The House of the Centenary is known for its large and diverse collection of paintings in the Third and Fourth
Pompeiian styles. The garden nymphaeum is a particularly rich example of combining painting with architectural elements to create the ambience of a
country villa. A body of water filled with a variety of fish and marine animals was "dramatically" painted on the parapet that encircled the four walls of the nymphaeum; several species are represented accurately enough to identify. The lower part of the wall is painted to look like a
balustrade with ivy growing on it, with birds and lizards below. Fountains with
sphinx bases are painted within garden scenes to the sides, and the wall around the entrance depicts game parks; in the foreground is a real fountain, with a faux finish to look like rare marble, from which the water would have run down tiers into a basin. Below the steps and above the garden pool, there was a painting of a river god crowned with reeds, no longer visible. The composition has been characterized as a "grotesque potpourri", an assemblage of elements desirable because they represent the country villa lifestyle. Here and in similarly decorated spaces in Pompeii, the owner is concerned with displaying size and quantity and not a harmonious whole. The room to the north of the
peristyle featured delicate ivy and stylized flowering vines as decoration. Ducks and lotus leaves also appear together as decorative motifs. Grapes and viticulture appear throughout the house, as in a scene of cupids gathering grapes. The hunting paintings are by the Pompeiian painter Lucius.
Mythological painting Mythological subjects include
Theseus as victor over the
Minotaur,
Hermaphroditus and Silenus,
Hercules and
Telephus, and of
Orestes and
Pylades before
Thoas. Another room features
Selene and
Endymion, a
Venus Piscatrix ("
Venus the Fisherwoman"), and "floating nymphs."
Bacchus and Vesuvius A painting in the house's
lararium, a shrine to the
household gods the
Lares, depicts Vesuvius as it may have looked before the eruption, with a single vineyard-covered peak instead of the double-peak profile of today. Although some scholars reject the single-peak hypothesis, the painting is generally regarded as the earliest known representation of the volcano, even if it should not be taken as a record of what Vesuvius actually looked like. Literary sources also describe Vesuvius as covered in grape vines before the eruption.
Plutarch says that vines had grown on it in the 1st century BC, when
Spartacus and his fellow slaves had taken refuge there and cut them down to make rope ladders. The description by the poet
Martial evokes the painting, which shows vines on the slopes in
quincunx arrangement: Here Vesuvius is shaded green with vines; here the noble grape had exuded its juices in vats: these are the ridges which Bacchus loved more than the hills of
Nysa. The unusual depiction of Bacchus gives him a body composed of grapes, which may represent either the
Aminaea variety grown in the area or the eponymous Pompeianum. He carries a
thyrsus and has a panther at his feet. In the foreground is a crested and bearded serpent that embodies the
Agathodaemon or
Genius.
Theatre allusions Some of the mythological paintings, including one of
Medea, are thought to represent scenes from the
theatre. The painting of Hercules may be a scene from the
Hercules Furens of either
Seneca or
Euripides; the other figures would thus be
Amphitryon,
Megara, and
Lycus. A scene from
Iphigenia in Tauris shows Pylades, Orestes, and Iphigenia. Another theatrical reference is found in a graffito scrawled on the wall between the
tepidarium (a bath maintained at a pleasantly warm temperature) and the
caldarium (an environment more like a steam bath). Reading
histrionica Actica, "Actica the pantomime," the phrase has been interpreted as a record of fan infatuation, and perhaps an indication that the house hosted performances by theatre troupes.
Erotic scenes Pompeiian bedrooms were not infrequently decorated with scenes referring to lovemaking, sometimes explicitly human, and sometimes allusive and mythological. One bedroom at the Centenary features a pair of scenes referring to love affairs between a mortal and a divinity: Selene and Endymion, and
Cassandra with a laurel branch symbolizing her rejection of
Apollo as a lover and his revenge. The "sex club" has both: it is decorated with a painting of Hercules surrounded by
amorini, as well two "pornographic" scenes
(symplegma) similar to those found in brothels. Roman "pornography" (literally "depiction of prostitutes") focuses on human figures in everyday settings, often with detailed and realistic bedding. Both pornographic images in Room 43 show a
woman on top of a man, one facing him, and the other in the less common "reverse upright Venus"
position, facing away from the man. In the former image, both figures are nude, except that the
woman's breasts are covered with a strapless "bra"
(strophium); even in the most explicit depictions of sex acts in Roman art, the woman is often wearing the
strophium. The rarer "reverse upright Venus" position is more often found in scenes set in
Nilotic Egypt. ==Further reading==