Villa of Diomedes
The Villa des Diomede ( Villa di Diomede ) is located outside the city walls of Pompeii at the Herculan Gate on Via dei Sepolcri . It was excavated by Francesco La Vega from 1771 to 1774 and got its name from Marcus Arrius Diomedes, whose grave is opposite the entrance to the villa . The attribution of the villa to this person is not mandatory. The villa is laid out on two levels. In the front part there is a peristyle right behind the entrance , there are bathrooms and a kitchen wing as well as various living rooms. A staircase led to the ground floor. There is a large peristyle with 17 pillars on each side. In the middle of this large garden is a summer triclinium with a water basin in front of it. The villa was decorated in simple fourth style wall paintings . These are only poorly preserved today.
Various bodies were found in the villa. A skeleton that was found along with another skeleton may even have been the owner of the house. Coins to the value of 1,356 sesterces (ten gold coins, 88 silver coins and nine bronze coins) lay in a cloth next to this skeleton . It is one of the richest finds in the city. This man also had a key and was wearing a gold ring. In the cellar of the house there were 18 other skeletons of women, servants and children who were probably suffocated by the penetrating gases. Numerous wine amphorae were also found in the cellar.
The villa is the setting for several novels. Théophile Gautier's Arria Marcella (1852) plays here, as does Ferdinand Gregorovius ' poem Euphorion .
literature
- Eugenio La Rocca, M. de Vos Raaijmakers, A. des Vos: Lübbe's archaeological guide Pompeii . Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1979, ISBN 3-7857-0228-0 , pp. 237-340.
Web links
Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′ 8.3 " N , 14 ° 28 ′ 42.6" E