House of the Faun, Roman villa in Pompeii, Italy

The House of the Faun is a Roman residence in the ancient city of Pompeii, covering nearly 3,000 square meters with two large courtyards and several colonnaded walkways. Marble panels and floor mosaics decorate the rooms, making it one of the largest domestic complexes in the buried city.

The residence was built in the second century before Christ during the Samnite period and belonged to the Satria family. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 buried the property under ash and pumice, preserving its rooms and decoration for future generations.

The house's name comes from a bronze satyr found in 1830 beside the limestone impluvium basin; the original is in Naples and a copy stands in the atrium. The Alexander Mosaic, about 1.5 million tesserae, paved the exedra between the two peristyles and is also now in Naples.

The house fills Insula 12 of Regio VI, entered from Via della Fortuna; the Tuscan atrium with the limestone impluvium and the replica satyr comes first, then the exedra with the Alexander Mosaic copy, then the large Doric peristyle. The bronze satyr and the original mosaic are in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

The entrance floor bears a multicolour tessera inscription reading "Have" — a Latin greeting that showed off the owner's learning, since Pompeii still spoke Oscan at the time. The bronze satyr itself may have been made in Alexandria or by Alexandrian artists, according to M. Bergmann.