From the street, the dingy, flaking plaster of the villa walls would fool a casual passer by into thinking this to be an abandoned building, but upon entering the vestibulum, the villa becomes (and continues to be) a mass of contradictions. The poverty of the exterior seems contrasted to the fine mosaic that lies on the floor, depicting the victory of the early republicans at Silva Arsia, while the walls were decorated with bright, striking murals of the Odyssey and Illiad, with the wall immediately opposite the main door covered with a beautiful depiction of the ship Penelope being trashed by Poseidon at deep sea.

The faces of this wide family guide the walker through the Atrium (none altogether renowned, many having wasted lives in the provinces) , where the decoration becomes more sombre, until guests are taken into an explosion of colour in the peristylium, where exotic flowers from the furthest reaches of Europe show the multicultural nature of this young addition to the ancient gens aurelia. It is here, in the colourful garden, with painted columns and a small fountain in the middle that Terentius, the young senator, meets his peers before taking them through to the Aula