A fauces mosaic from Casa del Centenario (Pompeii).
The absolutely splendid wall decorations of the fauces leading into the Casa del Fauno (Pompeii).
It’s time to get to the point, what is an atrium house? This is a dilemma that have occupied historians for the last 300 years and there’s still not full consensus, thus a difficult matter to explain in a few short lines. I would summarize it as a type of upper class house that was in use between ca 300 Bc and 100 Ad. It should follow a certain plan, possibly not in detail but at least in general (a standardized plan of the atrium house).
The first room you would enter is the thin corridor that is normally called fauces (it was however not called fauces during antiquity). The word means “jaws” in Latin. This room would, as it gave any visitor a first impression, be decorated when possible and there are many so called facues mosaics preserved.
Casa del Menandro, how a Roman atrium house looks from the main entrance.
Welcome to my new theme – the atrium house. There are several reasons why I choose this subject;
-I’ve got a lot of material on the subject, there is a lot to discuss and I simply find it interesting.
The material will, unfortunately, be presented in a somewhat unorganized manner. There is however something that resembles a plan: I will begin with the theoretic atrium house, the concept scholars have formed during the last 300 years. Thereafter I’ll take a look at how the upper class houses from the time period differs from this theoretic house and I’ll finish up with detail information such as garden decorations, paintings, domestic items etc.
Anyway, I till turn to what an atrium house really is tomorrow. For now, consider it dominating type of Roman upper class houses between ca 300 Bc and 100 Ad ( or even later in extreme cases), depending on where in the empire you are.
I would like to, as a last post on Heracles, give an example of how the hero was far from forgotten by later generations. This is a fresco from the world famous Villa d’Este depicting the tenth labour and a fighting scene. Notice how the hero is portrayed almost exactly the same during the 16th AD century by a cardinal as 2000 years earlier.
An altar to the Invincible Heracles from the Roman city Ostia.
(Most temples, altars and other religious buildings, items and artifacts were dedicated to an aspect of a god or goddess. Compare the Invincible Heracles to Jupiter Stator (halter of retreats) and others.)
I am almost out of material (as I only use photos that I have taken myself) but there are a few more points to take up before it’s time for the next theme.
One of these are that Heracles is of course not only about the myths and legends, there was also a very real aspect which is easy to forget about. As hinted in some of the labours (as in the first one), we find that the hero was considered divine and received sacrifices. These cults were spread all over the Greco Roman world as here is one of the many remains of it: an altar to the invincible Heracles.
The competition between Heracles and Apollo.
Another famous incident is Heracles so called competition with Apollo, an episode that took place right after the final labour.
It happened so that Heracles desired to take a new wife (remember that the labours was his punishment for killing his first wife). Now Eurytus (not to be mixed up with Eurystheus), prince of Oechalia, had promised that any man who could beat him and his son in an archery competition would win his daughters hand.
Heracles of course won the competition and was to have the daughter as his wife, but Eurytus wouldn’t let someone who had killed his earlier wife and children get married to her. The hero thus left and soon afterwards some cattle was stolen, Eurytes assumed that this was Heracles doing. A man who believed Heracles to be innocent was sent after him, but was killed by the hero (thrown of the walls at Tiryns, se pictures here and here).
Yet again Heracles had committed murder and had to be purified, but this was more difficult than expected. He ended up turning to the oracle at Delphi after being refused a number of times at other places, but even the Pythia (Apollo’s oracle at Delphi) would not do this for him (“[the purification would come] not by oracles” as she supposedly expressed it, Apollod. Bibl. II.6.2). Heracles temper took the upper hand when hearing this and he tried to steal the tripod placed there, “to institute an oracle of his own” (Apollod. Bibl. II.6.2).
This is where the competition came in to the myth, Heracles competing with Apollo for the tripod until Zeus finally separated the two with a thunderbolt. The oracle then told Heracles what to do;
"When they had thus been parted, Hercules received an oracle, which declared that the remedy for his disease was for him to be sold, and to serve for three years, and to pay compensation for the murder to Eurytus."
Apollod. Bibl. II.6.2, translation by J. G. Frazer
I would like to go through a few more items before leaving the world of Heracles. Here is a vase painting depicting a scene from a side story that took place during the travels preceding the eleventh labour.
It was said that Heracles came to Egypt during his travels and was captured by the king at that time, Busiris. Now, Egypt had suffered from starvation for nine years and a seer prophesized that they had to sacrifice a strange once every year – the first one was the seer himself and the king decided that Heracles was next up when he came to the land years later.
The hero however didn’t agree with Busiris and he burst his bonds and slew the king and his son.
Heracles coming up from Hades with Cerberus. Detail, Roman sarcophagus.
The story of how Heracles managed to complete this labour is very complex and I will not go into all the details. It might be of interest however to know that this is the only labour expressly mentioned in the Homeric poems
“He [Eurystheus] once sent me here to fetch the hell-hound- for he did not think he could find anything harder for me than this, but I got the hound out of Hades and brought him to him, for Mercury and Minerva helped me.”
Od. Xi. 623 Translation by Samuel Butler
This has been seen as the crown Heracles achievements. It is told that he entered the underworld in Laconia with the help of Hermes and Athena. In Hades he accomplished several deeds no less impressive then the ones in the world of the living. He saved Theseus (an ancient king of Athens), he rolled the stone of Ascalaphus (the man who was to roll a stone over a hill, only to lose grip every time when he was almost over the top) and he even intended to fight Meleager and Medusa but was held back by Hermes.
The Hero found himself in the end facing Hades, asking about permission to bring Cerberus to the surface. The god allowed him to do so if he did it without the power of arms. It is said that the hero then simply dragged the hound to the surface. Cerberus unfortunately couldn’t stand the light and started spitting, thus creating a poisonous plant called aconitum.
Eurystehus was terrified when Heracles arrived with the beast and hid away in a pithos (large vessel) as he had done twice already. The hero then returned the animal to the underworld and thus finished the twelfth labour.
Heracles, 2nd century Bc, found at Forum Boarium (Rome). Notice the apple in his hand.
The garden of Hesperides. Greek vessel from 350-340 Bc, found in Paestum.
The golden apples were the property of Hera, who had received them from Gaia as a wedding gift. The goddess had them entrusted to the Hespedies (nymphs) and the dragon Ladon in the far away land of the Hyperboreans (a legendary race of Apollo-worshippers in the far away north, living in some kind of earthly paradise).
The eleventh labour is was one of the more complicated as Heracles didn’t know where to find the apples. The hero travelled the world asking a number of characters where he could find this mysterious land and he managed to end up at Mount Caucasus in the Far East. This so happened to be the mountain that Prometheus was tied to, having his liver eaten by an eagle every day. Heracles killed the eagle. The titan (Prometheus) was so grateful that he wanted to help Heracles; he told the hero not to get the apples himself but to ask Atlas (the titan who carried the skies and the brother of Prometheus) to do it for him and explained how to get Atlas to take on his burden again afterwards.
Heracles at least found his way to the land of the Hyperboreans and Mount Atlas. Here he offered to carry the burden of the heavens for Atlas if the later brought him the apples. Atlas happily agreed and went on to get the apples and soon returned with them (three acourding to Apollod. Bibl. II.5.11), but then refused to take his place under the skies again - he would instead return to Erystheus himself (There was an alternative story where Heracles went after the apples himself and killed the dragon Ladon).
Now Heracles knew what to do thanks to Prometheus and he managed to get Atlas to carry the skies again by stratagem (a Homeric word roughly translating into trickery):
“he [Heracles] begged Atlas to hold up the sky till he should>158 [sic] put a pad on his head. When Atlas heard that, he laid the apples down on the ground and took the sphere from Hercules. And so Hercules picked up the apples and departed.”
Apollod. Bibl. II.5.11. translation by Sir James George Frazer
Heracles then returned to Erystheus and handed him the apples. The king then gave them to the hero again and Heracles decided to dedicate them to Athena, who returned them to the garden of Hesperides.
Heracles fighting Geryones.
The tenth labour is similar to the ninth in some ways as it contains the same type of side stories during a voyage to and from a distant land – it seems like there are even more minor deeds connected to this one than the earlier. The most important and famous episode is when Heracles raises two pillars, one on each side of Gibraltar. This is why the straits were known under the name of “the pillars of Heracles” during antiquity. Some ancient authors even believed that Heracles was responsible for creating the straits, others that he made the passage smaller to prevent sea monsters from reaching the Mediterranean (Diod. Sic. IV. 18. 4 ).
The labour itself began when Erystheus commanded Heracles to bring him Geryones oxen. These oxen grazed on an island so far away to the west that it was called Erytheia (the red) as is was to be found under the rays of the setting sun. Heracles manned a ship and travelled westwards, accomplishing many great deeds before he reach a terrible warm land which he blamed Helios, the sum (god), for. The hero tried to make the sun move a little further away, making it cooler, by shooting arrows at him. Trying to kill an immortal is however impossible and the effort fruitless. Most gods would also seek revenge after such a behavior but Helios found it amusing and wanted to help the brave mortal. He therefore gave Heracles a golden bowl or ship to continue his journey in and it is in this vessel that he reached Eryteia.
There he found the guardians of the flock waiting for him, first the two-headed dog Orthus (Cerberus sibling), which he killed with his club, and soon thereafter the giant Eurytion who also was killed. The third guardian, Menoetes, who was responsible for Hades cattle (that so happened to be tended together with the ones Geryones owned) noticed what was going on and he reported back to Geryones (Apollod. Epit. II.5.10).
Geryones was an unusually strange monster; he was composed of three men who were joined together at the hip. He faced Heracles in full armour but was shot dead by an arrow (The arrows were poisonous since the hero dipped them in the blood of the hydra) (Apollod. Epit. II.5.10).
Heracles then returned to Greece with the cattle, but Hera put gadfly among them and they ran away from him as he was passing the Hellespont. The hero had to gradually recapture them and managed to give them to Erystheus in the end. The cattle was then sacrificed to Hera by the king.
