After that scene there's window. And then at the very end of that wall, we're now on the, facing the room on the right wall of the room there is one last corner and we see here what is represented across that one last corner. It is a very young woman seated on a kind of a throne here. She has an attendant standing next to her, and then there's a small winged cupid at the left. And then across the corner we see another cupid standing on a base, leaning on a pedestal, winged again. His, his, his head and his, on, on, resting on one of his hands. And he is looking across the corner at what is going on, on the other side. And he looks very, very admiring. And in fact who is he admiring? He's admiring another one of these young initiates, a young woman who seems to be readying herself to become a bride. Who's getting ready for her initiation. She wears a glorious golden garment that is wrapped, and wrapped around her waist is a purple, a purple tie a purple ribbon or tie as you can see here. She is again accompanied by another woman, an attendant. And the two of them together are, are actually fixing her hair to get her ready again, for her mystical marriage. I have a detail of her to show you in a moment, and then this wonderful anecdotal detail here, where we see the other cupid, winged again, holding up a mirror in his hand. A rectangular mirror and if you look very, very closely and you can study this detail on your own as well. If you look very closely you can see that there is a reflection of the young woman's face in that mirror. So a lot of, a, a lot of attention being paid to the readying of this woman to be a bride. To enter into the mystical marriage with Dionysus. And we see a detail here, where we can see her, see how pretty she is, see how her, again the artist has shown this extraordinary ability to depict hair as it really is growing out of her scalp. You can see the part of her hair the scalp showing through. The way in which the hair grows from that. And then you can see that not only is she working on arranging it but she's getting help from the attendant. The attendants also has a section of her hair in her hand and the two of them together are trying to get her ready for her mystical marriage. Her arm is up. You can see both of her bracelets and, and one around her wrist and then another bracelet up on the upper part of her arm. Then we have another window. And then the last figure, the last figure that we see, is this woman here. A woman who is seated on a very elaborate throne. She too is veiled, she has, again a combination gold and purple garment. Bracelet, she's wearing bracelets. But she is veiled. So again the implication is she too is a bride. She seems very placid. She seems somehow a little bit older than some of the other brides. And what has been speculated, and she's very pensive; you can see she leans one, she leans her chin on one of her hands. She seems to be sitting there, you know, right at, right at the again the, the doorway of the Rome. She seems to be seated there and basically surveying everything that's happening in front of her, and because she looks a little bit older, because she looks a little bit wiser, because she is looking out at a, at the panorama of what's happening in front of her, it has been speculated, and I think quite convincingly that the woman we see here is probably the matron of the house, probably the wife of the man who owned and built the Villa of the Mysteries in Rome, in Pompeii, who was herself an adherent to the cult of Dionysus and has set aside this secret room in her house for the cult of Dionysus and which she can help initiate other young women into this mystery cult. Just one, a couple of quick words about religion and cults during this period. The Roman religion was the Roman state religion. And everyone essentially adhered to the Roman state religion which was very closely aligned with the government of, of Rome. So Church, Church and State very closely allied in, in Roman times. But as time went on, a number of religions had emanated from other parts of the Empire, especially the Eastern Empire. The cult of Dionysus, the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis, began to take hold, both for men and women. Women had a particular predilection for the Egyptian goddess Isis and for the Dionysiac mystery religions. And, initially, because they were not accepted by the State. The only, religion that was considered legitimate was the Roman state religion. Since they weren't, accepted by the state, and this included Christianity, these religions had to be, celebrated in, or had to be, the rights had to be done, in secret. And so we see underground rooms, underground buildings being built for this purpose. I'll show you one a bit later in the course. But we also see rooms in houses being set aside for these kinds of rites. And that seems to be what happened here. The woman of the house, the matrona, the mater familias of this particular family who lived in the Villa of the Mysteries has set aside room five as this secret chamber in which she can practice the Dionysiac rituals and she can also encourage other women in Pompeii to partake of those same rituals. I just, just, I just, I put on your monument list. You'll see a, a image of the drawing of all of these scenes that I have now gone through in order and I think it's helpful for you to have that as a reference just to be able to follow along again the narrative end where each of these scenes we have described comes up. And then just one last view of the room as a whole. I bring it back because I just wanted to end our discussion of this particular monument with the point that this is really quite unique in terms of the paintings that we've seen thus far, this semester. That is to have a painting with such monumental figures that tells the story that this particular painting does. And I, it's such a famous set of paintings that most, that I think because people know it so well they think, well that, that must be, comparable to other things from Roman times, so this is the only painting that we have like this. It doesn't mean that there might not have been others, but I think it probably means that there weren't a lot of others, that this was truly an exceptional work of art that is preserved in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii.
