Recent discoveries in the buried city of Pompeii: interior of the house of Cornelius Rufus, 1864. View of the interior of ...the house of Cornelius Rufus...The usual features of Roman domestic architecture, as in other mansions of grandees and rich men at Pompeii, may be easily recognised in this example. Here is the impluvium, or shallow basin, to catch rain-water, in the centre of the open court around which are disposed the private chambers of the family; the bust of Cornelius Rufus himself, on a pedestal inscribed with his name, is seen beyond. The sculptured griffins, or monsters with rams horns and claws, are characteristic of the grotesque style of decoration imported into the Roman Empire from its Asiatic conquests. A marble slab laid across here would form a table. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.