---
title: "House of Julius Polybius IX-13, 1-3 - Pompeii Online"
description: "Il nome di questa abitazione prende il nome dall’ultima persona che verosimilmente ne ebbe il possesso o che quantomeno la abitò, noto in italiano come Giulio P"
url: "https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places/regio-ix/house-of-julius-polybius-ix-13-1-3"
date: "2026-09-16T12:43:59+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---

#  House of Julius Polybius IX-13, 1-3

The **House of Julius Polybius IX-13, 1-3**, facing Via dell’Abbondanza, is one of the most interesting residences in Regio IX and a rare surviving example of a large Pompeian house of the **Middle Samnite period, between the third and second centuries BC**. Its austere façade and distinctive internal arrangement retain features from the city’s earliest phases, while later decoration, furnishings and alterations document a long continuity of occupation down to the eruption of AD 79.

The house is also exceptional for the quantity of objects found inside it, which allow the daily life of a prosperous Pompeian household to be reconstructed in unusual detail. Kitchenware and banquet vessels, antique bronzes, lamps, candelabra, glass containers, gaming dice and other items were found alongside works of considerable artistic value. Restoration was still underway when the eruption occurred, as shown by a heap of lime left inside the house.

### A rare house of the Samnite period

The House of Julius Polybius has a plan unlike the more familiar layout of Roman-period Pompeian houses. The Archaeological Park regards it as one of the few surviving residences of the **Middle Samnite period**, built between the third and second centuries BC.

Among its earliest features are **First Style** decorations, in which modelled and painted plaster imitated costly architectural revetments in stone. The river-pebble pavement and the cocciopesto impluvium likewise belong to the house’s distinctive architectural history.

These elements were not entirely removed during later alterations. In AD 79, part of the residence therefore retained architectural and decorative features made many generations earlier, probably still valued for their age and prestige.

### A plan unlike the traditional domus

On entering the house, one encounters an arrangement that does not fully follow the conventional entrance-atrium-tablinum-peristyle sequence typical of many large Pompeian residences.

The atrium is followed by an **enclosed room** in which a painted door visually conceals a real opening from an earlier phase of the building. This provides especially clear evidence of the changes made to the house: instead of completely demolishing the old structure, the owners reorganised the rooms and incorporated the former opening into a new decorative scheme.

The residence thus offers direct evidence of how a Pompeian house could change over the centuries without entirely losing traces of its earlier phases.

### Work still in progress in AD 79

A **heap of lime** left by craftsmen engaged in restoration was found near the painted door. This is particularly important because it proves that some work in the house remained unfinished when the eruption occurred.

In AD 79, Pompeii was a city in which many houses were still being repaired and altered. The major earthquake of AD 62 had certainly caused widespread damage, but not every visible project in the houses can automatically be attributed to that single event.

In the House of Julius Polybius, however, it can be stated with confidence that **building work was still underway when Vesuvius erupted**.

### The peristyle and garden

A **peristyle planted with fruit trees and shrubs** linked the front of the house with its principal reception rooms. The garden brought light and vegetation into the property and served as a setting for relaxation and *otium*.

As in other great Pompeian residences, the peristyle was not merely a functional courtyard. Plants, porticoes and surrounding rooms formed a single architectural ensemble through which guests could stroll or enter the banqueting rooms.

The relationship between the garden and the reception rooms was especially important in the large triclinium, one of the richest spaces in the entire house.

### The large triclinium

The **triclinium** was used for banquets and was one of the principal settings in which the owner could display his wealth to guests. Some of the house’s most prestigious bronze furnishings were found here.

The walls also preserve a major painted cycle devoted to the myth of **Dirce**, a subject well known in ancient art and also represented in monumental sculpture.

The combination of mythological paintings, precious vessels and antique bronzes made the triclinium one of the clearest expressions of the occupants’ cultural and economic standing.

### The punishment of Dirce

The large fresco in the triclinium depicts episodes from the myth of **Dirce**. According to the myth, Dirce persecuted Antiope, the mother of Amphion and Zethus; when the two sons learned of their mother’s suffering, they punished Dirce by tying her to a bull.

The scene belonged to a visual repertoire familiar throughout the Greek and Roman worlds. The same myth also became famous through monumental sculptural groups, including the composition known as the Farnese Bull.

Such a dramatic subject in the triclinium reflects the Roman elite’s taste for the great stories of Greek mythology, which served in the home as signs of culture and as possible topics of conversation during banquets.

### A prestigious collection of bronzes

The triclinium yielded an extraordinary **collection of bronze objects**, some of which were already ancient in AD 79. They were therefore more than ordinary household utensils and were probably preserved for their artistic, historical or antiquarian value.

The most important finds include a **bronze statue of Apollo**, a large vessel decorated with mythological imagery, and a fine Greek bronze jug dating from the **fifth century BC**.

The jug was about five centuries old by the time of the eruption. The Park explicitly interprets it as a true **antique**, kept in the house because it was both old and prestigious.

### Collecting antiquities in antiquity

The Greek jug is particularly significant because it shows that Romans, too, collected objects from periods long before their own.

A wealthy household did not seek only new and fashionable furnishings. Possession of an ancient Greek work could be an even more sophisticated display of cultural prestige.

The House of Julius Polybius therefore reveals a phenomenon that appears strikingly modern: an **antiquarian interest in objects from the past**. A work’s value depended not only on its material, but also on its age, quality and cultural origin.

### Apollo and Greek culture

The bronze statue of **Apollo** belongs to the same cultural world. Apollo was the god of music, poetry, prophecy and the arts, and one of the central figures of Graeco-Roman religion and culture.

Greek art was an essential point of reference for Roman elites, and domestic rooms were frequently decorated with statues, paintings and objects inspired by the Hellenic tradition.

At the House of Julius Polybius, the combination of antique bronzes and mythological paintings therefore reflects a deliberate investment in creating a culturally sophisticated setting.

### Objects of everyday life

Alongside the most prestigious works, archaeologists found **more than seventy objects** that open a window onto daily life in the house. The Park’s records include oil lamps, lampstands, incense burners, pots, pans, food-preparation vessels, banquet cups, glass bottles, food warmers and candelabra.

The finds also include a **terracotta money box**, gaming dice and the cast of a wicker basket.

This combination of exceptional pieces and ordinary utensils is one of the house’s most important features. It allows us to see both what the owners displayed to their guests and what people used each day to cook, light rooms, store belongings or spend their leisure time.

### The banquet service

The vessels used at table and during banquets were especially rich. Cups, bronze containers, bottles and other objects were used at the **cena**, the main meal of the day for prosperous households.

A Roman banquet was far more than an occasion for eating. It was a central form of sociability through which personal, economic and political relationships were reinforced.

The quality of the furnishings in the House of Julius Polybius’s triclinium shows how much the owner invested in entertaining guests in a setting designed to impress through its paintings, bronzes and antiques.

### The krater with mythological scenes

Among the finest objects is a large **bronze krater decorated with mythological images**, made using a technique that produced polychrome effects on the metal surface.

In the Greek world, kraters were traditionally used to mix wine and water at banquets, although particularly fine examples could also have considerable decorative and collectible value.

The vessel from the House of Julius Polybius was therefore another element in a programme through which the occupants displayed their taste and familiarity with Greek artistic culture.

### Julius Polybius

The house is named after **Caius Iulius Polybius**, known in Italian as Giulio Polibio. His name appears in electoral inscriptions painted on the façade and inside the property, where his candidacy for **duumvir**, one of Pompeii’s chief municipal offices, was endorsed.

The Park describes him as the descendant of a **freedman of the gens Iulia**, the family to which Augustus also belonged. His candidacy shows that the family had achieved considerable standing in the city’s society.

The association between these political inscriptions and the richly appointed residence traditionally led to his identification as the owner of the house.

### Ownership remains uncertain

The situation is more complex, however. A **bronze signet ring inscribed `C. IVLI PHILIPPI`**—Caius Iulius Philippus—was found inside the house.

The Archaeological Park has therefore expressly noted that **Iulius Philippus may have been the true owner of the house**. Recent studies also consider that Philippus and Julius Polybius may have had a very close family or personal relationship.

It is thus preferable to retain the long-established conventional name House of Julius Polybius while avoiding any claim that Julius Polybius was certainly the owner in AD 79.

### The house and politics

The electoral inscriptions remain highly important because they show that the house was closely connected with **municipal political life**.

Julius Polybius’s campaign for the duumvirate required the support of influential groups and individuals. Displaying an ancient and richly furnished residence may have helped shape the public image of a family seeking admission to the highest ranks of the municipal elite.

The Park has proposed precisely this interpretation for the preservation of the First Style decoration and the collection of antique bronzes: the display of the house’s age and refinement may have formed part of a **programme of social and political self-representation**.

This is a plausible, contextually supported interpretation, although the owner’s personal intentions cannot, of course, be known in every detail.

### An ancient house as a symbol of status

For a family linked to imperial freedmen, ownership of a residence with features dating from the Samnite period may have carried particular significance.

The house communicated antiquity through its façade, First Style paintings and structures preserved for centuries, while at the same time displaying wealth through bronzes, Greek works and refined objects.

This combination may have enabled a rising family to present itself as fully integrated into the city’s traditional elite. The idea should nevertheless remain a historical and social interpretation rather than a motive explicitly stated by the occupants.

### The thirteen individuals found in the house

The House of Julius Polybius is also important for the discovery of the remains of **thirteen people** who died during the eruption. Anthropological study identified three adult men, three adult women, six young individuals and a foetus in the final months of gestation.

One of the victims was a **heavily pregnant young woman under the age of twenty**. Researchers also examined an adult man aged about 25–35 and an older man of approximately sixty.

The discovery allowed methods of anthropological analysis that were particularly advanced for the period to be applied to the household, in an effort to reconstruct not only the victims’ biological characteristics but also some of their possible kinship relationships.

### The pregnant young woman

The presence of the pregnant young woman is one of the complex’s most affecting human details. Study of the remains established that the pregnancy was in its **final months** and that the foetus was already well developed.

Her name is unknown, and she cannot be identified with certainty as a member of any specific family mentioned in the inscriptions. Any more detailed biographical reconstruction would therefore be purely hypothetical.

The archaeological evidence is important in itself: a young woman close to giving birth was in the house and died with others during the catastrophe.

### Reconstructing faces

During the 1970s, researchers attempted **facial reconstructions of three victims**, using their skulls as the basis for restoring the thickness of the facial tissues.

This was a particularly innovative experiment for its time. Layers of modelling material were applied to reproductions of the skulls in an effort to reconstruct muscles and facial features according to the anthropological knowledge then available.

Later analyses, including genetic investigations, have also provided further evidence about possible kinship among the individuals. Biological data must nevertheless always be distinguished from artistic facial reconstructions, which are inevitably approximate.

### The eruption and the end of the house

The eruption of **AD 79** simultaneously ended the lives of the occupants and the work underway in the house. The heap of lime, objects left in the rooms and remains of the victims preserve different moments from the same day.

This was not a monument prepared for abandonment, but a lived-in residence where people cooked, played games, held banquets, pursued political activity and carried out maintenance.

It is precisely this combination of evidence that makes the complex so valuable for understanding daily life at Pompeii.

### The excavations

The façade was uncovered by **Vittorio Spinazzola between 1912 and 1913** during the extensive exploration of Via dell’Abbondanza.

The interior was systematically investigated mainly between **1964 and 1970**, using an interdisciplinary approach that considered not only the architecture and paintings, but also objects, organic remains and the people found inside.

This marks an important difference from earlier work at Pompeii: the aim was no longer solely to recover works of art, but to reconstruct how the whole house functioned and the lives of the people who had occupied it.

### Modern research and conservation

The House of Julius Polybius remains the subject of study and conservation. Research on the bronzes from the triclinium has produced new specialist insights, while the Park has begun further work to **rehabilitate, conserve and enhance the domus**.

Modern attention is directed simultaneously towards preserving the structures, studying the objects and reconstructing the successive building phases. A house excavated decades ago can therefore continue to yield new information through the application of more advanced techniques and methods.

### A house that tells the stories of people and objects

The **House of Julius Polybius IX-13, 1-3** is one of the most complete sources for Pompeian domestic life because it brings together architecture, politics, art and everyday objects.

The austere Samnite residence reflects an early phase of the city; the First Style paintings preserve the taste of earlier generations; the triclinium with the punishment of Dirce and the bronze collection reveal the occupants’ cultural standing; the electoral inscriptions place the house within municipal politics; and the pots, lamps, dice and money box evoke the routines of daily life.

Finally, the heap of lime left by the builders and the remains of the thirteen individuals recall that this long history was abruptly interrupted in AD 79. The exceptional body of evidence preserved here makes the House of Julius Polybius fundamental to understanding not only how a prosperous household lived, but also **how it constructed and displayed its identity in Pompeian society**.

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