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House of Ceres, Pompeii

Address: Regio I, Insula 9
Area: 510 square meters
Rooms: 12

The House of Ceres, also known as Casa di Cerere or Casa di Ceres, is a modest yet elegantly decorated Roman domus in Pompeii that exemplifies middle-class domestic architecture from the late Republican and early Imperial periods. Located in Regio I, Insula 9, with entrances at I.9.13-14 on the north side of Via di Castricio (south of the prominent Via dell’Abbondanza), the house derives its name from a terracotta bust of Ceres—the Roman goddess of agriculture, earth, and fertility—discovered in a bedroom off the atrium. This bust, dating to the late 4th century BC, was likely an antique acquisition by the homeowners and formed part of a small household shrine (lararium). Buried under volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 AD, the house provides insights into Pompeian daily life, religious practices, and artistic tastes, with its Second Style frescoes and mosaics reflecting Hellenistic influences. Restored and reopened to the public in June 2022 as part of Pompeii's "widespread museum" initiative, it now integrates artifacts in their original context, emphasizing sustainable preservation.

History and Context

The House of Ceres (Casa di Cerere, I.9.13-14) stands on Via di Castricio in the southwest corner of Regio I, Insula 9. Archaeologists uncovered it during the post-war campaigns of 1951-1953. Early photographs from 1952 record the work in progress. The house takes its modern name from a terracotta bust of Ceres, goddess of grain, earth, and fertility, found in a cubiculum opening onto the atrium. The bust belongs to a late-fourth-century BC statuary type, more than four centuries older than the house itself. The owner almost certainly bought it on the antiquarian market as a prized antique and placed it in a small domestic shrine.
The plan is a classic atrium house of the late Republican period, built mainly in the second or first century BC. The street façade uses opus incertum masonry typical of that era. Visitors originally entered through the fauces; the main door survives as a plaster cast, so today’s route uses a side entrance from the garden (door 14). Iron fittings from the original lock remain in place. Beyond the atrium lie a tablinum, a small hortus, and a larger garden that was monumentalized in the house’s last building phase with a four-column xystus on the west side. Most rooms received Second Style wall paintings around the mid-first century BC, making the house one of the best surviving examples of that decorative phase in Pompeii. Notable rooms include the cubicles flanking the fauces (the eastern one has a fine polychrome rusticated dado in the alcove), the richly architectural master’s cubiculum west of the tablinum, and a small windowed room on the west side of the hortus whose underlayer still shows a preliminary sketch of a Corinthian capital later painted as a fake colonnade. Simple black-and-white mosaics cover several floors. Four small marble statuettes of Erotes riding dolphins were also found inside.
The household was probably a middling family with ties to agriculture or transport. Directly across Via di Castricio, Amedeo Maiuri excavated a stable in 1938 that contained the skeleton of a horse (or mule) used for hauling goods. That skeleton was conserved and put back on display in 2022 in a scientifically corrected position with climate-appropriate supports. The House of Ceres itself survived the earthquake of 62 AD and shows later repairs; its last occupants died in the eruption of 79 AD. Plaster casts of furniture survive in several rooms.
A major restoration finished in June 2022 and reopened the house to the public. Conservators cleaned mosaics and First Style frescoes, rebuilt the atrium roof, and restored the garden. The new roof uses photovoltaic tiles that look like traditional Roman terracotta coppi; they generate the electricity for an artistic lighting system that recreates the original mix of high, narrow windows and an open compluvium. A walkway now links atrium and garden, and finds from the house are shown in display cases as part of Pompeii’s “widespread museum” approach. The garden was replanted with organic farro (spelt) and ancient wheat, crops sacred to Ceres, so that seasonal sowing and harvest become part of the site’s interpretation.
The house sits in a densely built insula where residences, shops, and stables sat side by side, a typical picture of Pompeii’s mercantile life. As of 2023 the house remains open; later updates have added tactile models for visually impaired visitors. Together with the horse skeleton across the street, it offers a compact view of domestic architecture, household religion, agricultural symbolism, and the city’s effort to combine conservation with green energy.

Architecture and Layout

The House of Ceres (Casa di Cerere, I.9.13-14) follows the classic Pompeian atrium house plan, but on a compact urban scale. Built in the late 2nd or early 1st century BC and later modified, it occupies about 510 square meters on the north side of Via di Castricio in Regio I, Insula 9. Two street doorways serve the property. The principal entrance at I.9.13 is now blocked by a plaster cast of the original wooden door, complete with surviving iron fittings, so visitors enter through the secondary doorway at I.9.14.
A narrow fauces leads west from I.9.13 into the atrium. Rooms 1-5 occupy this entrance zone: simple corridors with stone thresholds, storage or vestibule spaces, and a small chamber (Room 5) that looks back into the atrium. The layout is inward-looking, typical of a middle-rank domus squeezed into a dense city block.
The atrium (Room 8) is the architectural and social heart of the house. It is a Tuscan atrium: no columns surround the impluvium. Rainwater collected through the compluvium fell into an off-center basin edged with mosaic and fitted with a puteal (stone curb) over the cistern mouth. A long masonry bench or platform runs along the west wall, useful for seating, display, or household work. Doorways open on several sides: northwest to cubiculum 9, east toward Rooms 13 and 14, and south toward the tablinum. A window in the south wall frames a view into the tablinum, linking the public reception zone with the more private rooms beyond.
The tablinum (Room 6), south of the atrium, served as office, reception room, and family archive. It communicates with Room 7 and looks back into the atrium through a window. In the early Imperial period this space was adapted as a summer dining room opening toward the garden. Room 7, immediately east of the tablinum, has a mosaic floor with a central emblema and may have functioned as an oecus or triclinium.
Cubicula cluster around the atrium. Room 9, in the northwest corner, retains a mosaic floor. Room 11 preserves painted walls on all four sides. One of these bedrooms, most likely Room 9 or 11, contained the terracotta bust of Ceres that gives the house its name. The bust is a late 4th-century BC type, far older than the house itself; the owner probably acquired it as an antique, perhaps after the earthquake of AD 62 damaged civic cult buildings. Other finds include four small marble Erotes riding dolphins and plaster casts of wooden furniture.
Beyond the tablinum lies a modest rear garden (hortus) rather than a grand peristyle. In the last phase of the house the west side of this garden was given a more formal look with a xystus supported by four columns in mixed opus vittatum. A landscape fresco showing villas once decorated the garden walls; it was removed for conservation. After restoration in 2022 the garden was replanted with cereals, barley, soft wheat, and other species associated with the cult of Ceres. A walkway now links atrium and garden, and finds from the house are displayed in glass cases under new lighting.
Across Via di Castricio a separate stable, excavated by Amedeo Maiuri in 1938, held the complete skeleton of a pack horse standing 1.34 m at the withers. The animal was used for hauling goods. After later deterioration the skeleton was scanned, cleaned, and remounted in 2022 on a modern transparent support in a climate-controlled display, still in the same utilitarian room opposite the house.
Most surviving wall decoration belongs to the Second Style and is unusually well preserved for a house of this size, making the Casa di Cerere one of the best in-situ examples of that phase in Pompeii. Simple black-and-white mosaics cover several floors. The overall design favors privacy and controlled views: light and air enter through the atrium, business and ritual take place in the tablinum, sleep and cult in the cubicula, and everyday work continues in the garden and the stable across the street. The modest footprint and the agricultural imagery of Ceres suggest a family of comfortable but not elite standing, involved in trade or farming and willing to display an antique statue of the harvest goddess in a private bedroom shrine.

Decorations and Frescoes

The wall paintings belong mainly to the Second Pompeian Style, in use from about 80 to 20 BC. This “architectural” manner opens the solid wall into painted colonnades, receding porticoes and imaginary vistas, so that a modest room seems to continue into a larger, more splendid building. Bright mineral colours - red and yellow ochres, occasional cinnabar and Egyptian blue - heighten the effect. Many of the motifs still carry the imprint of late Hellenistic painting from the eastern Mediterranean: slender columns, theatrical perspectives and a taste for luxurious, almost stage-like settings.
A 2022 conservation campaign cleaned the surviving plaster and recovered much of the original colour that centuries of exposure and earlier treatments had dulled.
In Room 7 the east wall is treated as a painted colonnade. Slender columns rise against a receding architectural backdrop; preliminary sketches of Corinthian capitals, still visible in red ochre and yellow, show how the painter first laid out the design before applying the final colours. Irregular edges of later plaster overlays reveal earlier layers beneath, a common feature when owners refreshed or repaired decoration. The upper register of the same wall turns fully fantastical: stacked aediculae, balconies and open skies create a convincing illusion of depth that would have made the compact room feel far more spacious.
The atrium (Room 8) is simpler. Its walls carry only faint traces of painted motifs around the impluvium, the central basin that collected rainwater. Geometric mosaic borders frame the basin and give the otherwise plain plaster a finished, ordered look.
Mosaic floors add another layer of display. Room 7 preserves a finely worked central emblema, a small pictorial or ornamental panel set into a coarser surround. Room 9 has a complete mosaic pavement. Around the atrium impluvium, tesserae arranged in crosses and dotted patterns form a crisp decorative edge.
In the smaller cubicula, such as Room 11, successive coats of plaster survive. Faint traces suggest that some panels once held mythological scenes, now largely faded. Even in their incomplete state these rooms show how owners combined practical domestic spaces with the visual language of wealth and culture.
Taken together, the Second-Style architecture, the surviving mosaics and the 2022 cleaning give the house a sense of measured grandeur: a compact urban dwelling that used painted illusion and colourful floors to evoke the palaces and public buildings of the Hellenistic world.

Artifacts

Excavations at the House of Ceres have produced a small but telling group of finds that mix household religion with everyday work. Many of the objects can be seen either in new display cases inside the house or in the Antiquarium of Pompeii.

Terracotta bust of Ceres.
The house takes its name from a terracotta bust of Ceres, goddess of grain, the earth, and fertility, found in a bedroom (cubiculum) opening off the atrium and set in a modest household shrine, or lararium. The sculpture belongs to a late-4th-century BC type, more than four centuries older than the house itself, whose first building phase dates to the early 2nd century BC. The owners almost certainly bought it as an antique. Similar terracotta busts of Ceres have turned up in other Pompeian houses rebuilt after the earthquake of AD 62, which suggests they may have come from a damaged civic sanctuary, possibly the extra-urban shrine at Fondo Iozzino outside Porta Nocera, associated with Demeter-Hecate and Jupiter Meilichios. For the family the bust served as both a protective image and a mark of cultivated taste.

Bronze dolphins.
Four small bronze dolphin figurines came to light during the 1951-1953 excavations. They probably belonged to a fountain or a decorative group. Marine motifs of this kind were common in Pompeian houses and carried associations of plenty and good fortune. The pieces are now in the Antiquarium.

The horse skeleton (Maiuri’s horse).
Across Via di Castricio, in a room identified as a stable, Amedeo Maiuri uncovered in 1938 a complete skeleton of a pack horse standing 1.34 m (about 53 inches) at the withers. A masonry manger and traces of straw were found with it. The animal was used for hauling goods. Maiuri mounted the bones on a metal frame that later rusted and stained them. In 2022 the skeleton was laser-scanned to produce a 3D model, dismantled, cleaned, and remounted in a scientifically correct pose on a transparent, climate-adaptive support that reduces pressure on the bones. A tactile 3D replica was made for visitors with visual impairments. The horse is again on view in the stable, opposite the house.
Other finds.

A mosaic emblema from Room 7, ordinary pottery, and traces of the garden complete the picture of domestic life. After the 2022 restoration these objects are shown in new on-site cases. The rear garden was replanted with ancient cereals (spelt, soft wheat, barley) chosen to recall the cult of Ceres.

Significance

The House of Ceres is significant for its integration of religious devotion (via the Ceres cult) with everyday Roman life, offering a glimpse into middle-class piety and economy in Pompeii. Its well-preserved Second Style decorations and artifacts highlight artistic continuity from Hellenistic to Roman traditions, while the stable's horse skeleton provides rare evidence of animal husbandry. As part of Pompeii's UNESCO World Heritage Site, it exemplifies the "widespread museum" approach, where sites are restored for immersive experiences rather than centralized display. Recent sustainable restorations (e.g., solar-powered lighting) address modern conservation challenges like climate change, ensuring the house's role in educating visitors about ancient resilience amid Vesuvius's shadow. Ongoing documentation, including 2022 photographs, supports scholarly research into Pompeian urbanism.