Identifier: pompeibuildings00dyer (find matches)
Title: Pompeii, its history, buildings, and antiquities : an account of the destruction of the city with a full description of the remains, and of the recent excavations, and also an itinerary for visitors
Year: 1867 (1860s)
Authors: Dyer, Thomas Henry, 1804-1888
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Bell & Daldy
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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was the richness of its furniture and HOUSE OF THE FAUN. 39; decorations, and especially of its mosaics. In an apartmentin the middle of the peristyle was found the famous mosaicof the battle of Issus, now in the Museum at Naples, whichwe have already described. The threshold of one of thedoors leading into the atrium had also a mosaic, unique bothfor its execution and for its state of preservation. It is aboutnine and a half feet long by nearly two broad, and displaysa grand festoon of flowers and fruits, with tragic masks andtympana. In another apartment was the beautiful mosaic ofAcratus, mounted on a panther, of which we annex a plate.These have been removed to the Neapolitan Museum buttwo or three mosaics still remain in situ. One of these in aroom in the peristyle, representing a large lion, is very muchdamaged. A smaller mosaic in one of the alae is in a betterstate of preservation. It represents three doves and a casket,from which one of the doves is stealing a pearl necklace.
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In the tablinum of this house was found the skeleton of awoman, whose attitude vividly recalls one of those agonizingscenes which characterized the last days of Pompeii. Sheappears to have attempted to escape, but driven back by theoverwhelming shower of ashes, to have taken refuge in thetablinum, after throwing on the pavement all her ornaments, 3J 6 POMPEII. her mundus muliebris. The apartment, however, afforded nosecure shelter. The flooring of the room above began to fallin, and her uplifted arms betray an attempt to support thesuperincumbent mass which crushed her. In an adjoiningroom were other skeletons, among them that of an old man.Among the jewellery found, which had probably belongedto the woman, were two gold bracelets of a serpentine form,each weighing a pound; several gold rings with engravedstones, one of which represented Hercules lifting his clubagainst a serpent wound round a tree, and figures of the threeflying Hesperides. On one with a cornelian was engraved avery

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