Menander daheim. Die pompejanische Casa del Menandro als Autorbild

Abstract

The identity of the house Regio I, Insula 10, Entrance 4 as the Casa del Menandro, or House of Menander, is a construct of modern research, motivated by the labelled representation of the Greek comedy poet on the house’s peristyle. Past scholarship has taken the existence of the dramatist’s portrait as a key for understanding the interior decoration of the house as a whole. This paper takes the opposite approach: the fresco of Menander, the only named depiction of an ancient poet on the walls of Pompeii, forms the starting point for examining those aspects of authorship that are addressed by the pictorial representation in its architectural and functional contexts. The paper concludes that, in this Pompeian portrait, Menander is characterized as at the same time author and audience, organizing the knowledge of Menander, the Greek author, in such a way as if he were both an icon of Greek culture and a member of the contemporary urban elite of early imperial Pompeii.