Pliny the Younger’s letters indicate that another important function of porticus and cryptoporticus within the villa was circulation. As walkways, porticus and cryptoporticus connected sections of the villa and in doing so gave access to the rooms along their way. Indeed, they serve to structure the narrative as Pliny the Younger (Ep. 2.17, 4-5; 16-19; 5.6, 19-22; 27-31) guided his readers to the various rooms and spaces of his villas. As designers stretched out the villas’ spaces onto the landscape, it was the porticus and cryptoporticus they used in order to provide different ways of access to those spaces.
In Villa A at Oplontis, a parallel porticus (40)
Fig. 3.9 — Oplontis, Villa A: view of cryptoporticus 46 looking towards peristyle 32.
And cryptoporticus (24) provided different ways to access the east wing from the central body of the villa and I will argue that they served different purposes. In this villa there were two ways to go from the central atrium (5) towards the big reception rooms (61, 65, 69, 73, 74, 78). I focus here on the route to one of the rooms, room 78. The first route ran through cryptoporticus 24 and porticus 40. The cryptoporticus (24), accessed from the southeast corner of the atrium (Fig. 3.6), led to a porticus (40; Fig. 3.8) that ran around the garden (59) and led through passages 81 and 42 to room 78. The second approach to this large reception room was through another cryptoporticus (46; Fig. 3.9), which could be reached from the northeast corner of the atrium via a corridor (4), room 27 and peristyle 32. The cryptoporticus (46) led directly to a corridor (76), which was connected to reception room 78.
I propose that the first route was intended for the leisurely walks of the owner and his friends, whereas the second one was for the more everyday operations of the villa. In the first route, which ran around the garden (59), the only visual connection with the interior of the villa was through a corridor (37) leading to the peristyle (32). Although cubicula (23, 25, 38, 41) open onto the cryptoporticus (24), their doors could have been shut and the porticus (40) did not give access to any room. Thus, the owner and his friends could have enjoyed a leisurely promenade: first enjoying the view to the sea at the south from the cryptoporticus (24) and then the view of garden (59) from the porticus (40). Taking this route, the owner could have led his guests to the large reception room (78) without much interaction with the interior of the villa. The paintings and mosaics adorning the Porticus (40), corridor (81), and room (79) on this route are of the same character (Fergola and Pagano 1998, 57—58) and provide a stylistically unified architectural setting for this promenade.
The second route passed through what is generally interpreted as the service area of the house (Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 39). This argument was based on the presumption that the so-called zebra stripe decoration in peristyle 32, the rooms around it and the cryptoporticus (46) was used in service areas. However, the studies by Corrado Goulet (2001, 74—83; figs. 43—68) and Laken (2003, 177—181; figs. 20—23) have shown that these zebra patterns were in fact richer and more decorative than their current state suggests and that the areas in which the patterns appeared have been incorrectly thought of as servile. The “stripes” were originally black waves, blended to achieve a gradation that would result in the appearance of simulated marble as the best-preserved examples indicate (Corrado Goulet 2001, 56—58). The design was indeed used to adorn service or secondary areas but it would not only feature in such areas. The design was used in areas of public buildings that were not well lit, inclined, angled or curved or that were much trafficked, for example the corridor H in the Stabian Baths at Pompeii (Corrado Goulet 2001, 63-65; figs. 18-19; Laken 2003, 182), the interior passageways of the amphitheater at Pompeii (Corrado Goulet 2001, 62-63; figs. 11-12; Laken 2003, 181; fig. 8) and the cryptoporticus in the palaestra of Insula Orientalis II at Herculaneum (Corrado Goulet 2001, 67-68; figs. 25-26; Laken 2003, 177; figs. 5-6). In private dwellings the design appeared in entrance spaces, corridors and passages, for example the corridors in the apartment complex above the Suburban Baths in Pompeii (Corrado Goulet 2001; Laken 2003, 174-175, fig. 17) and in the fauces, vestibulum and passage E of the Casa di Julius Polybius (IX 13, 1-3; fig. 5.4; Corrado Goulet 2001, 86-88; figs. 80-85; Laken 2003, 175-176; figs. 18-19). The zebra patterns were probably meant to create an eye-catching and repeating design that would encourage movement in the more public areas of a house rather than signifying the service areas of the house (Corrado Goulet 2001, 59-62; Laken 2003, 176-177). In fact, the only rooms that are known archaeologically to be service areas (35, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53) in Villa A at Oplontis do not bear zebra patterns, but rather are decorated in white, third style wall paintings (Fergola and Pagano 1998, 51).
The zebra patterns featuring in the spaces of this second route provided a unified style of decoration and in doing so guided the person walking towards the eastern part of the house from the atrium (5). Visitors would have been led through a room (27), peristyle (32) and into the cryptoporticus (46) where they might sit on the benches along it, waiting to be received by the owner of the villa, or a member of his staff (Fig. 3.9). Their view would have been directed through the zebra patterns of the cryptoporticus through the opening of the porticus (60) onto the pool and garden complex (80, 96, 98). Above the zebra patterns the wall decoration consisted of white rectangular panels decorated with garlands and aediculae and the ceiling presents panels decorated in a style comparable to that of the Domus Aurea. This large cryptoporticus was 4 meters wide, 30 meters long and at least 4 meters high. It was an appropriate area for business guests as it allowed a relatively restricted access to the villa: following this route visitors did not interact with the activities within the porticus (40) — cryptoporticus (24) route or the cubicula to which they provided access.
It is clear that the designer(s) intended a clear-cut separation between the two ways of accessing the eastern wing of the villa. Although the zebra-striped cryptoporticus (46) ran parallel to the north wing of porticus (40), there was no direct connection between these spaces. This deliberate separation between a porticus and a cryptoporticus often occurs in luxury villa architecture, for example, in Villa San Marco (2, 7, 51; Fig. 3.2), Villa of the Papyri (54, 56; Fig.
3.4) and Villa del Pastore, where in all cases a long cryptoporticus was placed right next to an equally long porticus and/or a xystus with access only at the beginning and end of the walkways. Furthermore, in both Pliny’s (Ep. 2.17, 17; 5.6, 16) villas, a cryptoporticus and/or a porticus were positioned next to a xystus. Villa A at Oplontis elucidates the concept behind this design composition. The entire east part of the villa, starting from the beginning of cryptoporticus (46), was built towards the middle of the first century AD (Thomas and Clarke 2007, 229-232; 2009, 357-364; De Caro 2005, 372398). It was during this period that the southern cryptoporticus (24) together with a new porticus (40) were decorated in the fourth Pompeian style and that peristyle (32), the rooms around it and the associated cryptoporticus (46) were decorated in zebra patterns, both of which present a unified, and distinctive, architectural and decorative design. These two routes to the east wing were part of the circulation plan of the design project initiated after
AD 45. The designer(s) aimed at providing two types of access to the east wing of the villa, one more private and more public, and clearly distinguished one from the other in terms of decoration.
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