During the printing of PM 1960, the authors realized that these fragments joined frs. 118c and 118d (see reconstruction of group in PM 1960, p. 121). Fr. 118c depicts the remainder of the structure in the upper right corner of fr. 118a, which is a large hall with a small enclosure at the bottom and two smaller rooms to the right. The only entrance to the hall seems to be from the open piazza to the left. Fr. 118d enlarges the bottom right corner of fr. 118a and illustrates that the L-shaped street there continues indefinitely, dividing the bottom right city block from the row of tabernae that backs onto it.

Identification: A domus? The large, trapezoidally shaped city block in the center of these fragments seems to have had one entrance only: a small opening in the farthest left corner. The restricted accessibility and the fact that movement through the block from front to rear fell along the central axis suggest that this was a single, residential unit, a domus. From the two front rooms, one entered through the fauces into a large hall or atrium. A wide opening led from the atrium into the tablinum. The tablinum gave access to four small rooms or cubicula on the right, and two larger rooms in the back. From the tablinum one entered a large space, which was probably open to the sky and which may have functioned as a garden, a hortus. Two openings provided access from the hortus to four large rooms in the back of the house. A clamp-shaped feature in the top room may represent a permanent triclinium, suggesting the room was used for dining in the summer. The rooms in the lower right probably functioned as kitchen and/or slaves quarters. There may have been another means of access to the structure in the upper or lower right corner of the building.

Identification: A schola? The large building in the upper right corner of the fragments, mainly fr. 118c, may have been a schola or meeting hall for one of Rome's many professional or religious organizations (collegia). The small enclosure in the great hall is suggestive of a sacellum, which would have held a statue or altar dedicated to the patron god of the group. The smaller rooms to the right may have been used for communal meals.

Identification: The remaining architecture The small quadrant in the piazza at top probably represents either a fountain or an altar. If the large hall to the right of the piazza was indeed the meeting place for a collegium, it is not unlikely that the square depicts an altar. It would have provided the collegium and probably the entire neighborhood with a place to make sacrifices to the gods. The two city blocks in the bottom of the four fragments are more difficult to identify. There are no openings to any of the rooms in the block to the left, making it impossible to interpret their use. It is possible that the engravers of the Plan forgot to carve openings in the upper row of rooms, and that these in reality depicted tabernae, facing the street. The city block in the bottom right has numerous means of access to the L-shaped street below it. Its many rooms of varying shapes and sizes were probably a mixture of commercial and residential units.

Significance Combined with frs. 118 c and d, these two pieces provide a fascinating view of what was probably a typical, non-monumental neighborhood in Rome: Tabernae, whose owners worked and lived in one single room; a city block made up of larger shops, workshops(?), and individual apartments; a single-family domus that occupied an entire block; a structure that perhaps functioned as a meeting hall for one of Rome's many middle- or lower-class guilds, and a central fountain or altar, that would have been the focal point for the entire neighborhood.

Text by Tina Najbjerg