Casa del Menandro


The House of Menander is one of the richest and most magnificent houses in ancient Pompeii in terms of architecture, decoration and contents, and covers a large area of about. Its quality means the owner must have been an aristocrat involved in politics, with great taste for art. Mussolini held a lunch party in Room 18 when he visited Pompeii in 1940.
The house was excavated between November 1926 and June 1932 and is located in Region I, Insula 10, Entrance 4 of the city.

Ownership of the house

Della Corte thought the owner could be Quintus Poppaeus Sabinus due to a seal and a graffito in the entrance corridor mentioning 'Quintus' and other graffiti in the house referring to 'Sabinus'.
The nationality of the owner is more in dispute than their economic status. Pompeii’s Mediterranean climate enticed many Romans to invest in holiday villas there, so it is possible that the owner at the time of Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD was a wealthy tourist, not a local.

Art, architecture, and graffiti

Fresco

The estate is referred to as “The House of Menander” because there is a well-preserved fresco of the ancient Greek Dramatist Menander in a small room off the peristyle. Some speculate the painting is not actually of Menander but rather of the owner of the house or another person reading works by Menander.
The house included other frescoes, including one depicting the death of Laocoön.

Classical style and Hellenism

The large columns in the peristyle of the Casa del Menandro are representative of the Doric style of architecture, an offshoot of the Classical Style, which also stems from Greece. The emphasis on Greek culture in Pompeian architecture is not surprising since Greek sailors had been using the port as a trading post before the Oscans founded the city in the 6th century BC.

Graffiti

Numerous examples of Roman graffiti can be observed on the exterior walls of the house.

Gallery