The House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto (Italian: ''Casa di Marco Lucrezio Frontone'', V.4.a) is a Roman house in

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

with well-preserved wall paintings in both the late Third Style as well as the Fourth Style.

Late Third Style paintings

Several rooms are decorated in the late Third Style including the '' atrium'', ''

tablinum In Roman architecture, a (or , from , board, picture) was a room in a ''domus'' (house) generally situated on one side of the atrium and opposite to the entrance; it opened in the rear onto the peristyle, with either a large window or only an a ...

'' and bedroom 5. Roger Ling considers these to be the ''locus classicus'' of the late Third Style and dates them to about 35 CE to 45 CE. The ''atrium'' is the simplest with black fields divided by golden yellow bands. Each field has a small figural detail in the centre, including a bird, a dog chasing a deer and a dog catching a hare. The upper zone of the wall has insubstantial architectural elements typical of Third Style. The ''tablinums two main walls have very elaborate decoration including perspectival architecture in the upper zone, perspectival gardens in the dado, and

aediculae In ancient Roman religion, an ''aedicula'' (: ''aediculae'') is a small shrine, and in classical architecture refers to a niche covered by a pediment or entablature supported by a pair of columns and typically framing a statue,"aedicula, n." ''O ...

with figural paintings at their centre in the main zone. The north wall's central panel shows Mars courting Venus. Bedroom 5 has perspectival architecture with a fairly complicated arrangement of background fields in red, black, and yellow, featuring small ornamental figures such as caryatids and sphinxes.

Fourth Style paintings

Bedroom 6 is painted in the Fourth Style with a bright golden yellow background. It contains two central figural panels. The first shows Narcissus gazing into his reflection. The second shows

Xanthippe Xanthippe (; ; fl. 5th–4th century BCE) was an Classical Athens, ancient Athenian, the wife of Socrates and mother of their three sons: Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. She was likely much younger than Socrates, perhaps by as much as ...

(sometimes called Pero) breastfeeding her father Mykon. On either side of the entrance are two tondos, one depicting Hermes. Two walls of the house's garden have fourth style large-scale paintings of animals, mostly chasing each other, including a lion and a bear.

References

General references

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External links

Plan and photographic guide to the house

Archaeological guide to the house
part of ''Pompeian Households: An On-line Companion''. {{coord, 40.75282, 14.48783, format=dms, type:landmark_region:IT, display=title Marcus Lucretius Fronto