12 THE ATRIUM VEST. 
Remains of the Republican Atrium: ‘The remains of the original republican 
Atrium! as a whole are scanty, though easily distinguished from those of 
the later buildings on account of their difference in orientation and in con- 
struction. The remains of that part of the building with which we are more 
immediately concerned, the éarly house of the Vestals, to which in 12 B. C. 
the Domus publica had been added, are even fewer than those of the other 
parts.?, There are distinguishable, however, even in these scanty remains, 
three periods of construction.* The walls belonging to the first of these 
periods are, like those of the Regia proper, of tufa of two different varieties. 
Of these the walls of cappellaccio* are somewhat the older, though those of 
light-yellow tufa may be but a little later. At an early period certain of 
these walls were restored and new ones added in the harder reddish-brown 
tufa. In 12 B. C.,° or a little later, extensive changes were made in the 
Domus publica both in plan and in type of construction, either to render it 
more serviceable to the Vestals or in consequence of some partial destruction 
of the earlier building.® At the same time some unimportant changes took 
place in the Atrium. To this period belong the numerous brick-faced walls’ 
by which the tufa walls of the older building have been replaced and its 
larger rooms and central court cut into smaller rooms.® 
The Domus Vestalium: ‘The original house of the Vestals occupied the 
space between the temple area on the north and the /ucus Veste on the south, 
the precinct of Juturna on the west and the Domus publica on the east. The 
level is a little more than a meter below that of the later imperial Atrium. 
The orientation is, like that of the precinct as a whole, north and south. 
The apportionment of rooms between the Domus publica and the Domus. 
Vestalium is difficult, since “‘the common wall” of which Dion Cassius?® 
speaks can not be determined definitely. Of that portion of the whole which 
belonged certainly to the house of the Vestals, the principal parts distin- 
guishable are a small vestibule-court™ and a series of rooms" along two sides 
of it. The court opened directly from the central area in which the temple” 
stood and was about 20 meters long and 7 or 8 meters wide. It was paved 
with a mosaic pavement made of a white limestone resembling marmor 
palombino and silex, into which were set at irregular intervals larger pieces of 
®In 14 B. C. the Basilica Aemilia with the build- 
ings near it was burned. It is possible that 
the Atrium may have suffered also. 
7Plan A, walls outlined in indigo. 
8 Middleton recognized three periods of construc- 
tion in the early Atrium. The division 
made by him (Archaologia, x11x, 399ff.) is, 
however, inaccurate. 
1 See plan A, walls indicated in red. 
2Plan A, u-xu1. Since the official reports con- 
cerning the excavations are not yet published, 
no exact plan of the republican walls is 
possible. The partial plan given is not 
intended to be more than a suggestion of 
the main features of the building. 
3 The first two periods have not been distinguished 
on the plan. 
* An inferior kind of tufa, which is found in the 
buildings of the earliest period. 
®5The Domus publica was granted to the Vestal 
Virgins by Augustus in that year. Dion 
Cass., LIV, 27. 
9 Dion Cass., Liv, 27. One of two walls is possible. 
The evidence concerning either of them is 
not decisive. , 
Plan A, nu. 
Plan A, mi-1x and plate 11, fig. 1. 
12Plan A. 
