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House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii

Address: Regio VI, Insula 16
Area: 759 square meters
Rooms: 15

The House of the Golden Cupids, also known as Casa degli Amorini Dorati or the House of the Gilded Cupids, is one of the most elegant and well-preserved elite residences in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Located in Regio VI, Insula 16, at entrances 7 and 38 (VI.16.7, 38), it sits along the Via del Vesuvio in the northern part of the city. This domus spans approximately 830 square meters and exemplifies the affluent middle-class Pompeian home from the Imperial era, particularly the Augustan period (late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD). Originally constructed in the 3rd century BC, the house underwent significant restructuring during the Augustan era, altering its traditional layout to emphasize a grand peristyle garden. It was buried under volcanic ash during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and excavated between 1903 and 1905. The house suffered damage from a Allied bomb in 1943 during World War II, which destroyed parts of its decorations, but it has undergone multiple restorations, including conservation efforts in 2004, 2015-2016, and ongoing protective measures like wooden roofs over sensitive areas.
Evidence from graffiti and a seal ring suggests the owner was Gnaeus Poppaeus Habitus (or Cn. Poppaeus Habitus), a wealthy local resident and relative of Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of Emperor Nero. The family's connection to imperial circles may explain the house's opulence and eclectic decorations, which reflect a blend of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian influences. This eclecticism is not haphazard but rooted in Roman collecting practices and religious syncretism, where diverse representations of gods were assembled to create a canonical domestic pantheon. The house stands out for its integration of art, religion, and nature, functioning almost as a private museum and sacred space.

Architecture and Layout

The House of the Golden Cupids deviates from the standard Roman domus plan, lacking cubicula (bedrooms) flanking the atrium and featuring an offset alignment that directs focus toward the expansive peristyle garden. Behind an unremarkable façade on Via del Vesuvio, the entrance (Room A) consists of a short corridor (fauces) with steps and a threshold, leading west into a square atrium (Room B) with a central impluvium (rainwater basin). The atrium, now in poor condition, serves as the entry hub, with rooms opening off its sides.

Atrium (Room B): Features doorways to smaller rooms on the north-east side (Rooms C and D, likely cubicula or storage) and a tablinum (Room E) on the west side. The layout creates a visual axis from the entrance through the atrium to the peristyle beyond.
Tablinum (Room E): A reception or study room with fine floor mosaics, decorated in the Third Style with orange-yellow panels and mythological scenes above a black frieze.
Exedra: A large hall or sitting area with high-quality mythological paintings and a mosaic floor featuring a central rosette, emblematic of Augustan fashion. It includes large panels depicting scenes of Roman life.
Peristyle (Room F): The heart of the house, a colonnaded garden courtyard (peristylium) of the rare "rhodium" type, where the west portico has higher columns surmounted by a pediment, imparting a sacred atmosphere to overlooking rooms. The porticos slope with the terrain, with the west side elevated. It surrounds a garden with a pool and provides access to additional rooms, including a triclinium (dining room) with stone beds on the west side.
Cubicula (Bedrooms): Several, including Room C (with faded paintings like Leda and the swan) and Room I (the namesake cubiculum on the north portico, with an alcove for a bed and sites for gilded cupid medallions). Room J, off the north portico, includes steps to an upper floor (now lost) and a hole at floor level.
Service Areas: Include a kitchen, latrine, and storage rooms, with a secondary entrance from Vicolo di Mercurio for draft animals and servants.

The overall design emphasizes openness and integration with the garden, with over 15 rooms surrounding the peristyle, many decorated in First, Third, and Fourth Pompeian styles.

Decorations and Frescoes

The house is renowned for its ornate, heavily decorated interiors, making it one of Pompeii's most artistically rich residences. Frescoes dominate, blending Third Style (delicate, colorful, with Egyptian influences from the end of Augustus' reign) and Fourth Style elements. Walls feature red and yellow panels separated by black stripes, above lower black friezes, with central paintings and small figures. Many rooms retain ceiling frescoes, a rarity.

Key themes include mythology, love, and daily life:
Atrium: Surviving fresco of Helen and Paris meeting at Sparta. Entrance corridor has poorly preserved Third Style frescoes with birds, including peacocks, and still lifes with fruit.
Exedra and Tablinum: Mythological scenes like Helen and Paris; fine mosaics.
West Portico Rooms: One cubiculum depicts the four seasons on a white background; another features love themes like Leda and the swan, Venus fishing, and Actaeon spying on Diana while bathing.
Room I (Cubiculum): Fourth Style with symmetrical red and yellow hexagons resembling modern wallpaper; originally set with four glass discs (medallions) engraved with gilded cupids (now mostly lost, one in Naples Museum).
Peristyle Walls: Large yellow panels with red borders; reliefs including Venus and Cupid at a grotto entrance (0.32m high, with original color traces), dancing satyrs, masks, and fragments.

The decorations reflect eclecticism, combining Roman illusionism, Greek models, and Egyptian motifs, possibly copied from lost originals. Soluble salts and decay (e.g., efflorescences from gypsum, carbonates, nitrates) have affected some frescoes, studied via non-invasive techniques like Raman spectroscopy.

Garden and Sculptures

The peristyle garden is a highlight, restored to its original layout with aromatic plants and functioning as an open-air museum. Decorated with marble reliefs, sculptures (some original Greek), busts, animal figures, theatrical masks hung between columns, and medallions against the evil eye, it creates a magical atmosphere. A central pool and a marble-bronze sundial (with vine tendrils and feline paws) add functionality. The garden's sacred vibe is enhanced by the elevated west portico.

Religious Aspects

Religion permeates the house, with two lararia emphasizing syncretism:
Traditional Lararium (North Portico): Masonry aedicula with fluted marble columns, architrave, pediment, and niche. Contained bronze statuettes of Jupiter (with thunderbolt), Juno, Minerva (with gorgon), Mercury, and two Lares, plus a bronze vase (now in Naples Museum). Podium painted as marble.
Egyptian Lararium (South-East Corner): Painted shrine dedicated to Isis, Serapis, Harpocrates, and Anubis (canine-headed, with caduceus). Depicts gods on a base with serpents approaching altars bearing eggs; cult objects like sistrum, cist, silver situla, patera, and Uraeus cobra. A terracotta lamp with these gods was found nearby (Naples Museum). This suggests the owner was involved in the Isis cult, possibly as a priest.

The collection of divine images underscores themes of protection, fertility, and world order.

Notable Features and Artifacts

Gilded Cupids: Four glass medallions with gold-leaf cupids in Room I; one survives in situ, others lost or in museums.
Mirrors: Rare obsidian wall mirrors, among only a few found in Pompeii, characterized as Si-matrix with Ca, K, Al, Na.
Other: Fresco of Venus, Adonis/Paris, and Eros; female portrait possibly of the domina. The house's preservation allows study of decay processes, like salt formations from volcanic and restoration impacts.

Significance

The House of the Golden Cupids exemplifies Pompeian luxury, blending art, religion, and horticulture in a cohesive domestic space. Its eclectic decorations and Egyptian elements highlight cultural exchanges in the Roman Empire, while its garden and shrines offer insights into private devotion. As a UNESCO site attraction, it draws visitors for its vivid glimpse into elite life before 79 AD.