---
title: "House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25 - Pompeii Online"
description: "Explore the House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25 at Pompeii, a vast Popidii residence with two atria, three peristyles and bronze fountains."
url: "https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places/regio-i/house-of-the-citharist-i-4-5-25"
date: "2026-09-15T09:27:44+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---

#  House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25

The **House of the Citharist** is one of Pompeii's largest and most sumptuous private residences. Located in Regio I and facing both the Via Stabiana and the Via dell'Abbondanza, it occupies much of Insula 4 and covers approximately **2,700 square metres**. Its irregular plan, arranged around **two atria and three peristyles**, resulted from the gradual amalgamation and transformation of several originally independent dwellings.

The architectural history of the domus spans several centuries. The oldest nucleus, arranged around one of the atria, dates at least to the **third century BC**. In the second century BC the property was extended eastwards with new rooms and two peristyles. After 80 BC, another residential section was connected to the house; new prestigious rooms and a small bathing suite were built in the early Augustan period. Some parts of the building were restored and altered again after the **earthquake of AD 62**.

The house's gradual growth appears to reflect its owners' social and economic rise. Graffiti and electoral inscriptions associate the residence with the powerful **Popidii family**, one of the most important in Roman Pompeii. A graffito on a column in the south peristyle names **L. Popidius Secundus**, to whom some of the work undertaken after the earthquake of AD 62 has been attributed.

The domus takes its modern name from the celebrated bronze statue of **Apollo the Citharist**, found during nineteenth-century excavation and now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. The figure shows Apollo playing a stringed instrument traditionally identified as a cithara, although recent research favours a **lyre**. It is one of the most important bronzes from Pompeian houses.

New studies presented by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in **2026** have also proposed a fresh interpretation of the Apollo Citharist. Long regarded as a Roman classicising creation, the statue may be an unusually faithful copy of a celebrated Greek original from the **fifth century BC**. Among known copies of this iconographic type, the Pompeian figure is also distinctive because it is bronze, whereas most surviving examples are marble.

Recent research has further suggested that the monumental organisation of the house and its image of Apollo may symbolically evoke **Augustus's residence on the Palatine**, beside which stood the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. This remains an interpretative hypothesis under study, but is consistent with Apollo's importance in Augustan ideology and with the social aspirations of the owning family.

One of the house's earliest nuclei was arranged around an **atrium with an impluvium**. A cubiculum opening onto this area preserves evidence of the domus's oldest decoration: a cement-based floor with white limestone inserts and traces of **First Style** painting. Later work gradually transformed this original nucleus and linked it to the new areas built around the peristyles.

A second atrium was incorporated into the property during a later expansion. The cement-based floor around the impluvium was decorated with a figured motif of **ships' prows**, while an adjoining room retained a refined black-and-white mosaic with a **Gorgon head** at the centre, rendered with polychrome details in shades of red and brown.

The most spectacular feature of the House of the Citharist is the sequence of **three peristyles**, which turned the interior of the residence into a progression of gardens, porticoes and reception rooms. Rare even among Pompeii's grand domus, this arrangement created theatrical routes through the property and separated different areas of domestic life.

The central peristyle was arranged around a large **basin**, the garden's visual focus. Several bronze sculptures on its edge functioned as fountains, in keeping with a taste widespread in the richest villas of the Vesuvian area. The figures included a **wild boar attacked by two dogs**, a lion, a stag and a snake. Water, sculpture and vegetation thus transformed the garden into a place not only for rest, but also for displaying the owners' status.

The original sculptures were transferred to the **National Archaeological Museum of Naples** after excavation. Bronze copies were later installed in the house and restored during work completed in 2026, allowing visitors to appreciate the original effect of the composition and water display.

Numerous **triclinia, cubicula, exedrae and reception rooms** opened around the peristyles, many preserving mosaics and paintings from different decorative phases. Geometric floor patterns clearly distinguished anteroom from alcove in some cubicula, while the most important halls had black-and-white mosaics, marble and complex painted schemes.

A cubiculum opening onto the central peristyle was decorated with **Mars and Venus**, one of the many mythological subjects in the house's decorative repertoire. Numerous important paintings were detached during the nineteenth-century excavations and taken to the Naples museum, making it more difficult today to appreciate the original richness of these rooms.

A small **private bathing suite** was also built in the western part of the domus during the early Augustan period. The provision of bathing rooms within the residence confirms the owners' high economic status and the house's development towards increasingly luxurious forms of living.

The domus also possessed numerous service areas required for daily management. A building of this scale demanded a complex organisation, with kitchens, corridors, service rooms and accommodation for the staff who lived and worked on the property.

Several **portraits**, both bronze and marble, were also found in the house. Together with the inscriptions and decoration, these images expressed the owning family's social prestige and its connections with municipal politics and the cultural models of the Roman aristocracy.

After the **eruption of AD 79**, tunnels were dug into parts of the house to recover valuable materials. Stone elements from the impluvium and marble from the bathing suite were removed, showing that the building was partly explored and plundered in antiquity.

Modern excavation began in **1853** and continued in several campaigns between 1853 and 1861, in 1872 and again in the twentieth century. As was usual in nineteenth-century excavation, many paintings, statues and other objects were transferred to Naples. The House of the Citharist therefore appears emptier today than it did at the time of the eruption, although the monumentality of its spaces remains clearly perceptible.

Recent stratigraphic and archival research is making it possible to reconstruct the domus's complex evolution more precisely. In **2026**, the Archaeological Park also completed new work to consolidate walls and columns, restore surfaces and reinstate the gardens, treating vegetation once again as fundamental to understanding the ancient spaces.

The **House of the Citharist** is therefore one of the most important examples of the development of a great aristocratic residence at Pompeii. Its successive building phases, two atria, three peristyles, gardens with spectacular water displays, bronze sculptures, bathing rooms and association with the Popidii show how several older houses were gradually transformed into one of the city's largest and most prestigious homes.

###  Further reading

[Pompeiiinpictures](http://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/R1/1%2004%2005.htm) Detailed images of the building

###  Video

###  Map

![Floor plan of the House of the Citharist](https://www.pompeionline.net/pompeii/pianta/p12.gif "Floor plan of the House of the Citharist")

![Loading...](https://www.pompeionline.net/components/com_zhosmmap/assets/utils/loading.gif)

[View this location on the Pompeii Buildings and Places map](https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places)

'+ '

'; var titlePlacemark74000000000000 = "House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25"; var latlng74000000000000 = L.latLng(40.74968, 14.48922); map\_bounds\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.extend(latlng74000000000000); var contentString74000000000000 = ""; contentString74000000000000 = '' + '### '+ 'House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25'+ '

'+ ''+ ''+ '

'+ ''+ ''+ ''+ '[![Article](https://www.pompeionline.net/components/com_zhosmmap/assets/utils/article.png)](https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places/regio-i/house-of-the-citharist-i-4-5-25 "Article")'+ '

'+ '

'+ '

'+ '

'; var marker74000000000000 = L.marker(latlng74000000000000, {icon: L.icon({ iconUrl: icoIcon + "pompei-marker-cerchio-blu-bordo-bianco-18.png", iconSize: \[18, 18\], iconAnchor: \[9,18\]}) , draggable: false, title:"House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25" }); marker74000000000000.addTo(map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map); marker74000000000000.zhomRating = 0; marker74000000000000.zhomCreateddate = ""; marker74000000000000.zhomExtraFieldsList = \[\]; marker74000000000000.zhomCreateddateUser = ""; marker74000000000000.zhomPlacemarkID = 74000000000000; marker74000000000000.zhomContactAttrs = userContactAttrs; marker74000000000000.zhomUserContact = "0"; marker74000000000000.zhomUserUser = "0"; marker74000000000000.zhomOriginalPosition = latlng74000000000000; marker74000000000000.zhomInfowinContent = contentString74000000000000; marker74000000000000.zhomTitle = "House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25"; marker74000000000000.zhomIncludeInList = 0; marker74000000000000.bindPopup(marker74000000000000.zhomInfowinContent); marker74000000000000.on('click', function(event) { this.openPopup(); }); zhomObjMgr\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.PlacemarkAdd(0, 74000000000000, marker74000000000000, null); map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.setView(latlng74000000000000, map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.getZoom()); latlng\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map = latlng74000000000000; routedestination\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map = latlng\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map; var contentPathString11 = ""; var imgGroundBounds11 = \[ \[40.746791, 14.475589\], \[40.754898, 14.499171\]\]; var imgGroundOptions11 = { opacity:1 , interactive:false }; var imgGroundLayer11 = L.imageOverlay('https://www.pompeionline.net/images/mappe/pompei\_master\_joomla\_v2.svg', imgGroundBounds11, imgGroundOptions11); imgGroundLayer11.zhomPathID = 11; imgGroundLayer11.zhomInfowinContent = contentPathString11; imgGroundLayer11.zhomTitle = "Pompeii site plan – English map"; imgGroundLayer11.addTo(map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map); var geolocationControl = new zhomGeolocationButtonControl("\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map",map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map,2,1,2,"geolocation","Location",16,16,"https://www.pompeionline.net/components/com\_zhosmmap/assets/utils/geolocation.png"); var mapcenterControl = new zhomMapCenterButtonControl(latlng\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map,"19",map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map,2,2,2,"mapcenter","Home",19,16,"https://www.pompeionline.net/components/com\_zhosmmap/assets/utils/home.png"); map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.fitBounds(map\_bounds\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map); var toShowLoading = document.getElementById("OMapsLoading\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map"); toShowLoading.style.display = 'none'; zhomObjMgr\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.InitializeByGroupState(); }; function PlacemarkByIDShow(p\_id, p\_action, p\_zoom) { alert("This feature is supported only when you enable it in map menu item or module property!"); } function findMyPosition\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map(AutoPosition, DirectionsDisplay, DirectionsService, Marker, SearchTravelMode, LocationDestination) { if (navigator.geolocation) { browserSupportFlag = true; navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) { initialLocation = L.latLng(position.coords.latitude,position.coords.longitude); map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.setView(initialLocation, map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.getZoom()); if (AutoPosition == "Button") { if (typeof geolocation\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map === 'undefined') { geolocation\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map = L.marker(initialLocation, {draggable:false}); geolocation\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.addTo(map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map); } else { geolocation\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.setLatLng(initialLocation); } } }, function() { handleNoGeolocation(browserSupportFlag); }); } else { browserSupportFlag = false; handleNoGeolocation(browserSupportFlag); } }; function handleNoGeolocation(errorFlag) { if (errorFlag == true) { alertContentString = "Error: The Geolocation service failed"; } else { alertContentString = "Error: Your browser doesn't support geolocation"; } popup\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.setLatLng(map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map.getCenter()) .setContent(alertContentString) .openOn(map\_com\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map); }; function initializeZhOMPLG\_ARTICLE\_OVERVIEW740() { initializecom\_content\_article\_740\_0\_8\_map(); }; var tmpJQZhOMPLG\_ARTICLE\_OVERVIEW740 = jQuery.noConflict(); tmpJQZhOMPLG\_ARTICLE\_OVERVIEW740(document).ready(function() {initializeZhOMPLG\_ARTICLE\_OVERVIEW740();}); /\*\]\]>\*/

## Schema

```json
{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://www.pompeionline.net/en" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Buildings and Places", "item": "https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Regio I", "item": "https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places/regio-i" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "House of the Citharist I.4.5, 25", "item": "https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places/regio-i/house-of-the-citharist-i-4-5-25" } ] }
```