offerings were made to images of the gods that protected the household at a shrine called a lararium.the tablinum, at the head of the atrium, served as an office for the head of the family. he received clients bearing gifts and discussed financial transactions and business deals there. decorations such as frescoes of maritime villas like this one from the house of marcus lucretius fronto were common, suggesting an affinity with the patrician taste of the villa owners. affluent residents created tranquility out of urban chaos by building interior courtyards deep within the walls of the house. the gardens were smaller than those of the villas, but copied some of their features. pools and fountains were adorned with plas and sculpture. even in modest homes, like the house of the small fountain, a little garden was tucked into the courtyard. the bronze fisherman enjoying an idle moment at the fountain's corner evoked the blissful joys of life away from rome. visitors could enjoy the gardens and often a view of vesuvius sleeping, for the moment, in the distance. as the poet horace noted: r

offerings were made to images of the gods that protected the household at a shrine called a lararium.the tablinum, at the head of the atrium, served as an office for the head of the family. he received clients bearing gifts and discussed financial transactions and business deals there. decorations such as frescoes of maritime villas like this one from the house of marcus lucretius fronto were common, suggesting an affinity with the patrician taste of the villa owners. affluent residents created tranquility out of urban chaos by building interior courtyards deep within the walls of the house. the gardens were smaller than those of the villas, but copied some of their features. pools and fountains were adorned with plas and sculpture. even in modest homes, like the house of the small fountain, a little garden was tucked into the courtyard. the bronze fisherman enjoying an idle moment at the fountain's corner evoked the blissful joys of life away from rome. visitors could enjoy the gardens and often a view of vesuvius sleeping, for the moment, in the distance. as the poet horace noted: r

and above the hearth, we find something very characteristic -- a lararium, a little shrine where the the household, the lares, dance on either side of an altar where an offering is made. so this is not just a place for food preparation, but it's a focus for the loyalties of the family and family life. what we see in this house, then, with this combination of rather shabby shop rooms and surprisingly nicely decorated private rooms, is something very typical of a roman house. we make a separation between work and family, between office and home. for the romans, the two -- not just here, but all over pompeii -- you find work and home tightly linked together. keach: these tombstone engravings depict the daily lives of shopkeepers and artisans. just as in ceren and copan, production in the roman world was based primarily in the household. yet, as in teotihuacan, roman households specialized in providing goods and services. these households represented the middle levels of roman society. but what set rome apart was the extraordinary wealth of its elite. wallace-hadrill: what we have here i