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In the architectural disposition of houses there were no less than five different kinds of Atrium, each named from the particular manner in which the Cavædium was covered.

The first, called the Tuscan, was simply composed of four beams crossing each other at right angles, and supporting the roof. This primitive form of Atrium could only be adopted in a small house; for when the Cavædium was increased in its dimensions, the beams having too great a length would not bear the weight of the roof.

The second kind of Atrium, called Tetrastyle, had only four columns to support the trabs, or beams of the roof at the points of intersection.

The third, or Corinthian, Atrium was the most magnificent of them all; the only one, indeed, that could be adopted in a Palace, because the number of columns required to support the roof allowed of any extent to be given to the Cavædium.

The Displuviatum formed the fourth kind of Atrium; its difference consisted merely in the

roof, which, instead of being inclined towards the Impluvium in the middle of the court, conveyed the water outside the Cavædium.

The fifth, called Testudine, having no open space at the top like the others, could only be employed in small houses, and derived its name from a resemblance of the roof to the shell of a tortoise. It was a vaulted room of no extraordinary dimension'. :

The Atrium was unquestionably the most essential and most interesting part of the Roman mansion. It was here that numbers assembled daily to pay their respects to their patron, to consult the legislator, to attract the notice of the statesman, or to derive importance in the eyes of the public from an apparent intimacy with a man in power. Of this custom the modern Levee, or morning reception of company, is evidently a derivative.

The subjects of the more tasteful paintings which were employed to decorate the walls of

1

Specimens of the several kinds of Atria are engraved in Ruines de Pompeii, vol. ii.

the Atrium, were usually drawn from the Iliad and the Odyssey, with inscriptions placed at intervals on the frieze '.

Other inferior subjects, particularly the combats of gladiators, were employed to embellish the taverns and dwellings of the lower class of citizens, but were seldom seen in noble houses. Davus, the servant of Horace, avows his admiration of the rude designs in pictures of this description, and speaks in raptures of Rutilius and Placiduanus, two gladiators, so well painted with red and black,

Methinks in very deed they mount the stage,
And seem in real combat to engage 2.

At Pompeii have been found several instances

1 Heroic fable is the subject of all the great pictures in Herculaneum, of those painted on the Greek vases, of those described or imagined by the Philostrati, and of those which Pausanias and Pliny enumerate. Every artist wrought on the elegant fictions of Greece; fictions which overspread poetry and religion,-nay, encroached on the sacred page of history, and pretended to embellish that which knows no beauty but truth. Forsyth's Italy, p. 230.

2 Francis's Horace, Sat. vii. book 2.

of similar paintings, certainly executed by inferior artists, and calculated for the amusement of the populace.

The farther extremity of the Atrium contained three principal apartments; the Tablinum, and its Alæ, or wings, one on each side. The Tablinum, completely open in front, was of tolerably ample size, and contained all proofs of the rank of the possessor of the mansion, the archives of the family, and records of the acts of each member who had held offices of state. Both the Tablinum and the wings were ornamented with pedigrees attached to ancestral figures'; it being the custom amongst the Romans to place these representations of their progenitors in the most conspicuous part of the house, together with all the names of noble families whence they derived their de

1 Pliny, book xxxv. chap. 2. who tells us, "there is extant an act of Messala, an orator, wherein upon a great indignation he expressly forbad that there should be intermingled one image that came from another house of the Levini among those of his owne name and lineage, for feare of confounding the race of his family and ancestors."

scent. Virgil particularly describes it, and alludes to the arrangement on the entablature:

Above the portal, carv'd in cedar wood,

Plac'd in their ranks their godlike grandsires stood'. The multitude of statues with which this part of the house was sometimes adorned, gave it more the appearance of a Forum than of the Atrium of a citizen'.

The Jus Imaginis, or right of having pictures or statues at Rome, was equivalent to the modern custom of bearing a coat of arms; it was all indeed which those ages knew of "the boast of heraldry "."

Every family also honoured the shades of their ancestors under the appellation of Lares, or benevolent domestic deities, who they supposed had not relinquished in death their affec

1 Dryden's Virgil: Æneis, book vii.

2 Pliny, book xxxiv. chap. 4.

3 It was only allowed to those persons whose ancestors or themselves had borne some curule office; that is, had been Curule Ædile, Censor, Prætor, Dictator, or Consul. Whoever had pictures or statues of his ancestors was called noble; he that had only his own, new.

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