THE FAUCES OF THE ROMAN HOUSE. BY J. B. GREENOUGH. INCE the discovery and especially since the more careful study SING of the ruins of Pompeii, the Roman house has become pretty well understood in all its general features, and the facts are found to agree sufficiently well with the description given by Vitruvius. But as to the nature and position of the fauces mentioned by that author, there is still a difference of opinion. The word in this strict technical sense occurs only in one passage in Vitruvius, one in Gellius, and one in Macrobius; but there are some other uses of the word which throw light on its meaning. The word was at first apparently supposed to refer to the entrance, as in Rode's Vitruvius (1800), and Wilkins' Vitruvius (1812). In an edition of Vitruvius of Simon Stratico (1828), it is referred to a passage from the atrium to the tablinum and from the alae to the atrium, apparently with a wrong idea of the position of these parts with reference to each other. Stieglitz, in the Archaeologie der Baukunst (1801), again refers it to the entrance; but the same author, in Archaeologische Unterhaltungen (1820), changes its position to some side passage. He says (p. 123): "The fauces which are sometimes taken as a passage from the atrium into the tablinum, and sometimes held to be a space connected with the vestibulum, were without doubt near the tablinum, on each side of it, since Vitruvius mentions them immediately after it, and determines their size in proportion to it. Moreover, he mentions the peristyle immediately after, which was on the back part of the building. The fauces cannot be supposed to be in the front part of the building, because, according to Vitruvius, in city houses one enters the atrium immediately from the front door; and the vestibulum in this case had no place, and so it would be superfluous to add still another part. This position of the fauces is clear also from the fact that according to the relation of the size (of the atrium) to that of the tablinum just so much space remains over alongside of it as is required by the fauces. Such passages were necessary," etc. Mazois, Le Palais de Scaure (1822), takes the same view, referring to Vitruvius and Gellius as authority. Pauly's Encyclopædia refers the fauces to the same two passages. Becker's Gallus sets the fauces tentatively (Göll, in the Rev. Ed., 1880, with assurance), in the same position, on one or both sides of the tablinum, and leading from the atrium to the peristyle. So, also, the last edition of Overbeck's Pompeii, and so, also, Nissen and Presuhn, as well as Marquardt in the Privat-Alterthümer. In the Annali dell' Istituto, the memoirs of the Archæological Institute at Rome, 1859, p. 82, is a paper by one Sergio Ivanoff, which takes and maintains the ground that the fauces were at the entrance. His reasoning, which depends on an actual observation of the character of the entrance and of the side passages referred to, ought to have satisfactorily settled the question; but as the opposite view is still propagated as the prevailing one, it seems worth while to reexamine the question.1 The passage in Vitruvius (Book VI.) bearing on the question is as follows: In Section 1 he has treated of positions and exposures; he now treats of proportions. Explaining that effect often requires a deviation from the exact normal proportions, he then continues, in Section 2: Igitur statuenda est primum ratio symmetriarum, a qua sumatur sine dubitatione commutatio. Deinde explicetur operis futuri locorum imum spatium longitudinis et latitudinis cuius cum semel constituta fuerit magnitudo sequatur eam proportionis ad decorem apparatio uti non sit considerantibus adspectus eurhythmiae dubius. De qua quibus rationibus efficiatur est mihi pronuntiandum, primumque de cavis aedium uti fieri debeant dicam. "Therefore the symmetrical relations must be determined from which the deviation may proceed. Then let the plan in length and breadth of the intended work be drawn, the size of which once having been settled may be continued by the details in symmetrical proportion, as to which I must show by what means it is to be secured; and first I will state how inner courts (cava aedium) ought to be built." 1 Since this article was written (Dec. 1885) Baumeister, Denkmäler, etc., has apparently adopted the view herein set forth, but without any discussion of the question. |