Domus Orphei
About
The House of Orpheus went up in the second half of the first century CE as one of Volubilis's substantial townhouses, later celebrated for one of the finest figural mosaics on Rome's African frontier. Its dining room floor eventually depicted Orpheus playing his lyre to a circle of six animals, from elephant to bear to bird, charmed into stillness by the music. Craftsmen set the scene in tesserae roughly one centimeter square, fine enough to render convincing muscle and shading. That famous mosaic was laid a generation later, but the house's walls and plan already stood complete when Trajan died in 117 CE.
What happened here
The front door opens onto a corridor and then a roofed hall with a pool under an opening in the roof, and that hall is a public room — clients arrive at dawn to greet the owner, and the whole plan is arranged so they can be received and impressed. Behind it, a colonnaded garden with a dining room off it, three couches around a low table, guests reclining on the left elbow. Rooms are small, dark and multi-purpose; furniture is moved as needed. Walls are painted to open the space out with fake architecture and landscapes. Windows are shuttered rather than glazed. Cooking, laundry and the slaves' quarters are pushed to the edges. Street frontage is let out as shops, because it is too valuable to waste.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →