HOUSE OF THE LARGE FOUNTAIN - POMPEII

The garden of this house is embellished with large fountain decorated with coloured mosaics and compositions made of glass paste tiles. Rows of shell running all round the nymphaeum form a highly original decoration which is completed by two large theatrical masks embedded in the bases of two columns. The water for the fountain flowed through a hole in the middle of the apse and fell over a flight of marble steps, creating an impressive effect, before being collected in a small pool decorated with a bronze statue of a cupid carrying a dolphin on his back. The statues on display here are copies. The garden of the adjoining house, called the House of the Small Fountain, has large landscape paintings and a smaller fountain with decorations very similar to the ones in the previous house. Here the water flows out from a marble mask of Silenus.

 

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‘Garum’ was the name of a fish sauce which was a favourite throughout Pompeii and was prepared and sold in this small house on Via dell’Abbondanza. As a residues found in six sealed containers in the courtyard have not been yet analysed, it has so far been impossible to establish whether the garum produced here was the high quality type (garum excellens or garum flos flos) or some poorer variety. A large number of empty amphorae were stored in the back garden; they have just been cleaned and were ready to be filled by means of a funnel which was also found in the workshop. This is evidence that the garum from Pompeii was exported to many places throughout the Roma ... continue

(Apic. 4, 2, 30) Ingredients:

• 500 g boiled fillet of small fishes or whole sardelles
• 150 g dried raisins (sultanas)
• 1/2 tblsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 tblsp privet
• 1 tblsp oregano
• 2 small diced onions
• 200 ml oil
• 50 ml Liquamen, or 1/2 tblsp salt
• wine
• cornstarch

Instructions:
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Mix raisins, pepper, privet, oregano, onion, wine, Liquamen and oil
together and put in a casserole. Cook until done. Then put small boiled
fish fillets or boiled small whole fishes into it. Thicke ... continue

Love was a common topic of conversation in Pompeii. Feelings, passions, poetic love, sex, homosexuality, prostitution and so forth were all part of daily life and not a source of prejudice. The concept of “obscenity” seems to have been unknown. Love and sex were considered earthly practices of a man’s life that were encouraged by the benevolence of Venus. The thousands of examples of graffiti found on the town’s walls are unequivocal proof of what the people of Pompeii thought about love and sex.