Abstract
Just as the stage in a theater gives power and presence to the actors who
perform on it, critics have recently come to see the architecture and decoration
of the Roman house working together to create a kind of private
“powerhouse”2 reinforcing the authority of the dominus. The relationships
between rooms and the paintings (especially mythological) in those rooms
define spaces where the owner put himself and his personal tastes on display
to a select clientele. In Wallace-Hadrill’s own words,3 “we must treat the
house as a coherent structural whole, as a stage deliberately designed for the
performance of social rituals, and not as a museum of artifacts.” He concludes
that the patronus used his house as much for public social rituals as for his
private life – an idea generally quite foreign to us in contemporary society.