UNDERGROUND IN TUNISIA

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Furthermore, it's still possible to judge just how comfortable the ancient homeowners were, although almost 2,000 years have passed. Not long ago — on an afternoon when only an occasional palm raised a browned and feathery frond above the parched countryside, and heifers tried to find sleep in the shade of ancient walls — a native guide led my tour group down the stairs to such an underground villa. Maybe the Latins would have sighed, " Ah, refrigeratio! " upon entering . . . but we exclaimed, "What a relief!" The temperature was at least 20 degrees cooler than that of the outside air!

THREE BASIC FLOOR PLANS

Interestingly enough, most of Caesar's subjects who settled in Bulla Regia used one of three basic floor plans: [1] a vestibule running along three contiguous main rooms whose rear windows opened — in common — onto a large, deep air shaft, [2] a central courtyard, or peristyle, surrounded by rooms that had aboveground windows and openings in their ceilings, and [3] a hallway with shallow rooms on either side that incorporated windows set high in the upper walls. (The basement dwellings, though often smaller than those on the surface, frequently duplicated portions of the structures' ground-level floor plans.)

PLAN NUMBER ONE

The "House of Amphitrite" is a large version of the first design. (In addition to the three main rooms, it has two tiny chambers situated across the vestibule.) This residence, the floor of which is almost 17 feet below ground level, still retains some stucco wall panels and mosaics.

The inlaid lobby floor — picturing a female face framed by a leafy border — is in a state of excellent preservation, and visitors can still see where a marble fountain was once embedded in a nearby wall. The large central dining room has two columns facing the entryway, a vaulted ceiling, and a pastel floor mosaic portraying the "Triumph of the Marine Venus". (Years ago, an erroneous identification of the pictured goddess as Amphitrite, wife of Neptune, gave the house its name.)

PLAN NUMBER TWO

A dwelling known as the "Hunting Palace" is typical of Plan Two. Below the spacious courtyard (almost 27 by 32 feet) on the main floor, eight 16-foot-high Corinthian columns support the ground-level ceiling ... which is pierced with hexagonal openings to serve as air and light sources for the underground peristyle.

The rooms open to the north and west. Three bays, which are separated by two large columns, give access to a large dining room, whose decorated floor covers a circular storage cistern more than four feet in diameter. Baked earthen pipes in the ridged molding of the arched ceiling empty into the reservoir.

Simple mosaics and raised platforms indicate the one-time placement of beds in three sleeping chambers, which are copies of those upstairs. (Most of the rooms are rectangular, with two ceiling holes apiece to admit light and air.)

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