known by a great variety of names--_The Quaestor_, _the Centaur_,
_Castor and Pollux_. The latter name (Dioscuri also) is derived from the
spirited figures of the sons of _Leda_, painted reining in their horses
on the side walls of the left-hand vestibulum. A running _Mercury_, with
purse in hand, was painted on one of the posts of the same entrance. The
exterior of this house is much more carefully decorated than was usual
among the Pompeians. Many of the stucco ornaments have been picked out
with colour. Highly-decorated wooden chests, lined and bound externally
with iron, were found in the atrium, at the entrance of the left-hand
ala, which still contained a few gold and silver coins that had escaped
the grasp of some one who had returned to the spot after the destruction
of the city, and made excavation, evidently directed to that particular
spot.
This house is one of the finest for the grandeur and taste displayed in
every part of it. The celebrated paintings, _Perseus and Andromeda_,
_Medea and her Children_, were found on the piers at the lower angles of
the great central Peristyle. The great Exedra, or Triclinium, at its
extremity, was closed with folding doors, the sockets of which still
remain, and the floor was decorated with the famous circular mosaic of
_The Lion crowned with Garlands by young Cupids_. (Engraved in Mus.
Bor., vol. vii., tav. 61.) (Plan given in Gell’s Pompeiana, vol. ii.,
pl. 63.)