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House of Apollo, Pompeii

Address: Regio VI, Insula 7
Area: 712 square meters
Rooms: 13

The House of Apollo (Casa di Apollo, also Domus of Aulus Herenuleius Communis) is a large private residence at Pompeii VI.7.23, on the west side of Via di Mercurio in Regio VI. It is not the public Temple of Apollo in the Forum. The house takes its modern name from Fourth Style paintings of Apollo and the Marsyas cycle in a garden cubiculum, plus related statues and themes elsewhere in the building.

Location, owner, and excavation
The house stands in the northern sector of Insula VI.7, on Via di Mercurio (old numbering Strada di Mercurio 20), close to the city walls. Its present irregular plan comes from late enlargements that took land from the neighboring property at VI.7.25 so that a two-terrace garden could be laid out toward the fortifications.
A bronze seal found in March 1830 in a small room to the left of the entrance reads A(uli) Herenul(ei) Communis (CIL X 8058, 39). Aulus Herennuleius Communis is therefore the most likely last owner. The same room yielded a wooden box that held the seal. Surgical instruments recovered in the house later gave it the older nickname “House of the Surgical Instruments.” A bronze statue of Apollo from the house is now in the Naples Archaeological Museum (inv. 5613). The house is also known as the House of Apollo because of the mythological paintings that decorate several rooms, especially scenes of Apollo, Marsyas, Athena and the flute, and Apollo enthroned in the palace of the sun.
Bourbon excavators opened the house mainly between 1830 and 1839, with some work as early as 1811. Stratigraphic soundings and conservation followed in 2004. Much of the painted and mosaic decoration has faded or been removed since the nineteenth century. Two of the three garden-wall mosaics are now in Naples; the third, showing Ulysses (Achilles disguised among the daughters of Lycomedes on Skyros), remains on site.

Building history
The core is older than the final decorative phase. Stratigraphic soundings indicate a mid-third-century BC atrium house of a type common in this insula: a Tuscan atrium originally without the later side rooms, and a rear corridor flanked by living rooms rather than the later tablinum arrangement. Structure and masonry belong to the oldest Pompeian domestic type. Fourth Style painting was added later.
In the last decades before 79 CE the owners enlarged the house northward, taking space from VI.7.25. They created a two-terrace garden, a summer triclinium overlooking the lower garden, a marble fountain with a stepped cascade, and a grotto-like room whose outer walls were given a limestone coating to resemble a cave. That room carried three mythological mosaics of shells and colored glass paste: the Three Graces, Achilles confronting Agamemnon, and the Skyros scene. The Tuscan atrium was remodeled: a tablinum was built on the west side, and rooms on the north side of the atrium (reached by two steps because they sit higher) were taken from the neighbor. Neronian-period paintings of Venus and Adonis and of female busts with amorini decorated the tablinum. A cubiculum near the summer triclinium received a cycle of Apollo and Marsyas scenes set in niches.
The earthquake of 62 and the eruption of 79 left the house damaged. Many details visible in nineteenth-century drawings are now lost.

Plan and architecture
The House of Apollo (Casa di Apollo, VI.7.23), also known as the house of Aulus Herenuleius Communis after a seal ring found in 1830, has an irregular plan. The layout is the result of later additions and expansion toward the city walls in the last decades before 79 AD. The dwelling grew from an older core into a complex with two atria (or an atrium plus a smaller court), a service wing, a compact inner court, and a large two-level garden that became the house’s architectural climax. An upper floor was reached by a stair in the southeast corner of the main atrium. Excavation took place mainly in 1830-1839, with further work in 2004.
Street and entrance. The facade opens onto Via di Mercurio. A narrow fauces leads west into a square Tuscan atrium with a central impluvium that collected rainwater from the roof.
Atrium. Rooms open off three sides of the atrium. On the south wall a painting showed Apollo holding the sun, or a globe, in his left hand. Stairs to the upper floor stand in the southeast corner. On the north side two steps rise to rooms taken over from the neighboring house. The west side is dominated by the tablinum. Marble bases once framed its opening and supported statues of Apollo and of a faun hunting a deer. The tablinum is decorated in the Fourth Style: large yellow panels framed in red on the side walls, with pictures of Aphrodite enthroned and of wounded Adonis, plus medallions of female busts accompanied by cupids. From the tablinum or the fauces one reaches the small inner court.
Inner court and service wing. The small court held a pyramidal marble fountain decorated with statuettes, relief vases, bas-reliefs, and herms. West of this sector lay a large triclinium paved in polychrome opus sectile, together with a pantry and the kitchen. Some small rooms facing the garden had opus sectile floors and were prepared to receive marble wall veneer (crustae).
Garden and summer dining area. This is the most ambitious part of the house. The garden is arranged on two levels. An open summer triclinium looks over the lower garden, which is dominated by a marble fountain with a stepped cascade that created a small waterfall. Beside the triclinium is a room whose outer walls are faced in limestone to imitate a grotto. On those walls were three mythological mosaics in shells and colored glass paste:

Odysseus recognizing Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes on Skyros (still in situ)
The Three Graces (now in Naples)
Achilles confronting Agamemnon (now in Naples)

Wall mosaics of this kind are rare in Pompeii. The Achilles-on-Skyros composition is known from at least ten other Pompeian copies and was a popular subject in the last decades of the city. The garden and its fountain suffered damage in the 1943 bombing; earlier descriptions and the large cork model of Pompeii preserve the original stepped pyramid and painted garden wall.
Garden cubiculum (Apollo room). Next to the summer triclinium, and reached by steps, is the cubiculum that gives the house its name. Its walls carry elaborate Fourth Style architectural painting that imitates theater-like aediculae and gold fretwork. The cycle treats the myth of Apollo and Marsyas:

North wall: Athena’s brief attempt at flute-playing; Marsyas performing before Muses
South wall: Apollo and Olympus at either end of a couch; Marsyas bound to a tree
Rear (west) alcove: Apollo enthroned in the palace of the Sun, under a gabled aedicula. The two flanking figures have been read as Morning and Evening Stars or as characters from Euripides’ Phaethon

Apollo also appears with a cithara. The outer wall toward the garden once had landscape painting; the wall toward the triclinium still carries the Achilles mosaic.
Taken together, the two-level garden, the grotto-like room with shell mosaics, the stepped fountain, and the tightly composed Apollo-Marsyas cycle show a late Pompeian house that used water, myth, and theatrical architecture to turn the private garden into a display of culture and status.

Decoration and finds
The House of Apollo (VI.7.23), also known as the Domus of Aulus Herenuleius Communis, shows how an older mid-Republican atrium house was remodeled in the last decades before 79 AD. Older masonry survived in the front of the house, while the rear was opened toward the city wall and rebuilt as a two-level garden residence. The late finish was luxurious: Fourth Style wall painting, marble and opus sectile floors, a stepped cascade fountain, rare outdoor mosaics of shell and colored glass paste, and sculpture placed for axial views from the tablinum and summer triclinium.
The painted and mosaic program clusters around three themes. Apollo appears as sun god, musician, and victor over Marsyas. The Trojan cycle is represented by Achilles on Skyros (the youth still in disguise among the daughters of Lycomedes, recognized by Odysseus) and by the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. Garden luxury is expressed by the Three Graces, a limestone-clad grotto, running water, and planted beds. In the tablinum, Neronian-period panels included Aphrodite enthroned and the wounded Adonis, with medallions of female busts and amorini. Marble bases still mark the places of two statues that once framed the room: Apollo and a hunting faun.
The lower garden was the visual climax. A marble fountain, originally with corner Corinthian colonnettes and a small stair for a waterfall, stood in the central bed. Beside it, a room was given a fake-cave facing of limestone and three mythological mosaics in shells and glass paste. Two of those panels - the Three Graces and Achilles confronting Agamemnon - were removed to the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. The third, Odysseus recognizing Achilles on Skyros, remains in situ south of the cubiculum doorway. A summer triclinium overlooked this lower garden; its mosaic floor and niched back wall completed the theatrical outdoor dining setting.
Notable finds recovered in the 1830s excavations include:

A bronze seal ring of Aulus Herenuleius Communis (found 1830), the basis for the proposed owner’s name
A bronze Apollo
A set of surgical instruments
Two garden mosaics now in Naples
Tablinum statues of Apollo and a hunting faun (only the bases remain on site)

What stands on the ground today is fragmentary. Early excavation, weathering, and the removal of paintings and mosaics to Naples stripped much of the original color and sculpture. The official park description, together with nineteenth-century excavation records and later plans, still give the clearest picture of the house as it was in 79: an older atrium dwelling converted, in Pompeii’s last generation, into a garden-centered residence whose water, mosaics, and mythological painting were meant to be seen as a single staged effect.