The House of the Centenary (Italian Casa del Centenario, also known as the House of the Centenarian) was the house of a wealthy resident of Pompeii, preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The house was discovered in 1879,Massimiliano David, "A Chronology of the Excavations in Pompeii," in Houses and Monuments of Pompeii: The Works of Fausto and Felice Niccolini (Getty, 2002, originally published in Italian 1997), p. 219. and was given its modern name to mark the 18th centenary of the disaster.August Mau, Pompeii: Its Life and Art, translated by Francis W. Kelsey (Macmillan, 1907), p. 348; Roger Ling, "A Stranger in Town: Finding the Way in an Ancient City," Greece & Rome 37 (1990), p. 204. Built in the mid-2nd century BC,Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, "The Vesuvian Sites before A.D. 79: The Archaeological, Literary, and Epigraphical Evidence," in The Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 7; Jean Pierre Adam, Roman Building: Materials and Techniques (Routledge, 1999), p. 143. it is among the largest houses in the city, with private baths, a nymphaeum,James L. Franklin, Jr., Pompeis Difficile Est: Studies in the Political Life of Imperial Pompeii (University of Michigan Press, 2001), p. 147. a fish pond (piscina),James Higginbotham, Piscinae: Artificial Fishponds in Roman Italy (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), pp. 22, 269. and two atria.Michele George, "Repopulating the Roman House," in The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 307; Adam, Roman Building, p. 618. The Centenary underwent a remodeling around 15 AD, at which time the bath complex and swimming pool were added. In the last years before the eruption, several rooms had been extensively redecorated with a number of paintings.John R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (University of California Press, 1998, 2001), p. 161.
Although the identity of the house's owner eludes certainty, arguments have been made for either Aulus Rustius Verus or Tiberius Claudius Verus, both local politicians.Mau, Pompeii: Its Life and Art, p. 559, was a proponent of Claudius Verus, citing CIL IV.5229. Matteo Della Corte argued for Rusticus Verus, as discussed by Franklin, Pompeis Difficile Est, p. 134. Franklin finds Rusticus more likely than Claudius.
Among the varied paintings preserved in the House of the Centenary is the earliest known depiction of Vesuvius,Annamaria Ciarallo, Gardens of Pompeii («L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 2001), p. 22; Haraldur Sigurdsson, "Mount Vesuvius before the Disaster," in The Natural History of Pompeii, p. 31. as well as explicit erotic scenes in a room that may have been designed as a private "sex club".Thomas A.J. McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social History and the Brothel (University of Michigan Press, 2004), pp. 164–165. The room is most often taken to be one of the bedrooms (cubicula), which are sometimes decorated with erotic art in private Roman houses.
Site and features For the purposes of archaeological and historical study, Pompeii is divided into nine regions, each of which contains numbered blocks (insulae). Within a block, doorways are numbered in clockwise or counter-clockwise order;Ling, "A Stranger in Town," p. 204. the Centenary is numbered IX.8.3–6.Kathryn Gutzwiller, "Seeing Thought: Timomachus' Medea and Ecphrastic Epigram," American Journal of Philology 125 (2004), p. 376 (= Schmidt 13). It belongs to the luxurious "tufa" period of Pompeiian architecture, characterized by the use of fine-grained gray volcanic tufa that was quarried around Nuceria.Jashemski, "The Vesuvian Sites before A.D. 79," p. 7.
Of the two atria, the grander one leads to the most highly decorated rooms. The smaller atrium might have been for private family and service access.George, "Repopulating the Roman House," p. 307; Adam, Roman Building, p. 618. The triclinium or dining room was situated so that the guest of honor could view the enclosed garden.See a plan of the house with the view as construed by John R. Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration (University of California Press, 1991), p. 18. The dining room itself was decorated with vertical stalks entwined with tendrils on which birds perch, with leaf-adorned candelabra in the panels between.Roger Ling, Roman Painting (Cambridge University Press, 1991, 2006), p. 82. The house had its own bakery, located in a cellar under the service quarters on the west side.James L. Franklin, Pompeii: The Casa del Marinario and Its History («L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 1990), p. 42.
A graffito in the latrine uses the rare word cacaturitCIL 4.5242. ("wants to shit") found also once in the Epigrams of Martial.Martial, 11.77: "In privies Vacerra consumes the hours; the whole day does she sit; Vacerra wants to dine, she does not want to shit (In omnibus Vacerra quod conclavibus / consumit horas et die toto sedet, / cenaturit Vacerra, non cacaturit); Craig Williams, A Martial Reader: Selections from the Epigrams (Bolchazy-Carducci, 2011), p. 124. Another records a slave's bid for freedom: "Officiosus escaped on November 6 in the consulate of Drusus Caesar and M. Junius Silanus" (15 AD).CIL IV.5214; Antonio Varone, "Voices of the Ancients: A Stroll through Public and Private Pompeii," in Rediscovering Pompeii («L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 1990), p. 33.
It has been suggested that one secluded room (numbered 43), which was decorated with explicit scenes of female-male intercourse, functioned as a private "sex club." Guests would have entered the smaller, more private atrium, then passed down a corridor and through a triclinium and antechamber to reach it.McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, pp. 164–165; discussion of his theory of "sex clubs" in general at Pompeii, pp. 157–166, including literary evidence. McGinn finds the House of the Centenary along with the House of the Vettii to offer the best examples of potential sex-club facilities. See also Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking, p. 161ff. A few similar rooms in Pompeiian houses suggest that the intention was to create the ambience of a brothel in a home, for parties at which participants played the roles of prostitute or client, or for which actual prostitutes were hired to entertain guests.McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, p. 158–159. Some houses had suites that may have functioned as actual brothels; these, however, were like an attached shop (taberna) that might be leased out for business. They lacked interior access to the house, and had only an entrance to the street to admit paying clients indiscriminately. A small opening oddly positioned in the wall may have been an aperture for voyeurism.John Pollini, "The Warren Cup: Homoerotic Love and Symposial Rhetoric in Silver," Art Bulletin 81.1 (1999), pp. 39–40. Pollini describes the room as a "private brothel". Other scholars categorize Room 43 simply as a bedroom (cubiculum), which often featured erotic imagery,Nigel Spivey and Michael Squire, Panorama of the Classical World (Thames & Hudson, 2004), p. 56; William E. Dunstan, Ancient Rome (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), p. 262. and find it unnecessary to conclude that sexual entertainment was offered to guests there.Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking, p. 169.
Art
The House of the Centenary is known for its large and diverse collection of paintings in the Third and Fourth Pompeiian styles. The garden nymphaeum is a particularly rich example of combining painting with architectural elements to create the ambience of a country villa.Christine Kondoleon, Domestic and Divine: Roman Mosaics in the House of Dionysos (Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 321. A body of water filled with a variety of fish and marine animals was "dramatically" painted on the parapet that encircled the four walls of the nymphaeum; several species are represented accurately enough to identify.David S. Reese, "Marine Invertebrates, Freshwater Shells, and Land Snails: Evidence from Specimens, Mosaics, Wall Paintings, Sculpture, Jewelry, and Roman Authors," in The Natural History of Pompeii, pp. 275, 281–282, 284, 290, 302, 305, 309, 310; Liliane Bodson and David Orr, "Amphibians and Reptiles: Evidence from Wall Paintings, Mosaics, Sculpture, Skeletal Remains, and Ancient Authors," in The Natural History of Pompeii, pp. 330, 333, 338, 340, 342. The lower part of the wall is painted to look like a balustrade with ivy growing on it, with birds and lizards below. Fountains with sphinx bases are painted within garden scenes to the sides, and the wall around the entrance depicts game parks; in the foreground is a real fountain, with a faux finish to look like rare marble, from which the water would have run down tiers into a basin.Paul Zanker, Pompeii: Public and Private Life, translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider (Harvard University Press, 1998, originally published 1995 in German), p. 189. Below the steps and above the garden pool, there was a painting of a river god crowned with reeds, no longer visible.Wilhemina F. Jashemski, Frederick G. Meyer, and Massimo Ricciardi, "Plants: Evidence from Wall Paintings, Mosaics, Sculpture, Plant Remains, Graffiti, Inscriptions, and Ancient Authors," in The Natural History of Pompeii, p. 91. The composition has been characterized as a "grotesque potpourri", an assemblage of elements desirable because they represent the country villa lifestyle.Zanker, Pompeii: Public and Private Life, p. 189. Here and in similarly decorated spaces in Pompeii, the owner is concerned with displaying size and quantity and not a harmonious whole.Zanker, Pompeii: Public and Private Life, pp. 189–190.
The room to the north of the peristyle featured delicate ivy and stylized flowering vines as decoration.Jashemski, Meyer, and Ricciardi, "Plants," in The Natural History of Pompeii, p. 113. Ducks and lotus leaves also appear together as decorative motifs.Jashemski, Meyer, and Ricciardi, "Plants," in The Natural History of Pompeii, p. 131. Grapes and viticulture appear throughout the house, as in a scene of cupids gathering grapes.Jashemski, Meyer, and Ricciardi, "Plants," in The Natural History of Pompeii, p. 172. The hunting paintings are by the Pompeiian painter Lucius.Lawrence Richardson, A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters of Ancient Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 149.
Mythological painting
Mythological subjects include Theseus as victor over the Minotaur, Hermaphroditus and Silenus,Richardson, A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters, p. 104. Hercules and Telephus, and of Orestes and Pylades before Thoas.James Zetzel, "Plato with Pillows: Cicero on the Uses of Greek Culture," in Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome: Studies in Honour of T.P. Wiseman (University of Exeter Press, 2003), p. 118. Another room features Selene and Endymion, a Venus Piscatrix ("Venus the Fisherwoman"), and "floating nymphs."Lawrence, A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters, p. 168.
Bacchus and Vesuvius A painting in the house's lararium, a shrine to the household gods the Lares, depicts Vesuvius as it may have looked before the eruption,Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, "Recently Excavated Gardens and Cultivated Land of the Villas at Boscoreale and Oplontis," in Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Dumbarton Oaks, 1987), p. 33. with a single vineyard-covered peak instead of the double-peak profile of today. Although some scholars reject the single-peak hypothesis,Ernesto De Carolis and Giovanni Patricelli, Vesuvius, A.D. 79: The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (Getty Publications, 2003), p. 42. the painting is generally regarded as the earliest known representation of the volcano,Annamaria Ciarallo, Gardens of Pompeii («L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 2001), p. 22. even if it should not be taken as a record of what Vesuvius actually looked like.De Carolis and Patricelli, Vesuvius, A.D. 79, p. 45.