In 1972, much of the ancient walls of the upper story were removed to install flat concrete ceilings over the ground floor and tiled roofs over the atrium and Porticus.

During the late 2nd century BC, Pompeii experienced a major population expansion and the insulae of Region VI became dotted with establishments engaged in urban commerce.

In 89, BC, the general, and later dictator, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, laid siege to Pompeii, bombarding Region VI's Porta Ercolano with his artillery, as evidenced by impact craters from thousands of sling bullets and ballistae bolts still visible on the ancient city wall.

[10] The off-centred axis of the impluvium served to focus the attention of visitors to the left side of the atrium where doorways to public reception rooms were located.

This off-centered arrangement reflects the influence of Greek architectural designs of Hellenistic houses and palaces where visiting males were purposefully directed away from female-inhabited interior spaces.

[13] For the owners of the House of the Prince of Naples to repurpose what would have been prime commercial space along the Viccolo dei Vetti to domestic use would indicate a wealthier individual than previous occupants now owned the property.

[7] If the new owner was, in fact, a physician, as indicated by finds of surgical instruments, his economic interests would have probably been better served by gaining patients with elevated social status.

Cubes outlined with gray and red are painted in the white upper zone to imitate masonry, a decorative motif carried over from the First Style.

The red-framed white main zone is divided by black vertical lines with red inner frames into panels with floating emblems of dancing swans and jumping goats.

A human skull and partial skeleton was found in the room along with a bronze surgical instrument, a herm with a feminine head and phallus in relief (Aphroditus), a small bell, a piece of bone worked on a lathe with a movable hook at the top, a spindle mold, and two pyramid-shaped weights.

The north wall above the west to east facing steps leading to the upper floor was plastered in a fine pale pink mixture.

Bronze items included a two-clasp padlock, a twisted physician's scalpel with iron blade and olive leaf-shaped handle, a boss supported by a moving ring, and a rectangular lock shield.

Socle emblems include dancing swans, fluttering birds, and light and dark green leafy perennials and simply drawn lotus blossoms.

Similar to the tablinum, this space has a black socle divided into panels with broadleafed green plants accented by yellow flower ornaments under the pilaster strips.

Panels are further detailed with filigree borders and floating emblems of opposing griffins, flying swans with heads turned back, dolphins, and jumping bucks.

[24] he floor pavement in this space is fine red-colored cocciopesto and in the center of the room is an opus sectile geometric mosaic composed of squares and triangles in different colored marbles.

A variety of filigree borders are used to define the three panels of the Fourth Style main zone wall paintings above a red-violet socle embellished with plants, birds and dolphins.

Faux architectural structures draped in leaf garlands and animated with goats, birds and griffins, twisted candelabras, and small shrines enclosing plinths supporting Medusa heads, frontal sphinxes or Dionysian panthers with kantharos populate the upper zone.

On the east wall in the main zone, two aedicula containing a twisted candelabra capped with an ornate entablature topped with tragic masks flank a framed panel painting of either Paris and Helen or Adonis and Aphrodite with erotes standing between them.

He also points out that the woman as described by Sogliano as wearing a gold diadem, earrings, necklace, armillae and the usual golden cord that crosses her chest as in figures of Venus, closely resembles numerous descriptions of Aphrodite-Venus.

[26] In the upper zone of the east wall were three rectangular pinakes that have been completely destroyed although the original excavator Mau described the center one that was still intact at that time.

[28] White main and upper zones are painted above a red-violet socle punctuated with floral motifs, dolphins, and, on the south wall a Bucranium, and accented with filigree borders.

The south wall main zone features ornate aediculae flanking a framed mural of the god Bacchus clutching his iconic thyrsus staff and pouring wine from a kantharos.

[31] During this period, Roman philosophers, including Cicero and Pliny the Elder, were promoting the architectural memory system in which the decoration of the home could serve as a mnemonic trigger.

[32] Besides the lararium, finds include a fragmented trapezoid marble table formed by a lion's foot that widens toward the top to support a sculpture of Silenus emerging from acanthus leaves and holding baby Bacchus in his left arm.

He also observed that the sparse repertoire of emblems and simplest form of motifs as well as the conventional, not very refined nature of the paintings in the triclinium and exedra reflect only a simple theme of lovers of life and the epitome of happiness without any intellectual or even philosophical exaggeration.

He also points to the fact that when the house was extended (or rebuilt) during the Augustan-Tiberian period, the goal was not so much to gain more living space but to add a garden, portico and decorative triclinium to provide more air and light in a lower class imitation of the elite's suburban villas.

[31] Penelope M. Allison observes commonly accepted ideas of spatial organization and function in the houses of Pompeii are fraught with unsubstantiated analogical inference as well as cultural and social prejudices derived from nineteen- and early twentieth-century scholarship She emphasizes that particularly the period between 62 and 79 cannot be viewed as a static interim phase between two major seismic events with all pre-eruption damage ascribed to the 62 earthquake and subsequent repairs made as a result of it.

She said there was a high likelihood the processes of disruption, repair, and abandonment were much less uniform and spread over the final decades in a complex mosaic of disturbance, alteration, and deterioration.

[36] Strocka points to the arrangement of the lararium in the garden and its line of sight through various strategically placed apertures as an indication the inhabitants were more religiously observant than average households or those of the educated elite.