KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

17. I.6.4 Casa del Sacello Iliaco, casa media (Figs. 2.4, 5.3, 5.15-5.16, 5.50-5.54)
Synopsis
Long before the A.D. 62 earthquake, this house was connected directly to the garden and
cryptoporticus that were afterwards ceded to (I.6.2). Room (3) of (I.6.2) to the E of the atrium was
probably also part of the atrium complex of I.6.4. Rooms (p, q, s) had wide doorways opening S
onto portico (16), which then extended around three sides of the garden (30) (Fig. 5.15). Space to
the W of (s) was later given over to work-basins of the fullonica (I.6.7) next door, whose odor may
have contributed to a general decline in property values and provided reason for the large house
complex (I.6.2-4) to be broken up and sold separately. Both (p, s) were large halls whose
functions likely included dining; they enjoyed a spacious view through the portico over the
sunken garden towards the rugged Sorrentine coast in the distance. Both halls were served by KI
(n), whose cooking facilities seem to have been installed before the reorganization of the house. 32
Additional reception and entertainment rooms were located underground, off the E wing
of the cryptoporticus. Prior to its restructuring, the cryptoporticus was reached from (I.6.2-4) by
a narrow staircase between [21] and [22] in the E portico, and via the postern door at #16. From
the latter entrance, a visitor was introduced to vestibule (29). Thence the singular hot bath [28]
was accessible; a series of storage and work areas [23-27] lay further to the E. To the N, a few
steps led down from (29) past a small room (usually identified as a porter's lodge) and into the
gallery proper, where a large-scale continuous 2nd style frieze of the Trojan cycle began on the
left (W) and continued around all six walls of the W, N and E galleries, ending opposite the
starting panel. High slotted windows provided light to the galleries from the central garden. A
bath suite [18-21] located off the E wing included a vestibulum [21], apodyterium/frigidarium [20],
tepidarium [19] and caldarium [18] in succession (Fig. 5.50). Maiuri (NSc 1933) has described the
service area [F] for the bath suite that included a latrine E of [21] and a praefurnium for the
caldarium of the bath.
DR•[22] lay at the end of the corridor, a large and extremely well-decorated room used
probably for both reception and dining. This room, of elongated dimensions (l. 3.67, w. 10.72 m.),
was elaborately decorated with late 2nd style painting and a stuccoed barrel vault. The mosaic
and marble pavement is divided into a small fore-part separated from the main part of the room
by a mosaic band of geometric emblema. The painting echoes the epic cycle shown on the walls
32 The walls of KI (n) are of mixed chunks of dark tufa and yellow Sarno stone bound by mortar, the same
construction as the stove, with squared blocks marking the S jamb of the door; these techniques may date
anywhere within the Republican period. Opus mixtum listatum was used to repair part of the N jamb of the
door; this technique is usually (but not exclusively, see Ling 1991a, 254) dated after A.D. 62 (see Berry 1993,
10; Ling 1983, 38). The lack of floor or wall decoration makes it difficult to date the installation of the stove
and the latrine, but there is no reason to believe that the room was ever used for anything but a kitchen
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