Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/220

 l62 COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. THE DWELLINGS OF THE ROMANS. These may be classified under— (rt.) ^hedomus, or private house {b.) The villa, or country house ; and {c.) The insula, or many- storied tenement. The dwellings of the Greeks have already been touched upon (page 92), and there seems every reason to believe that Roman dwellings were evolved from them. They each possessed an atrium, forming the more public portion of the building, and a peristyle beyond, forming the centre of the family apartments. At Rome, the Atrium Vesta", or House of the Vestal Virgins (No. 47), and the House of Livia, are interesting examples. The excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum have thrown considerable light on this miportant subject, and as Pompeii was a Grasco-Roman city, the remains which have been excavated are believed to differ but slightly from the later Greek dwellings. These Pompeian houses owe their preservation to an eruption of Vesuvius, which in a.d. 79 overwhelmed the city, burying it in sahes to a depth of 10 feet. The streets of Pompeii were narrow (many only 8, 12, or 15 feet), the widest being 23 feet 6 inches, with a roadway 13 feet 6 inches and paths 5 feet wide. The houses had plain fronts to the street, the frontage on either side of the entrance passage being let off as shops. The absence of windows on the fronts is explained by some as being due to a lack of glass, in which case openings towards the street would have rendered privacy impossible. The rooms were lighted by openings giving on to internal courts already mentioned, as are Eastern houses to this day, and the inns of France and England in former days. The Pompeian houses are mostly one story in height, but stairs and traces of upper floors exist. Such upper stories were probably of wood, but as a decree was passed in the time of Augustus limiting the height of houses in Rome to 75 feet, brick or masonry buildings must have been largely erected. The openings were small, the light being strong in the sunny climate of Italy. The House of Pansa (No. 65, a, b) may be taken as a good type of domns or ordinary private house. It was sur- rounded by streets on three sides, the garden occupying the fourth, and, besides the house proper, consisted of shops, bakeries, and three smaller houses. A prothyrum, or entrance passage, led direct from the street entrance to the atrium, which served as the public waiting-room for retainers and clients, and from which the more private portions of the house were shut off. The atrium was open to the sky in the centre, with a " lean-to" or sloping roof sup- ported by brackets round all four sides. The impluvium, or " water cistern," for receiving the rain-water from these roofs, was sunk in the centre of the pavement, while round were grouped the front rooms, probably used by servants or guests, or as semi-public