HOUSE OF THE ANCIENT HUNT - POMPEII

On Via della Fortuna, a short distance from the House of the Faun heading towards the Porta di Nola gate, we find a house named after the large and evocative fresco on the garden wall depicting a mountain landscape where an ancient hunt for wild beasts is in progress. It is a house of Samnite origin and contains some fine example of fourth style decoration. Personifications of autumn and winter are depicting on the walls of the second cubiculum on the right portray mythological subjects. On the left we can see Leda and the Swan, portrayed amid medallion with the busts of Jupiter and Diana and, on the right, Venus fishing between Mercury and Apollo. In the tablinum we find Nile landscapes with Pygmies, cherubs hunting wild beasts and a highly effective depiction of carpets and pieces of cloth billowing in the wind. The exedra opposite the garden is embellished with fantastic architectures and lavish ornamental motifs in which we can see Diana bathing as Actaeon watches, and Apollo in the background with a shepherd.

 

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This house, which is situated in the town’s western quarter just before the street forks to the left towards the Porta Ercolano gate, is one of the oldest in Pompeii, dating from the 3rd century B.C.. In addition to the atrium with its surrounding rooms, it has a small covered porch behind the tablinum, a garden and a summer triclinium with stone couches. Towards the rear of the building there is a kitchen, a dining room and several bedrooms. The front of the building houses four shops, a tavern and a bakery with three millstones and an oven with a fireplace alongside. The owner probably took advantage of the house’s proximity to the Porta Ercolano gate and converte ... continue

(Apic. 5, 6, 1) Ingredients:

• 500 g soybeans with pod, or green beans
• 50 ml Liquamen, or 1/2 tsp salt with 50ml wine
• 1-2 tblsp oil
• 1 tblsp minced coriander leaves
  (or 1/2 tblsp ground coriander seed)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 minced branch of leek

Instructions:
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Cook beans with Liquamen, oil, leek and spices. Serve.

... continue

Love was a common topic of conversation in Pompeii. Feelings, passions, poetic love, sex, homosexuality, prostitution and so forth were all part of daily life and not a source of prejudice. The concept of “obscenity” seems to have been unknown. Love and sex were considered earthly practices of a man’s life that were encouraged by the benevolence of Venus. The thousands of examples of graffiti found on the town’s walls are unequivocal proof of what the people of Pompeii thought about love and sex.