The subject of the second picture, which is much damaged, is not easy to be explained. It represents a naked hero, armed with sword and spear, to whom a woman crowned with laurel and clothed in an ample _peplum_ is pointing out another female figure. The latter expresses by her gestures her grief and indignation at the warrior's departure, the imminence of which is signified by the chariot that awaits him. Signor Fiorelli thinks he recognizes in this picture Turnus, Lavinia, and Amata, when the queen supplicates Turnus not to fight with the Trojans.
The third painting represents Hermaphroditus surrounded by six nymphs, variously employed.
From the atrium a narrow _fauces_ or corridor led into the garden. Three steps on the left connected this part of the house with the other and more magnificent portion having its entrance from the Strada Stabiana. The garden was surrounded on two sides with a portico, on the right of which are some apartments which do not require particular notice.
The house entered at a higher level, by the three steps just mentioned, was at first considered as a separate house, and by Fiorelli has been called the House of the Russian Princes, from some excavations made here in 1851 in presence of the sons of the Emperor of Russia. The peculiarities observable in this house are that the atrium and peristyle are broader than they are deep, and that they are not separated by a tablinum and other rooms, but simply by a wall. In the centre of the Tuscan atrium, entered from the Street of Stabiæ, is a handsome marble impluvium. At the top of it is a square cippus, coated with marble, and having a leaden pipe which flung the water into a square vase or basin supported by a little base of white marble, ornamented with acanthus leaves. Beside the fountain is a table of the same material, supported by two legs beautifully sculptured, of a chimæra and a griffin. On this table was a little bronze group of Hercules armed with his club, and a young Phrygian kneeling before him.
From the atrium the peristyle is entered by a large door. It is about forty-six feet broad and thirty-six deep, and has ten columns, one of which still sustains a fragment of the entablature. The walls were painted in red and yellow panels alternately, with figures of Latona, Diana, Bacchantes, etc. At the bottom of the peristyle, on the right, is a triclinium. In the middle is a small _oecus_, with two pillars richly ornamented with arabesques. A little apartment on the left has several pictures.