From Palaces to Pompeii

This dissertation is a study of the impact of Hellenistic palatial architecture and décor on the design of private houses and their social culture at Pompeii in the second century B.C.E. A great deal of attention has been devoted in previous studies of ancient Greco-Roman literature and art history to the processes of hellenization that transformed Italic cultures in the course of the Hellenistic period. My work expands upon this scholarship by combining methods of spatial analysis with an examination of permanent interior decoration in the form of decorative pavements. Using representational mosaics from Hellenistic palaces and elite residences to elucidate patterns of mosaic distribution, I determine their architectural and social context by means of view planning and access analysis. Incorporating additional analysis of the social meaning of the representational mosaics, I define the impact of Hellenistic palatial architecture and décor on Pompeian domestic architecture and social culture. I utilize the House of the Faun at Pompeii as my test case, because of the good preservation of its second century B.C.E. phase and the large number of high quality representational mosaics and other decorative pavements present. The resulting patterns are indicative of an awareness on the part of Pompeians of not only the context of Hellenistic palace design, but also the social culture of Hellenistic kings and elite citizens. Furthermore, the desire to imitate this palatial lifestyle was made manifest in the House of the Faun and its contemporaries at Pompeii.