List of numbered rooms according to 1817 original floor plan: • 1. Principal entrance • 2. Vestibulum • 3. A shop with a counter and jars, probably for wine or oil • 4. Apartment connected with a doorway to apartment 5. • 5. Apartment connected with a doorway to Apartment 4. Grouping rooms into suites not only provided more spacious accommodation but allowed guests to pass in astonishment from one fine room to another elevating the perception of wealth of the master of the house. • 10. or bed chamber less than 10 foot square. The ala on the left has a doorway to the adjoining room 12 that has a doorway to the colonnaded ambulatory (20) leading to the viridarium (19). A stairway was installed in (12) at a later time to access a new upper floor. The ala on the right has a doorway to an adjoining lararium or pinacotheca (picture gallery) (13). Later archaeologists identify room (13) as a wardrobe. • 14. Andron with opening to the columned porticus fronting the viridarium. The porticus was three feet above the viridarium (19), accessed by two flights of steps. In between the blue-accented columns of the porticus (15) and (16) were dwarf walls (plutei) forming a container for soil and plants watered by a gutter that collected rainwater from the roof. The back wall of the viridarium was painted with plants and birds to extend the garden view. On the right side of the viridarium was a cistern (17). On the left side of the viridarium was a covered triclinium (18) with pedestal for a table. A small altar was positioned in front of the triclinium on the left. Only the edges of this portion of the garden, which is higher than the floor of the colonnade, were planted. • 19. Fountain • 20. A roofed cistern • 21. Cubiculum • 22. A commode (latrine) • 23. Back entrance • 24. Passageway to a courtyard and perhaps access to the kitchen (26) • 25. Places for ashes or hearths for food preparation • 26 Kitchen with a latrine for the women's apartments on the left and, up a few steps, an elevated hearth on the right. To the left of the hearth is a three-foot deep arched recess (lararium?) • 27. Entrance to a third court (31) with cell for a porter. • 28. Altar with painting of Diana bathing and Actaeon with horns transforming into a stag, attacked by his own hounds, on the back wall of the
gynaeceum. • 29. Small apartments or cubicula on the left and right back side of the gynaeceum. The cubiculum on the right with floor pavement and socle of different colored marbles featured a delicate painting of Mars and Venus with Cupid playing with Mars' shield and a scene of Paris and Helen on its rear inner wall, and had a recess for Penates or Lares. Its outer wall was painted with a scene of Phrixus and Helle with the ram. The outer wall of the cubiculum on the left was painted with a scene of Europa with the bull. • 30. Large dining room. • 31. Third courtyard, perhaps the gynaeceum or women's apartments, with porticus lined with octangular columns painted red. At first the colonnade had a flat roof, with an open walk above on the three sides, but when the large dining room (30) was constructed, the flat roof and promenade on that side were replaced by a sloping roof over the broad entrance to the dining room. The atrium (cavaedium) featured opus signinum floor pavement with painted Ionic columns supporting the roof giving the space a monumental appearance. Its walls were painted to emulate slabs of marble typical of the First Style. The treatment of the entrances to the tablinum and the alae, with pilasters joined by projecting entablatures, the severe and simple decoration, and the admission of light through the compluvium increased the apparent height of the room and gave it an aspect of dignity and reserve. Although emphasis on the vista from the front door to the tablinum on to the garden began to diminish in other atrium houses in the 1st century CE, this was not the case here. The Republican atrium-tablinum-peristyle matrix remained in place in the House of Sallust despite its conversion to a primarily public establishment, so
patron-client relationships may have persisted for its owner into the early Empire. The arrangement also facilitated the enticement of potential guests from the busy traffic on the Via Consolare. The expansions of the house to encompass more entertainment spaces, however, did emulate such proliferation by other wealthy residents during this period. A scene of sacrifice greeted visitors on a false door to the left of the tablinum. A priest, with his head covered, pours the contents of a patera into a tripod. Opposite the priest, a young man plays a double flute, his foot upon a scabellum, a percussion instrument played by the foot in dramatic performances. On the left and right, two assistants dressed in white tunics with narrow red stripes pour a liquid from drinking horns into paterae. The southeast quadrant of the house was obliterated in an Allied bombing raid in 1943, destroying the signature fresco of Actaeon and Diana. Only a small part of the atrium's once sumptuous decoration, that included dentil cornices and fluted pilasters that framed the alae and tablinum, survived. Examinations between 1817 and 1902, (See 1902 floor plan above) attributed additional rooms to the lower right corner of the house including a caupona, a Roman tavern equipped with dolia to serve hot food. The caupona had a rear doorway leading to two interconnected rooms, one with an external entrance probably for food deliveries, all labeled (5) on the 1902 plan. In the lower left corner of the structure, later archaeologists identified a bakery complex with a millroom with three mills, labeled (6) on the 1902 plan, with a stairway to an upper floor, an oven (7), a kneading room (8), and a kitchen (9). They also identified the enclosure of part of the upper left colonnade to form a room labeled (23) on the 1902 plan. ==Gallery==