Papers of the British School at Rome 76 (2008), pp. 35-46 and 345-8 Cleopatra in Pompeii? by Susan Walker Early in 2007, while reviewing the context of the two cameo glass plaques found in the large oecus (room 62) of the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus in the Insula Occidentalis at Pompeii, I had the opportunity to examine a wall-paint- ing of considerable interest. 1 In this paper the painting is described and set within the context of the development of the house. With regard to its subject, I suggest that the principal figure does not represent the goddess Venus herself, but Cleopatra VII of Egypt as Venus Genetrix. The painting was most likely inspired by the dedication, in September 46 BC, of Caesar's temple to Venus Genetrix in his forum at Rome, where, according to Appian and (more prob- lematically) Dio Cassius, Caesar dedicated a gilded statue of the Egyptian queen. DESCRIPTION OF THE PAINTING The painting covers, to the spring of the barrel vault, the east wall of room 71 in the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus (PiATE 1). As it now survives, the paint- ed wall is a maximum of 2 m high. It was probably once crowned with a mould- ed stucco cornice, and is conserved in large part behind a second ancient paint- ed wall, the latter now surviving to a height of 1.4-1.8 m.~ The earlier painting is an unusual example of Second Style work, in that the customary architectural scene, elaborately designed in perspective, serves merely as a backdrop for a centrally-placed female figure emerging from ' This article reports part of a project undertaken during my tenure of a Balsdon Fellowship at the British School at Rome from January to March 2007. I thank most warmly Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Susan Russell, Maria Pia Malvezzi, Valerie Scott, Josephine Quinn and Gill Clark for their help in facilitating this research and advising on the article's prepar- ation. I am very indebted to numerous colleagues who helped me with visits to the site and access to unpublished material. I should particularly like to thank Professor Umberto Pappalardo, Professor Fausto Zevi and Dr Mario Grimaldi for facilitating access and guiding me around the site; Dr Domenico Esposito for similar assistance and for supplying the images used to illustrate the paper along with considerable help with bibliography; and Roberto Cassetta for access to his unpublished thesis on the development of the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus. - For images of the development of the room, see: Bragantini, 1997: 1,109, nos. 317, 319 (moulded cornice); Grimaldi, 2006: 401-5.