Excavations in domus VII 15, 8 led to the reconstruction of the original layout of the house’s late Samnite phase. This was of the type with Tuscan order atrium and tablinium on the same axis as the fauces.
The trench uncovered the original ground level of the viridarium in correspondence with a lararium. A niche was placed at the centre of the wall in a position that is too low with respect to the level of the last phase. A pavement datable to the end of the 1st century B.C. was in phase with the niche. Set into the floor was a tank lined with waterproof plaster which, when it went out of use, was filled with earth. The tank is in front of a blocked doorway which in an earlier phase (first half of the 1st century B.C.) gave access to the viridarium from inside the house.
Trench D, was dug in the western part of the atrium near the door between the latter and the tablinium , close to the razed wall dividing the two rooms. This trench showed that in the late Samnite phase, before the partial razing of the wall, the opening was on the same axis as the vestibulum and the fauces. The south door jamb of the original entrance was removed and substituted with a brick structure abutted by a small sustaining wall. The threshold, of which clear traces are visible, was also removed. Within its make up was a triens dating to between 189-180 B.C.
Another two floors were identified below the latest floor in the trench: a beaten surface datable to the Sullan period overlying a late Samnite floor. (Serena Piva)