Discussion

Before looking in more general terms at the pattern of development in the insula, we may make a number of preliminary points. First of all, it bears repeating that the process of change which we have outlined was continuous, and that by classifying it in phases we have inevitably simplified the picture. Just because a particular intervention can be assigned to a time when, say, walls were being painted in the Third Style, we should not think of it as a unique, compartmentalized phenomenon; the insula was constantly evolving, and it would have continued to evolve had the eruption of AD 79 not put a stop to the process. Our phases are merely a convenient way of trying to impose some kind of chronological pattern on the chain of events. In all probability changes took place more frequently and in a more piecemeal fashion than is normally realized. It is, of course, difficult to be precise about this, because our methods of dating are too unsophisticated for the necessary fine tuning; but we may suspect that, for every major rebuilding programme, there were many minor adjustments and modifications which have left no trace, or virtually no trace, in the archaeological record. And such adjustments may have happened within relatively brief periods. One has only to look at houses in modern Britain to appreciate the nature and the frequency of the alterations which they tend to undergo, ranging from the blocking or opening of windows to loft conversions and the addition of new wings. The house in which the present writer lives has been radically enlarged on two occasions, as well as having a doorway blocked, most of the windows replaced, and part of the roof redesigned—all within the space of thirty five years, and mostly in separate operations, in other words in what can technically be regarded as distinct phases. However much the archaeologist would like to divide a building’s history into broad and clear-cut chronological categories, the reality of the situation will probably more often than not have been far more complex.

Building Materials and Techniques

Much of the ensuing discussion will focus on the working-out of structural sequences, first within individual houses or parts of houses, then within the insula as a whole. As a preface to this discussion, it is necessary to give a description of the building materials and techniques found in the insula. Brief surveys of Pompeian building techniques have appeared in various publications. Still one of the most serviceable accounts is that of R. C. Carrington in his article ‘Notes on the building materials of Pompeii” published in 1933, and most of the forms of construction found in I10 are discussed therein. First, the materials. The commonest is the socalled ‘Sarno stone’ (often inaccurately called limestone’), a yellowish white calcareous tufa which is very rough and porous, being riddled with the imprints of shells and vegetable matter; it is used both in large blocks to form quoins and the like and in smaller rubble for facing and infilling of all types. Next most common is a hard grey (trachytic) lava which is stronger and more water resistant than Sarno stone but which, because it is less easy to cut into regular shapes, is generally employed in the form of small rubble. An exception to this rule is its use for door thresholds, where its hardness is well suited to withstanding wear and tear. Rather less common in our insula is the red or purple vesicular lava known as cruma (English “scoria”), derived from the frothy upper crust of consolidated lava streams; it is occasionally cut into small blocks but more normally occurs as a sporadic material in rubble wall-facings where Sarno stone and grey lava predominate. The other main lithic materials found in the insula are varieties of tufo (tuff), formed by the consolidation of volcanic ashes. The brown or grey tuff from Nuceria (modern Nocera) is a hard and close-grained material containing darker brown or blackish specks. It can be easily cut to shape when freshly exposed in the quarry but hardens later on contact with the air, so is ideally suited for producing ashlar blocks, small tufelli (blocks of similar size to modern house bricks) and the pyramidal pieces used in reticulate work (opus reticulaium: see below), not to mention carved detail such as column and pilaster capitals.

I 10, 10-11: Casa Degli Amanti

The casa degli amanti (house of the lovers), at the south-west corner of the insula, falls into two fairly distinct halves: the atrium complex, oriented on the street to the west, and the peristyle with its surrounding rooms, oriented on the street to the south and on the property boundary to the east. In the atrium complex, the atrium is misplaced to the south of the central axis, allowing space for two large rooms to the north, one of which was possibly a shop or workshop (5.50 m. × 4.70 m.), with a separate entry from the street (I 10, 10), while the other (5.80 m. × 4.50 m.), decorated with mythological wallpaintings and provided with a wide opening on to the peristyle, must have been a dining-room or oecus (room 8). Each of these had a segmental vault rising from a height of about 3.50 m. at the spring to slightly over 4 m. at the crown. In the first the vault is missing, but the holes for some of its timbers are visible in the east wall and a groove along the north wall marks the seating for the planking attached to them; at a higher level, in the north and south walls, are the remains of beam-holes for the joists of the upper floor or attic (see below). The arrangements in room 8 are now obscured by the modern vault constructed to provide a surface for the reassembled fragments of the ceiling-paintings; but the shape of the vault is confirmed by the surviving plaster of the lunettes, while a beam-hole for the lowest of the vault-timbers is visible above the corner of the western lunette in an early photograph (Superintendency neg. C 1944). The shop I 10, 10 had a small window high in the street wall to the south of Its entrance; whether there were any additional windows above the entrance, it is impossible to say, since this part of the wall is a modern reconstruction. Room 8 was lit by a splayed window cut in the angle of the vault and the eastern lunette, opening into the upper storey of the peristyle.

I 10, 5 and 6

This complex, straddling the north-west angle of the Casa del Menandro and the northeast angle of the Casa del Fabbro, consists of two separate elements. The first, occupying the ground floor, is a shop-cum-workshop (measuring approximately 3.50 m. × 4.60 m.) entered from entrance 6 (Pl. 73), with what is perhaps a living room (6A, measuring 2.30 m. × 4.50 m.) to the east of it. The second is a staircase (5), 1 m. wide, which ascends directly from a street doorway (Pl 73 (at the left)), between the two ground-floor rooms, to an apartment above Menandro rooms 5-7. There is no connection between the ground-floor establishment and the upstairs apartment, though the latter could clearly not have been installed without the cooperation of whoever owned the former (indeed, they were probably both the property of the owner of the Menandro (pp. 250-1)). The space underneath the staircase was exploited to create two arched recesses opening from the living room of the downstairs establishment (Pl 74; Fig- 39 (S22)), while the passage linking the living room with the shop passes under the higher part of the stairs (cf. Pl 76). The living room was lit by a square window in the north wall (Pl 75); the staircase by a window directly above its door. The apartment above Menandro rooms 5-7 has been mentioned in the discussion of the Casa del Menandro (pp. 51, 55, 56). The angle of the stairs and the level of the doorway at the top of them (Pl 76 ; Fig- 39 (S21, S23)) is consonant with a floor-level of 3.30 to 3.50 m. above the pavement of the Menandro ground floor. There was an upper floor also above our room 6A, with a latrine at the east end of the north wall, flushed by a downpipe which descends in the angle of the room (Pl 75). The level of this upper floor can be estimated at 3.25 m. above the ground floor, which (since the floor level in 6A is slightly higher than that of the adjacent rooms of the Casa del Menandro) would have tallied closely enough with the independent apartment entered from 110, 5.

Problems of Interpretation and Dating

Working out a relative chronology depends upon judicious observation of wall abutments and anomalies in plan, combined with variations in building materials and techniques; it is necessary, however, to emphasize the problems of interpretation, and the difficulty of arriving at absolute dates. The position of many walls in the chronology cannot be firmly resolved. An obvious problem is that large tracts of the insula, especially In the Casa del Menandro, but also in the Casa del Fabbro and the Casa degli Amanti, still contain well-preserved wallpaintings which totally conceal the fabric of the walls beneath. Another is that building materials were reused, which means that walls erected at different periods (especially in opus incertum) could be similar in appearance; it is therefore hazardous to assign dates on general appearance. Conversely, building styles of varying appearance can occur in a single phase: the south-eastern quarter of the Casa del Menandro, as already noted, appears to have been built in one operation but incorporates both incertum and reticulatum and employs three quite different types of quoins. Moreover, while every other incertum wall in this quarter is faced with only Sarno stone, lava, cruma, and tuff, the north wall of the stable (room 29), which is of one build with the wall dividing the north portico of the yard (34B) from the adjacent corridor P, contains also some fragments of tile. Even butt joints can be misleading. Where two walls meet in a straight joint, it is often difficult to tell which was built first. Sometimes a wall which seems to abut against another may have been cut back to accommodate the second wall and any resulting gap plugged with new material which is difficult to distinguish from the old. The presence of a butt joint is, in any case, not always significant, since contemporary walls were not necessarily bonded together, or were bonded only at a high level. The safest criterion for recognizing two separate phases is the presence of a plaster facing on one of the two contiguous surfaces. Further problems have been caused by the restorations of the 1930s.

I 10, 2-3

No part of I 10, 2-3 is protected by a modern roof, and the house is now in such a ruinous condition as to render interpretation difficult. The form of the house, like that of 1 10, 1, is very irregular. It has a street frontage of much the same width as its neighbour, but loses space at the rear to the latter’s kitchen yard; at the same time, its backmost rooms (10-12) project into the property behind (I 10,18). The result is a plan which is relatively broad and symmetrical at the front (north) but becomes progressively attenuated, with its axis misplaced westwards, at the rear. A central fauces (I 10, 3), with a painted lararium niche in its east wall (Pl 12), leads from the street to a broad but shallow ‘atrium’ (4) which provides access to the remaining parts of the house. The room to the left of the fauces operated in the final years as a shop (110, 2), with a wide opening to the street (Pl 3) and an L-shaped counter in the front part; it remained accessible from the interior of the house through a doorway into the eastern part of the ‘ atrium’, but also had an independent back room (8), which was separated from the ‘atrium’ by a timber-framed partition. The room to the right of the fauces (room 5) was roughly 2.80 m. square, with a fair-sized window (just under 1 m. wide and just over 1 m. tall) high up in the centre of its north wall (Fig. 39 (S26); cf. Pl 27) and a doorway from the ‘atrium’ (Pl 13) at its south-east corner. It retains a decorated pavement and (under a later decoration) wall-plaster of the period of the First Pompeian Style; there are also traces of a segmental vault evidently going back to the same phase. The ‘atrium’ is perhaps even less deserving of the name than its counterpart in 110,1. It is less than 3 m. deep and acts as little more than a hallway providing access between the fauces and the other parts of the house.

Introduction

The present volume is the first of three which will together provide an in-depth analysis of one city block at Pompeii: the so-called Insula del Menandro (Insula of the Menander) (Pompeii I 10). It will concentrate on the architecture and structural history of the insula, while the second and third volumes will deal respectively with interior decoration and with loose finds. Each will be used, in its different way, to shed light on the social history of the insula and of Pompeii in general. Behind this publication lies a long-term programme of recording and documentation going back to the 1970s, the primary objective of which has been the production of an archive, consisting primarily of drawings at 1:5 of the surviving wall-paintings, and plans, sections, and elevations at 1:50 of the visible architecture. These are supplemented by photographs in black and white and in colour, and by drawings of selected pavements and certain architectural details at 1:10. In addition there are pro forma sheets providing a detailed record, room by room, of all architectural and decorative features. Copies of this archive will ultimately be deposited in the Archaeological Superintendency at Pompeii, in the British School at Rome, and in the University of Manchester. This project, carried out by a team from Britain, fits in with the general policy of the Pompeian authorities since the late 1970s to improve the documentation of the site. There have been a number of programmes of recording during this period, most importantly a series of photographic campaigns mounted by the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione to record the surviving paintings and pavements and, more recently, a massive computerization project called Neapolis which has Involved specialists in various disciplines (archaeology, cartography, architecture, art history, and anthropology) and has aimed to produce an electronic archive permitting access to almost any piece of information, visual or written, about the city. The Importance of recording, in whatever form, is all too apparent. Despite the best efforts of the local authorities, the fabric of the city is steadily deteriorating: weathering, plant infestation, vandalism, and theft all take their toll.

Structural History of The Insula

Having looked at the different units within the insula individually, we now need to review and summarize the structural history of the insula as a whole. As stated in Part One, Section 4 (pp. 19-20), the sequence has been divided into five main phases. The first corresponds to structures in opera a telaio and related techniques; the second to the First Style of wall-painting, i.e. mid-second to early first century BC (structures generally in opus incertum with a preponderance of lava and Sarno stone); the third to the Second Style of wall-painting, i.e. broadly the period from c.80 BC to the last years of the century; the fourth to the Third Style of wall-painting, i.e. broadly the period from the late first century BC to the mid-first century AD; and the fifth to the Fourth Style of wall-painting, i.e. the period from C.AD 50 to AD 79. In contrast to the preliminary report, this survey does not attempt to subdivide the phases, except in the more eventful Phase 5, since this approach now seems unduly rigid and implies a degree of precision beyond what the evidence warrants. Some of the main points in which the present analysis differs from the earlier one will be referred to in footnotes. Inevitably many aspects of the interpretation remain uncertain, particularly with regard to the early phases. Selective excavation might fill some of the gaps, but at the moment the early phase plans necessarily contain large areas of empty space or fragments of unrelated walling. Only where there is some ground for predicting missing elements have parts of plans been restored, but even then it has sometimes been necessary to choose between alternative restorations. The diagnostic features are the use of opera a telaio and inferences from the property boundaries and wall alignments. The Irregular shapes of houses 3,7, and 16 imply that they have been inserted in the gaps between pre-existing properties; we may, therefore, suggest that houses 1, 4, and 8 belong to the earliest development in the insula.

I 10, 8 and 9

This complex consists of an atrium-house from which a front room has been separated at a late stage to form an independent shop or workshop. Together they occupy the north-west corner of the insula, the house opening northwards and the shop westwards. Before the shop was separated from it, the house had a relatively broad facade (approx. 14 m.), but the oblique alignment of the insula boundary to the west resulted in a considerable contraction towards the rear. At the southern end of the roofed part of the house, coinciding with the south walls of rooms 10 and 12, the property is only 10 m. wide; and the garden beyond this, thanks primarily to a shift in the line of the eastern boundary becomes even narrower, contracting to less than 8.50 m. As in the Casa del Fabbro, the atrium (1) is set against one of the property boundaries, this time the west rather than the east; but, owing to the greater width of the house, it is broader (from 7.20 to 8.20 m.) and still allows space for a deep room on the east. The impluvium is centrally positioned in relation to the short (south) side. The fauces, however, enters the atrium somewhat off-centre, 3.80 m. from the northeast corner and 2.70 m. from the north-west, presumably in order to obtain three more or less equally sized rooms on the north facade. As the plot contracts toward the rear, this tripartite division becomes more difficult; the outlying rooms, on the west side particularly are uncomfortably narrow and cramped. Of the three rooms on the north front, the westernmost is the one which in the final period had become a shop with an independent entrance (I 10, 9); it had formerly been a corner room opening from the atrium via a doorway immediately adjacent to the fauces, but this doorway was blocked and a new entrance, 2.30 m. wide, quoined in opus listatum, was opened in the west wall (Pl 90). The lava threshold (Fig. 61) points to fittings typical of a shop: a separate pivoted door and vertical planks set overlapping in a groove.

I 10, 7: Casa del Fabbro

In its present form the casa del fabbro is an attenuated and relatively cramped property. Not only is the width of its atrium complex so restricted as to allow space for only two narrow cubicula and a small.storeroom on one side, but the space to the east of the fauces has been detached to form part of a separate property (1 10, 6). At the rear, apart from a portico (10) with a kitchen (11) partitioned off at one end of it, there are no rooms beyond the line of the tablinum, merely a small garden enclosed by a blind wall. The full complement of living rooms on the ground floor consists, therefore, if we exclude the atrium (3), of a room occupied by a stair and a latrine (1) and a small cubiculum (2) to the west of the fauces, the two cubicula (4 and 5) and the storeroom (6) to the west of the atrium, the tablinum (7), and two larger rooms flanking it, one of which may have served as a cubiculum (8) and the other as a dining-room (9). The remaining living space was all upstairs. Here the only rooms which can definitely be identified are a series of four or five small chambers above rooms 1-2 and 4-6; but it is probable that there were further rooms above rooms 8 and 9, as well as the tablinum. Whether the house retained an upper floor over the space which had been ceded at its north-east corner, we have no means of telling (cf. p. 145). All this represents a contraction from earlier days, when the house had been interconnected with the Casa del Menandro, and the portico and garden area offered access to the rear (pp. 55, 79-81). That the house had come on harder times, or at least that it had passed into the hands of an owner or tenant with different cultural standards, is suggested by the decorations. The sole remaining fine-quality decorations are those of the late Third Style in rooms 8 and 9: redground wall-paintings with mythological pictures and black-ground ceiling-paintings in the former, and black wall-paintings with mythological landscapes and a painted cocciopesto pavement containing geometric patterns of tesserae in the latter.