Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

426 DOMUiS. DOMUS.
Portions of the upper story sometimes projected (Plutarch. Apophth. i. p. 717; Aristoph. Vesp. 811,
beyond the walls of the lower part, forming bal- Pollux, vi. 89, x. 101.) [Focus.]
conies or verandahs (7rpoo;ali, 7yELlra7roi'eiSaTa, The decorations of the interior were very plain
Pollux, i. 81). at the period to which our description refers. The
The following plan of the ground-floor of a Greek floors were of stone. At a late period coloured
house of the larger size is taken from Bekker's stones were used. (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 25. s. 60.)
Chari-cles. It is of course conjectural, as there are Mosaics are first mentioned as introduced under
no Greek houses in existence. Other plans, differ- the kings of Pergamus.
ing very much from this and from one another, The walls, up to the fourth century B. C., seem
are given by Hirt, Stieglitz, and the commentators to have been only whited. The first instance of
on Vitruvius. painting them is that of Alcibiades. (Andoc. in
Alcib. p. 119; Plutarch. Alcib. 16.) This innovation met with considerable opposition. (Xen.
-M1em. iii. 8. ~ 10; Oecon. ix. 2.) Plato mentions
L. -. the painting of the walls of houses as a mark of
L_ _ Iii a Tpu(pcaea 7rA;rs (Repub. iii. pp. 372, 373). These
0. 7r. 9. allusions prove that the practice was not uncommon!, ~..__,[ v-~j — in the time of Plato and Xenophon. We have
also mention of painted ceilings at the same period.
a I' ~ l(Plato, Repub. vii. 529.) At a later period this
"J i _ l; -- tmode of decoration became general. (The com-.~ ~ L6-oTVQ o o ~ mentators on Vitruvius, 1. c.; Schneider, ELpim.n. ad'- 0k Xen. Menz.; Hirt, Die Lehre der Gebihude, pp. 2817
Y~ [7p y.l y_~ / -289; Stieglitz, Adrchiol. d. Bauokist, vol. ii.
pt. 2. pp. 150-159; Becker, C(arlikles, vol. i. pp.
C66- 16205.) [P. S.]
2. ROMAN. The houses of the Romans were
r- T-'poor and mean for many centuries after the foundi I e o e | U. ation of the city. Till the war with Pyrrhus the
AIe:A. houses were covered only with thatch or shingles'_~~~ S. 0(Plin. It. N. xvi. 15), and were us;ually built of
o o.I wood or unbaked bricks. It was not till the latter
0., ~0 e* j-o _times of the republic, when wealth had been ac0._ quired by conquests in the East, that houses of any
~:. ~ A. Isplendour began to be built; but it then became
_% —— q I. 01 [ the fashion not only to build houses of anl imnlense.. a 1 i 15 size, but also to adorn them with columns, paint__ L I lungs, statues, and costly works of art.
M. Lepidus, who was consul B. c. 78, was the
first who introduced Numidian marble into Rome
a, House-door, av;AElos.pa: avp. passage, for the purpose of paving the threshold of his.&upwpe7ov or Suvpcts-: A, peristyle or ab;A of the house; but the fashion of building magnificent
Androonitis: o, the halls and chambers of the An- houses increased so rapidly that the house of Ledronitis; it, juelTavXos or u-av;'Aos ~vpa: r, peri- pidus, which, in his consulship, was the first in
style of the Gynaeconitis; y, chambers of the Rome, was, thirty-five years later, eclipsed by a
Gynaeconitis; r, -rpoe-m&s or srrapaTr&as: 0, 5dtxa- hundred others. (Id. xxxvi. 8. 24. ~ 4.) Luctullus
LUos and a/qotO/icAa/Los: I, rooms for working in especially surpassed all his contemporaries in the
wool (i-rc'jes); K, garden-door, Kcqra'a ~Upa. magnificence of his houses and the splendour of
The roofs were generally flat, and it was cus- their decorations. Marble columns were first intomary to walk about upon them. (Lysias, adv. troduced into private houses by the orator L. CrasSimon. p. 142; Plaut. MUil. ii. 2. 3.) But pointed sus, but they did not exceed twelve feet in height,
roofs were also used. (Pollux, i. 81.) and were only six in number. (Id. xvii. 1, xxxvi.
In the interior of the house the place of doors 3.) He was soon outdone by M. Scaurls, who
was sometimes supplied by curtains (7rapa7rerdfo- placed in his atrium columns of black marble,
/ra-a), which were either plain, or dyed, or em- called Lucullean, thirty-eight feet high, and of
broidered. (Pollux, x. 32; Theophrast. 5.) such immense weight that the contractor of the
The principal openings for the admission of light sewers took security for any injury that might be
and air were in the roofs of the peristyles; but it done to the sewers in consequence of the columns
is incorrect to suppose that the houses had no being carried along the streets. (Id. xxxvi. 2.)
windows (vupiLss), or at least none overlooking The Romans were exceedingly partial to marble
the street. They were not at all uncommon. for the decoration of their houses. Mainurra,
(Aristoph. Tkessn. 797, Eccles. 961; Plutarch. de who was Caesar's praefectus fabruim in Gaul, set
Curios. 13, Dion, 56.) the example of lining his room with slabs of marArtificial warmth was procured partly by means ble. (Id. xxxvi. 7.) Some idea may be formed of
of fire-places. It is supposed that chimneys were the size and magnificence of the houses of the
altogether unknown, and that the smoke escaped Roman nobles during the later times of the rethrough an opening in the roof (ca7rvo3&Kc7, Herod. public by the price which they fetched. The conilviii. 137). It is not easy to understand how this sul Messalla bought the house of Autronius for
could be the case when there was an upper story. 3700 sestertia (nearly 33,00C/.), and Cicero the
Little portable stoves (eXcidpai, EoxeapLes) or house of Crassus, on the Palatine, for 3500 seschafing dishes (A&Opd{a) were frequently- used. tertia (nearly 31,0001.). (Cic. uad Alt. i. 13, ad