When the usual crowd of morning callers came to wait upon a great man, they would not as a rule penetrate farther than the atrium, and there he might keep them waiting as long as he pleased.

The Greek part of the house, the peristylium and its belongings, was reserved for his family and his most intimate friends.

In Pompeii, which was an old Greek town with Roman life and habits superadded, we find atrium and peristylium both together as early as the second century B.C.[382] At what period exactly the house of the noble in Rome began thus to develop is not so certain.

But by the time of Cicero every good domus had without doubt its private apartments at the rear, varying in shape and size according to the ground on which the house stood.[383] The accompanying plan will give a sufficiently clear idea of the development of the domus from the atrium, and its consequent division into two parts; it is that of "the house of the silver wedding" at Pompeii.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF THE SILVER WEDDING.

From Mau's _Pompeii_.] But in spite of all the convenience and comfort of the fully developed dwelling of the rich man at Rome, there was much to make him sigh for a quieter life than he could enjoy in the noisy city.