House of the Faun

Houses of the higher class

The House of the Faun, along with the House of Pansa and the House of the Silver Wedding represent the higher class of the Roman houses of the Republic. More than 190 years after its excavation, the craftsmanship and quality of materials have been found to be exceptional, even amongst the other noble houses in Pompeii. There is evidence, most notably in the eastern walls of the tetrastyle atrium, that after the AD 62 Pompeii earthquake, the House of the Faun was rebuilt and repaired, as revealed by excavation beneath the floor of the house; yet, the building was only used again until CE 79, when it was ultimately rendered unusable by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Although the eruption was devastating, the layers of ash covering the city preserved artworks, like the mosaics, which would have otherwise been likely destroyed or severely decayed due to the passage of time.

Faun statue

The bronze statue of a dancing faun (actually a satyr, since the lower body is that of a man) is what the House of the Faun is named after. In the centre of the atrium there is a white limestone impluvium, a basin for collecting water. The statue was found on October 26 of 1830 near one side of the impluvium and a small fountain in the center. The original statue is currently located in the National Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale) in Naples, thus the statue seen today in the house’s ruins is a copy. Fauns are spirits of untamed woodland; they are typically depicted as half human and half goat. Literate and Hellenized Romans often connected their depictions of fauns with Pan and Greek satyrs, who were the wild followers of the Greek god of wine and drama, Dionysus. It is purely a decorative sculpture of high order: "the pose is light and graceful," Sir Kenneth Clark observed.

Inscriptions and their familial associations

Archaeologists discovered an inscription bearing the cognomen Saturninus, suggesting that the dwelling was owned by the important gens, or clan, Satria; a ring bearing the family name Cassius was also found, indicating that someone of the Cassii family married into the gens Satria and lived in the House of the Faun.

Excavations

The House of the Faun was initially excavated in 1830 by the German archaeological institute.

Five bodies were found in the house including one woman and three boys.

The most notable of the artworks found in the House of the Faun is the Alexander Mosaic; a reconstructed version of the mosaic can be seen today; the original was removed from the floor where it was found and placed in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. In the 1830s when it was first discovered, the mosaic was thought to represent a battle scene depicted in the Iliad, but architectural historians have found the mosaic actually depicts the Battle of Issus in 333 BCE between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia, which took place about 150 years before the House of the Faun was constructed. This mosaic may be inspired by or copied from a Greek painting finished in the late fourth century BCE, probably by the artist Philoxenus of Eretria. Unlike most Pompeian pavements of the late second and early first centuries, this mosaic is made of tesserae, and not the more common opus signinum, or other kinds of stone chips set in mortar.

The Alexander Mosaic is complemented by other floor mosaics with Nilotic scenes and theatrical masks. Other notable works of art from the House of Faun include an erotic Satyr and Nymph and the fish mosaic, a piece closely resembling other mosaics in Pompeii.