Bronze Lamp-Stand from the Villa of Diomedes at Pompeii (before AD 79): a particularly ornate example in which the lamps are suspended from
spiralling branches and the base is decorated with a figurine of a satyr riding a panther. As so frequently in Roman furnishings, the feet are in the
form of animal paws.
If we combine the Pompeian material with evidence from elsewhere, we get a reasonable idea of decorative furnishings in use in imperial times.
Tables in both bronze and marble, round or rectangular, were regularly supported by elaborate legs compounded of lions' paws, volutes, griffins'
foreparts, and the like. Small bronze tripod stands, complete with raised rims to prevent things from rolling off, had deers' legs or (less tastefully) legs
formed by ithyphallic satyrs. Couches were mainly of wood, which with one or two exceptions has perished, leaving only the bronze fittings: elegant
lathe-turned legs, headboard ornaments with cast appliques in the form of busts or horses' heads, and railings with silver inlay. Sometimes such fittings
were in other materials, such as silver, tortoise-shell, or ivory, and a couch with reliefs of bone has recently been partially restored with the aid of
remnants in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Bronze lamp-standards came in many more or less ornate types, among which the simplest
consisted of a slender fluted column resting on three animal-paws and surmounted by some form of calyx, while more complicated versions had four
or more arms, either in the form of volutes or shaped like tree branches, from which lamps were suspended.
An especially ornate example from the Villa of Diomedes at Pompeii had a platform at the base, decorated with a figurine of a satyr on a prancing
panther. Household chairs and stools, which were mainly of wood, have not survived, but interesting representations of armchairs in basket-work are
known from later imperial times. Also of wood were cupboards and cabinets: examples from Pompeii and Herculaneum reveal that they were usually
simple affairs divided by shelves into compartments and closed at the front by twin doors; but occasionally an architectural touch was bestowed by the
addition of a gabled top or of flanking colonnettes. Even the family strongbox, a stout chest of wood or iron (or both) kept in the atrium, could be
decorated with bronze plaques carrying figural and vegetal ornament.