Welcome to a website dealing with ancient Pompeii's Insula Arriana Polliana, the sixth block (or insula) of the sixth area (regio) and so referred to by the numerical identifier, VI.6. The block contains several rental properties and a main house, called the House of Pansa or the House of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius. It is located in an affluent section of town near another very large house, the House of the Faun (VI.12), and is surrounded by other insulae mostly containing relatively large residences. Additionally, there is a significant number of bakeries (colored red and easily identified by the large, circular ovens drawn on the AREA OVERVIEW PLAN) concentrated in this particular area. Insula VI.6 alone contains two.

The evidence that Insula VI.6 provides for rental activity at Pompeii makes this house of paramount importance for modern scholars and students of the ancient world. While other sites, most notably Rome's ancient port at Ostia, have yielded tenement structures which archaeologists readily identified as rental properties, Pompeii's distinctively quadratic city blocks and large, very regularly constructed residences have made it difficult to pinpoint any traces of rental phenomena. During the original excavations of the city in the mid-18th century, however, a wooden placard bearing an inscription was found near the House of Pansa. The sign, copied but lost almost immediately after its discovery, offered parts of the insula - perhaps, even all of it - for rent and, at the end, gave the prospective lessee the name of a contact-slave.

The archaeological evidence clearly points to the fact that this block, like those immediately surrounding it, had originally contained several homes and was most likely not used originally as rental property. In fact, the House of Pansa seems to have moved through at least three distinct stages of construction, expansion, and renovation from the laying of its original foundations ca. 140-120 BC until the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. In this website we intend to follow the story told by the structural remains and to illustrate the various and dynamic processes by which insula VI.6 became a major rental property.

If you are interested in the social context of the House, we suggest that you first take a look at the BIOGRAPHY of the last owner, Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius. Otherwise, please proceed straight to the SELF-GUIDED TOUR and get acquainted with the size of the block and how it looks today. Then, it will be time to read the INSCRIPTION: you will need a firm command of the rental terminology given in the inscription before you take a tour through the house through our eyes and read our interpretations of the development of the RENTAL PROPERTIES and the HOUSE OF PANSA itself.