The life in Abundantia Street

Street of Abundantia

The Via dell'Abbondanza is Pompeii's lower Decumanus. Its name derives from a bas-relief that decorates a fountain located in the initial section close to the Forum. This long street connects the main points of the city located between the Forum and the Sarno Gate. There are the Theatres, the Temple of Isis, the Amphitheatre and the Stabian Baths

Stabian Baths

There are 3 main baths in Pompeii, the Forum, Stabian and Central baths. The Stabian baths was badly damaged at the time of the earthquake of AD 62. Only the women?s quarters were in use at the time of the eruption.
Both the men?s and women?s quarters had three rooms. The rooms were preceded by a vestibulum. A hot room, the calidarium next to the boiler room. A warm room, tepidarium and a changing room apodyterium. The men?s quarters also included a small circular room with a cold plunge bath frigidarium. The women?s quarters had no frigidarium but there was a cold bath in the change room. After removing their clothes in the changing room, the bathers could either have a quick cold dip or go straight into the warm room. This room was heated to a constant temperature. It served as an acclimatizing room allowing the body to get used to the change of temperature between the changing room and the hot bathroom. This was particularly important when leaving the hot room in winter.

Along this street we find many of the most beautiful houses, some having two-stories, where the rich Pompeian merchant middle-class lived.


House of Cryptoporticus

This House derives his name from a luxurious covered corridor, the cryptoporticus. During the last period of the city it was used as a depot. That's why about sixty wine amphoras were found here. The decoration in Second Style shows a labyrinth on the skirting board and a wall with large red slabs (orthostats) separated by herms. The upper part shows a frieze with scenes from the Trojan war. At the end of the corridor the visitor finds at the center of the back wall a representation of the escape of Aeneas from Troy with his father Anchises. This scene constitutes the link between the Greek myth and the history of Rome: it was after the fall of Troy and the escape of Aeneas towards the coasts of Latium that his son Julus founded Alba Longa, from where Rome rose. There is the ambulacrum with Lararium of Mercury. The house has a thermal zone with sudatio with and a niche and mosaic with men and dauphin.There are the anteroom with mosaic floor with Hellenistic rose, the apoditeryum with emblema and a wall painting of Mars and Venus. The frigidaryum shows a floor with mosaics and walls wih frescos.The hall has a floor with mosaic divited in two parts with a polychromatic threshold. The decoration is a wall painting with festoons flower and fruit. There are also pinakes and xenion with a cock and a figs hamper. Among the several victims found in the garden of this house there is one of a mother protecting her little daughter and another of a slave with fetters at his ankle.


House of Paquius Proculus

The House is generally attributed to the baker (pistor) Paquius Proculus, who became a mayor of Pompeii. According to widespread electoral propaganda, he was the most influential citizen in this quarter of the city. There is the entrance with a section portrays a dog tied to a leaf of the door, while the floor mosaics in the atrium are divided into panels portraying different animals. There is a tablinum and the courtly rooms and the lodgings open on to the garden in the back. The skeletons of seven young boys were found in the exedra.

House of the Chaste Lovers

The name of the House derives from the motives of the fresco showing lovers during a feast. This is a typical ?shop-house? with the bakery on facing the street and internal living quarters. The large bakery is equipped with oven with millstones. The skeletons of the mules used for the loads of grain were found in one of the stables which opened on the southern alley. The house has elegant paintings. Decoration works were still in progress in one of the halls on the day of the eruption. Thus, there are completed parts and portions still being prepared with graffiti and preparatory drawings (sinà³pie). Little cups containing the colors (that are kept in Archeologic National Museum in Naples) a small stove and a compass were found under the collapsed  vault. The peristlyum has red columns and is decorated with wall painting in Fourth Style with central garden. In the north side of peristilyum there is a fountain with statue of a Child and dolphin.
The triclinium shows walls painting in Three Style with red and black panels and a frieze with cupids. In the centre of the panel there is a fresco with a scene of banquet



House of Julius Polybius

The House of Gauis Julius Polybius has two atria. The first is completely covered, while the second has a compluvium and no columns (tuscanico). The perystilum shows a decoration with Three Style frescos. In this side of the house was finded many furniture casts. On the perystile there are the oecus decorated with Fourth Style frescos on white setting and two cubicola, the black cubiculum and the cubiculum decorated with portraits of Mars and Venus. Particularly elegant is the decoration of the triclinium at the end of the garden which portrays Dirce's punishment. One of the rooms was used to keep a collection of bronzes, among which a statue of theEphebe lamp-holder similar to the Apollo of Piombino and a laconic crater bearing a Greek inscription on its edge.

House of Loreius Tiburtinus

The house name derives from the owner Tiburs who was a priest of Isis
It was attributed to Loreius Tiburtinus or to Decimus Ottavius Quartio, whose seal was found here. There is an elegant triclinium opened on the garden that contains a frieze of Scenes from the Iliad, and the Legend of Hercules. The larger one on top portrays the mythical expedition of Heracles against Laomedon, while the smaller one at the bottom portrays the historical expedition of the Greeks against Priam. There is also a beautiful oecus decorated with Fourth Style wllas painting.The garden has a bath pool, that had the shape of a river, the eurà­pus and was decorated with ancient Egyptian statues (ibis, sphinxes, lions, etc.). On the peristylum there is a little temple and a niche with fresco of Narcissus. Thus, it is assumed that people initiated to the mysteries of Isis used to meet there to attend artificial floodings of the garden that simulated the sacred and fertile floods of the Nile.


House of Venus Marina

Damaged by one of the bombs that fell on Pompeii in 1943, and unconvered in 1952, this house seems to be built over an older one, with a larger peristylum the triclinium and new arrangement of the rooms, which go almost all the way around the garden. The house was made famous by the the three panels of beautiful paintings (as shown above) surrounding a garden. The painting (shown below) on one of the panels displays the goddess Venus Marina lying with two cherubs in a pink seashell; she was the protectress of Pompei. There are also a cubiculum decorated with Fourth Style frescos on blue background the tablinum and a cubiculumwith Fourth Style frescos on yellow background


House of Julia Felix

This house was excavated in the 18th. century. There is a big and elegant garden with euripus and a portico supported by little marble pillars. The peristylum is decorated with Fourth Style walls painting. At the center there was a summer dining-room with marble beds and a fountain with a waterfall. The atrium has the impluvium and there is also the covered triclinium, a cubiculum with frescos and a tablinum. A second entrance led into the bathroom.The others paintings are all at the National Archeological Museum of Naples.In Abundantia Street there are also many ?shop-house?, where the shop is on the ground floor and the house is on the upper floor.

Fullonica of Stephanus

The fullonica is a laundry and a typical example of a Pompeian?shop-house?. Clothes were washed, dyed and ironed here. At the entrance we find what remains of a press (pressorium). The impluvium, or pool, in the atrium had been transformed into a tank. Clothes were washed and dyed in small rooms connected tanks and small tanks  used for pounding can be found there. In fact, the wash soaked into degreasing liquids was pounded with feet.

Termopolium


This is the most complete inn ever discovered in Pompeii. Its furniture partly made of terra-cotta and partly of bronze was found here. There is a lararium which portrays the god of trade Mercury and the god of wine Bacchus. The jars encased in the counter were used to keep beverages and food hot.


Verecundus Workshop

This is typical of the workshops of Pompeii where dress materials, felt objects, and clothes were made. Beside the entrance are four paintings dedicated to the divinities who protected the workshops. The busts of Apollo, Jupiter, Mercury (protector of merchants, coming out of a temple with his bag full of money) and Diana are painted on the architrave of one of the entrances, while Venus, some cupids and a procession of people carrying a divinity on a sedan chair (ferculum) are portrayed on the sides of the entrance.

Temple of Isis

The Temple of Isis consists of a cell on a high podium with a staircase on its front. In front of it there is a sacrificial altar. On the side of the altar there is a temple-shaped entrance which leads to a reservoir that used to contain the sacred water of the Nile.