" can be used to describe a
wide variery of architectural elements: there is the partition wall, a non-
loadbearing wall that divides rooms or parts of rooms; there is the screen,
rypically a mobile form of partition that is non-permeable (often used to di-
vide space within a room); and there is the permeable partition, a structure
that separates but allows access between two individual rooms via one or mul-
tiple sets of doors. It is the latter term that we are considering here. At Pom-
peii and Herculaneum, most partitions of this type probably resembled the
carbonized structure found in the Casa del Tramezzo di Legno at Herculane-
um (III 11) (fig. 2). These were relatively thin and extended across the full
length - but often not the full height - of a doorway. Bronze and iron fixtures
recovered from select doorways in the Casa del Menandro (I 10,4) suggest
that, other than the hinges, bosses, and other fittings for the doors, partitions
were made entirely out of wood, 9 and based on the height of cuts found on the

9
Allison 2007, 57.

99
door jambs, rose to a height of at least 2 m. It is unclear whether the tripartite
structure found in the Casa de! Tramezzo di Legno, which contains a large
central aperture flanked by two smaller doorways, was the typical design. Pre-
sumably narrower openings would have called for entirely different arrange-
ments, incorporating fewer sets of doors. Without the discovery of further
standing examples, however, the potential variants in form will likely remain
unknown.

Fig. 2: Herculaneum, Casa del Tramezzo di Legno. Partition (author)

Though there can be little doubt that partitions were employed as bound-
ing mechanisms less regularly than doors, the number found in this survey
almost certainly bely the commonality of these structures. Because they were
less incorporated into the architectural design of the house (sometimes added
to a doorway long after it was originally constructed), partitions generally
leave behind little physical evidence of their presence. As a result, their suc-
cessful identification depends not only on architectural survey, but also on the
analysis of excavation reports, which can provide evidence for structures that
would otherwise remain unidentified. As the latter process is currently ongo-
ing, it is impossible to confirm either the precise locations or total number of
partitions in the 27 houses considered here; it suffices to say, however, that
the final number will be significantly higher than the eight identified during
the architectural survey.

100
Curtains
Curtains have long been essential to popular representations of Roman do-
mestic space. In film, television, and text, the interior design of Roman houses
has been reliant upon the curtain as the primary means of separating spaces
from one another. Scholarly depictions of domestic space in the Vesuvian
cities have traditionally been no different. Since the houses of Pompeii were
first reconstructed by European academics in the l 9th century, curtains have
been the favored type of boundary.

Fig. 3: Pompeii, Casa

di Pansa. Atrium and
tablinum, restored
(after Monnier 1864,
397)

Marc Monnier's imaginative restoration of the Casa di Pansa (VI 6,1) pro-
vides an excellent example of this phenomenon in its infancy (fig. 3). The
broad, unbounded vista from the Jauces through to the peristyle is, as de-
scribed in the introduction, common to traditional interpretations of
Campanian domestic space. The ostensible transparency of the home is rein-
forced here by the total absence of doors - the only boundaries to be found at
all, in fact, are the portieres located in the doorways opening onto the
tablinum and alae. Our survey has shown, however, that each of the doorways
visible in this image - with the exception of the doorway opening onto the
tablinum - contained a set of bifores in antiquity. 10 Though the Casa di Pansa

JO Interestingly. the Casa di Pansa presents some of the most obvious evidence for the

presence of doors at Pompeii. The thresholds found in the doorways surrounding the
atrium are unusually large and cut from Sarno limestone: their size and color cause them
to stand out against the drab masonry, which is composed of grey tufa ashlars augmented
by opus incertum. Each of these thresholds contains two large, horseshoe-shaped holes (one
near each jamb) that held the cardines, and two smaller square holes in the center of the

101
very well may have contained curtains in some of its doorways, the reconstruc-
tion presented by Monnier is misleading at best.
Yet the notion of a few lonely curtains hanging in otherwise unbounded,
empty house is no one-off: a nearly identical image can be found in W. Gell's
first edition of Pompeiana (published, it should be noted, 47 years prior to
Monnier's text), and many 19th century restorations of other houses depict a
similar arrangement.JI Academic interpretations from the 20th century,
though dispatching with the restoration engravings popular in the previous
epoch, similarly favoured the curtain's centrality within the domestic land-
scape. Indeed, a cursory glance through many late-century books and articles
will confirm that most modern academics still follow this line of thought.
That curtains have played such a crucial role in contemporary interpreta-
tions of Campanian domestic space is surprising, particularly considering the
fact that there is little archaeological evidence to support their prominence.
Because of their relatively light weight, the installation of portieres in a door-
way made little impact on the standing architecture. Without extant fittings
or hanging mechanisms attached to the jambs or the lintel, there simply is no
way to identify where curtains were used in antiquity. 12 In the 27 houses sur-
veyed during the 2010 field season, no doorway presented this type of conclu-
sive evidence.
The artefactual record, though still rather lean, provides better insight into
where and how curtains might have been employed. In the Casa del Fabbro (I
10,7), the remains of a long iron rod were found near the threshold of a
triclinium, which was believed by excavators to have been used to hang a cur-
tain across the entrance to the room. 13 It is worth noting, however, that cuts
in the limestone threshold blocks located at either end of the doorway indi-
cate that, at some point in the history of the house, valvae were also used to
close off this space. In the Casa di Trebius Valens (III 2,1), five bronze rings
were recovered near one of the door jambs of an ala. 14 Although few details

threshold for the bolts anached to each leaf. The holes are placed within a rebate that was
cut into the horizontal face of the threshold to create a natural doorstop. All of these
features are visible to naked eye and quite clearly indicate the presence of bifores in most
doorways.
11
Gell and Gandy 1817, pl. 36.
12
A rare example of such a system can be found above a doorway opening onto the
tablinum in the Villa dei Misteri.
13
Elia 1934, 286-7.
14
Spano 1915, 419.

102
regarding these objects are provided in the excavation report, it is clear that
the excavators thought that the rings were used to hang a curtain at the ala's
entrance. Further artefactual evidence was found in the Casa di Obellius
Firmus (IX 14,2-4), where A. Sogliano uncovered two pairs of bronze bosses
located on either side of the doorway between the atrium and tablinum.
Sogliano believed these to be tie-backs for a set of curtains that had been lo-
cated in this doorway. 15
These examples suggest that curtains may have appeared more regularly in
wide doorways, which typically open onto rooms such as triclinia, tablina, and
oeci. Returning to the 2010 sample, we can see if this trend is reflected in the
survey data. Because doorways that employed curtains rarely retain evidence
of their presence, it is possible to examine the percentages of doorways regard-
ed as "absent" (those presenting no evidence for a boundary) in an attempt to
assess this relationship - if curtains were indeed used more regularly in wide
doorways, a greater proportion of these doorways should be "absent" as com-
pared to their narrow counterparts. The results of the survey, however, indi-
cate that the opposite is the case: only 22% (23 of 106) of the wide doorways
were considered "absent," compared with 37% (174 of 465) of the narrow
doorways. Of course, it cannot be assumed that a curtain was utilized in every
doorway that did not contain a door or partition, so it is difficult to draw any
definitive conclusions here. At best, perhaps these results suggest the absence
of a clear relationship between doorway size and the placement of curtains
within the domestic environment.

Distribution of boundaries
We have seen the problems posed in detecting the presence of partitions and
curtains; these are compounded in many houses by the poor state of the re-
mains and by modern reconstruction. Given these factors, surveyed doorways
were placed into three categories: absent (no architectural evidence for a
boundary was present), diagnostic (boundary presence and rype were con-
firmed) , and non -diagnostic (boundary was likely present, but not able to be

15
Sogliano 1905, 254-6.

103
confirmed by standing remains). 16 Of the 571 doorways surveyed, 197 were
considered absent, 287 were diagnostic, and 87 were non-diagnostic.

•Absent iE Diagnostic • Prese1it. Non-Diagnostic

iso r ·::--:--··:::::--··:·:::--·--·:--------:·----------·--r·································---······---·--:·:--:::·· r ·:::::::::::::···::::--::::::::::::::::::::::::;

160 -;::::::::::'::::=''''' ::::::

140 +.;;;;.,;;;;;;;.,;;;;;;;;;;;.

120
100
80
60
40

Alrinm Other Pe1istyle/Garden

•Absent llJ1' Diagnostic • Present. Non-Diagnosiic

Atrium Or.her Peri style1Ganlen

Tables 2- 3: Diagnosis of boundaries, total count (above) and percentage (below)

As can be seen in tables 2 and 3, rooms opening off of atria contained the
greatest total number (165) and highest percentage (62%) of doorways em-
ploying doors or partitions. 48% of the doorways opening off of peristyles or
gardens contained one of these bounding structures, and in kitchens, latrines,

16
It should be noted that absent and non-diagnostic doorways are being more thoroughly
studied utilizing comparative evidence from the excavation reports. These data will then
be incorporated into the project's final results.

104
and service areas (spaces designated as "other"), the percentage drops to
32%. 17
Though poor preservation in remote areas often made an accurate reading
of the architectural remains more difficult, there is clearly a trend present in
these results: as one moves deeper into the house, substantial boundaries ap-
pear less regularly. This conclusion seems to contradict the view that has been
presented in the traditional model, namely that the atrium and its dependen-
cies comprised a boundless, transparent space. In reality, this part of the house
was the most heavily bounded, with both visual transparency and physical
accessibility increasing in areas further from the front door.
This trend becomes better defined when we examine cubicula. 18 Doorways
opening onto this room type were by far the most numerous in the survey,
representing 168 of the 571 doorways in the sample. In cubicula opening off
of the atrium, a boundary was confirmed to be present in 90% of the door-
ways surveyed (table 4). This is a surprisingly high percentage, particularly
given the fact that poor preservation and/ or modern reconstruction made
survey in some atria difficult. Moving back into the peristyle or garden, how-
ever, the percentage drops significantly, with only 47% of cubiculum doorways
producing diagnostic evidence for the presence of a boundary in antiquity.

Atrium Garden/Peristyle

Table 4: Presence of
doors in cubicula
• Absent Present II Non-diagnostic

17
No doubt a considerable number of these doorways contained curtains, as discussed
above. J.-A. Dickmann (1999, 229-30) has proposc;d that curtains were used quite regu-
larly in less central areas, particularly in kitchens and service suites.
18
In this study, a cubiculum was defined as an architectural rather than functional type.
Thus a small room with a narrow doorway was considered to be of the type "cubiculum".

105
 The atrium has traditionally been presented as the center of social interac-
tion in the Campanian house, the nexus at which the internal (domestic) and
external (socio-cultural) environments met. 19 As such, it has often been de-
fined as a "public" or "semi-public" space, while at the same time boundless
and transparent. Though these two concepts might seem complementary, in
reality they contradict one another - in public and semi-public spaces,
boundaries actually become more important for regulating the spatial envi-
ronment, because personal cues and socio-cultural conventions that might aid
in the management of these areas are not always universally recognized by
individuals. 20 Thus we should not be particularly surprised by the results pre-
sented here. If the atrium was indeed a semi-public space, it is logical that the
rooms surrounding it would have been heavily bounded, thereby establishing
a formal visual and physical division between accessible and inaccessible are-
as.21 In spaces further from the front door, where access was more thoroughly
regulated, formal boundaries became less necessary, and could either be re-
moved altogether or replaced by less rigid structures, such as curtains. Of
course, the permeable nature of these boundaries adds a complicating ele-
ment. If the doors around the atrium stood open for most of the day, their
effectiveness as regulators of privacy would obviously have been mitigated.
However, the presence of false doors in a number of Campanian houses sug-
gests that boundaries opening directly off the atrium may often have remained
closed.
Two houses will be employed to test this theory: the Casa di Paquius
Proculus (I 7,1) and the Casa della Fontana Piccola (VI 8,23). In both houses,
all of the doorways located on the left side of the atrium (as viewed from the
fauces) were occupied by false doors 22. In the Casa di Paquius Proculus, three
narrow, evenly spaced openings cut into the east wall were decorated with

19Clarke 1991 , 1-6; D wyer 1991 ; Zaccaria Ruggiu 1995, 370-7.

20
Sanders 1990, 49.
21
The Campanian homeowner's desire to establish territorial control over the domestic
environment is similarly reflected in the relationship between the house and the street.
Unlike dwellings in many other parts of the world, houses in Pompeii and Herculaneum
present a street frontage that demonstrates a clear separation between inside and outside
space. Most houses have only a single door and one or two narrow windows (typically
above eye level) opening onto the street, thereby exhibiting a desire to control both visual
and physical access to the inside of the structure.
22
Similar arrangements can be found in the Casa delle Forme di Creta (Vll 4,61-63), the
Casa di lnaco ed Io (VI 7, 19), and the Casa di Championnet II (Vlll 2, 3).

106
 marble thresholds. The doorway
closest to the fauces contains the
partial cast of a single-leaf door made
upon excavation (fig. 4). Cuts in the
thresholds and jambs of the other
two doorways imply that they almost
certainly housed similar arrange-
ments. Yet these doorways did not
open onto cubicula, as one might
expect, but rather onto rubblework
walls, constructed to block off these
openings at some early point in the
history of the house. The absence of
cuts for cardines in any of the
thresholds indicates that these were
not functional structures, but rather
"straw men," intended to give the
Fig. 4: Pompeii, Casa di Paquius impression that the left side of the
Proculus, cast of false door (after atrium was occupied by three indi-
Ehrhardt 1998, fig. 159) vidual rooms. The two doorways
opening off the left (south) side of
the atrium in the Casa della Fontana Piccola appear to have been constructed
for a similar purpose. Both were fitted with marble thresholds and wooden
jambs, and the absence of painted plaster on the shallow recesses inside their
frames indicates that they almost certainly contained wooden doors in antiq-
uity (fig. 5). In this case, however, the doorways were constructed as part of
the house's original design: they were purpose-built to compensate for the
shortage of space on the left side of the atrium. 23 This interpretation is rein-
forced by the design of the door's frame, which tapers slightly from bottom to
top - functional doorways at Pompeii and Herculaneum do not usually taper
in this manner.

23
T. Frohlich's excellent study of the Casa della Fontana Piccola confirms that it was
constructed independent of its neighbor, the Casa della Fontana Grande (VI 8,22) (1996,
76).

107
 Fig. 5: Pompeii, Casa della Fontana Piccola. False doorways (author)

In summary, the presence of false doors in these houses indicates two

things: (1) that there was a strong desire on the part of the residents to make
the house appear larger than its plot allowed and (2) that this ruse could be
achieved by placing false doors on one side of the atrium. If the doors sur-
rounding Campanian atria typically remained open during the day, then this
attempt at deception would have been fruitless, for multiple sets of perma-
nently closed doors would certainly have appeared unusual. Rather, it seems
likely that - in some houses, at least - the doors opening off the atrium regu-
larly remained closed.

The division between front and back

If this hypothesis is correct, it can only be assumed that the prevalence of
boundaries in the atrium would also have affected visual access to spaces deep-
er in the residence. In many Campanian dwellings, the peristyle or garden is
located behind the atrium, on axis with the front door. As a result, the propo-
nents of the "empty house" model have emphasized the importance of the
vista from the front door through the tablinum or neighboring rooms and
into the garden or peristyle beyond. 24 Not surprisingly, the effect that doors

24
Drerup 1958; Bek 1980 185-6; Watts 1987, 187-9; Clarke 19914-6; Wallace-Hadrill
1994, 44-5; R. Ling 1997, 140-1. Flower (1997, 199) summarizes the model well: "Ac-
cording to this school of thought, the Roman house is transparent and allows the visitor to
look across the brightly illuminated pool (impluvium) in the atrium, with the cartibulum
behind it, into the tablinum flanked by herms and through into the garden or peristyle

108
and partitions might have had on this viewshed has often been downplayed or
altogether ignored.25 For the modern scholar, this is easy enough to do - when
one enters a Campanian house today, the depth of view is striking and cer-
tainly suggests a transparent domestic environment. In antiquity, however,
many of the doorways linking the atrium to the garden or peristyle were oc-
cupied by doors, partitions, or curtains. These boundaries would have played a
critical role in regulating both visual and physical access to the back parts of
the house.26
22 of the 27 houses surveyed during the 2010 field season contain an axial
atrium-peristyle/garden arrangement. In these houses, a total of 76 doorways
link the "front" of the house, represented by the atrium and its surrounding
rooms, with the "back," represented by the peristyle or garden and its depen-
dencies. In the Casa del Menandro, for example, four doorways connect these
areas - two opening onto the atrium (doorways 6 and 7) and two opening
onto the peristyle (doorways 12 and 13) (fig. 6).
These four doorways provide the modern visitor with an unimpeded view
to the back of the peristyle from the fauces (fig. 7). Yet in antiquity. all were
occupied by boundaries: doorways 6 and 13 contained pairs of bifores, door-
way 12 housed a large set of valvae, and a substantial partition was located in
doorway 7. The latter structure, which rose to a height of approximately 2.2
m, would have reduced the vista into the peristyle significantly, even when the
doors of doorway 12 were open. 27 Again, however, we are presented with the
problem of how often these boundaries were open or closed. Though fully
open strap hinges recovered from the area around doorway 12 demonstrate
that the valvae located here were closed at the time of the eruption (finds

beyond. The effect can be seen as a series of constructed tableaux or of symmetrically

designed planes inviting the admiration of the viewer standing at the doorway. The view is
sometimes enhanced by a sloping entrance ramp or even by mountains visible in the dis-
tance over the roof of the house." But she concedes that the presence of boundaries is
problematic for this paradigm, given that "we do not know how often or why the view
through the tablinum and beyond the atrium was blocked off by a wooden screen or a
curtain, thus giving the house much greater privacy" ( 1997, 200 n.61 ).
21
E.g. Wallace-Hadrill 2007, 283.
26
lt should be noted that in some houses a door or set of doors was also located at the head
of the fauces, creating an additional boundary between the front door and the atrium. In
the 2010 survey, however, this boundary appeared rarely and thus will receive little atten-
tion here.
27
This view may have been limited further by the presence of a wooden triclinium that was
found in the garden of the peristyle at the time of excavation (R. Ling 1997, 14 1).

109
from the doorways surrounding the peristyle indicate that many of these
doors were closed as well), 28 the catastrophic nature of this event would likely
have encouraged residents to close their houses off from the tumult occurring
outside.

Figs. 6 - 7: Pompeii, Casa de! Menandro. Plan (above: after

R. Ling 1997, fig. 24) and view fromfauces (below: author)

28
L.Ling1997. 339; Allison 2007, pl. 11 , 20-2.

110
 A more fTuitful line of inquiry may be found in the artefactual evidence re-
covered £Tom the tablinum. In addition to the strap hinges associated with
doorway 12, the assemblage included two beds located in the southwest cor-
ner, bronze fittings for a chest or cupboard, a marble herm, two ceramic loom
weights, a ceramic bowl, and a bronze clamp. 29 This collection suggests that
the tablinum was not being used in the method attributed by the traditional
model (as the homeowner's study or record room) but rather as a dining
and/or sleeping area. 30 If this interpretation is accurate, then the presence of
the partition makes more sense: when the doors were closed, it created a room
separate from the atrium, a space intended for the private use of the reside~ts
and perhaps their guests. Thus the visitor standing in the fauces of the Casa
del Menandro would not necessarily have been presented with a vista into the
"garden world of the peristyle," 31 but something quite different: a heavily
bounded space in which the view into the back of the house would have been
significantly limited or even nonexistent (fig. 8).

Fig. 8: Pompeii, Casa de! Menandro. View from fouces (reconstructed)

Returning to the broader survey, in the 21 additional houses that con-

tained the same axial design present in the Casa del Menandro (with the pe-
ristyle or garden located directly behind the atrium), 13 contained atria and

29
Allison 2007, 64-6.
30
See Dwyer (1991, 28) and Flower ( 1997, 203-5) for traditional interpretations of the
tablinum. These passages are based primarily on the textual sources; artefactual evidence
from Pompeii confirms that tablina were mostly used for household storage (Allison
2004, 80-2).
31
Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 45.

Ill
peristyles/gardens that were completely isolable from one another (table S). 32
Five of the remaining eight houses were partially isolable (either the andron,
tablinum, or a similar room contained a door or a partition); only three con-
tained no evidence for boundaries between the front and back of the house at
all.33

No. of Linking
House Separation
Doorways
Casa de! Larario di Achille 4 Partial
Casa di Casca Longus 3
Casa dei Ceii 4
Casa di Fabio Amandio 2
Casa dei Quattro Still 3 Partial
Casa de! Frutteto s
Casa de! Menandro 4
Casa di Minucio 1
Casa della Venere in Bikini 2
Casa de! T riclinio 4
Casa di M . Lucretius Fronto s
Casa di Pansa 4
Casa de! Poeta T ragico 4
Casa della Fontana Piccola s
Casa de! Labirinto 4
Domus M. Caesii Blandi 6
Casa della Caccia Amica 3
Casadei Capitelli Figurati 6
VIII 2,26 2
VIII 2,34 3 Partial
Casa dell'Alcova 1 None
Casa de! Salone Nero s None

Table 5: Atrium-peristyle/garden separation

32
That is to say, in the same manner that the boundaries in doorways 12 and 13 and/ or
doorways 6 and 7 could be closed to separate the atrium from the peristyle in the Casa del
Menandro.
33
Terminal tablina (a tablinum with a permanent back wall) and other rooms with fixed
boundaries are not included in this list.

112
 These data, when considered in light of the results discussed above (name-
ly that these linking boundaries may often have remained closed), suggest that
the division between the two parts of the Campanian house may have been
more formal than has previously been imagined.

Concluding Thoughts
The evidence presented in this paper confirms that the houses of Pompeii and
Herculaneum were not transparent, boundless spaces, as they have often been
portrayed. Rather, these were highly controlled environments, with bounda-
ries playing a crucial role in negotiating the relationship between public and
private space. Given the dramatic changes that occurred within the Campa-
nian house during the final two centuries of the first millennium B.C.E., these
results should not be particularly surprising. As has now been well established,
the introduction of the peristyle in the 2nd century B.C.E. drastically altered
the rules of social interaction within the home. 34 Prior to the widespread im-
plementation of this Hellenistic architectural component, the areas of habita-
tion and reception overlapped. In the smaller and more centralized houses of
this early period, the atrium was the hub of all domestic and social interaction.
The arrival of the peristyle, however, caused the rules governing the use of
domestic space to be redefined. In many houses, the rooms flanking the tabli-
num, which had previously opened onto the atrium, were turned around to
face the peristyle. A.n example of this trend can be found the Casa di Sallustio
(VI 2,4), where the addition of a portico to the garden resulted in the reorien-
tation of an oecus located to the left of the tablinum. 35 The entire back wall of
the room was removed, creating a wide opening onto the portico, while the
narrow doorway located on the opposite wall was blocked off, removing the
only direct link with the atrium.
Alterations such as these indicate a clear shift in the way that private space
was structured within the domestic environment. Rather than being inte-
grated into the existing layout of the house, the peristyle was set apart from it,
at a great distance from the front door. This created a new, intimate realm for
the residents, consciously set in opposition to the public space of the atrium. 36
The separation between the front and back of the house was reinforced by the

34
Dickmann 1997 ; Wallace-Hadrill 2007.
35
Laidlaw 1993, 224-S .
36
Dickmann 1997, 136.

113
establishment of doors and partitions in many of the doorways linking the
two spaces. The presence of these boundaries, in addition to those found
throughout the remaining doorways in the atrium, would have clearly indi-
cated to the visitor the spaces that were meant to be accessible to the guest,
and those that were not. Thus the vista from the front door did not impress
the visitor by allowing visual access to the whole of the house, but rather by
formally demonstrating the control exerted over the domestic environment
by the residents.

114
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