Leading up to the pair is a relatively stately procession: a woman carries a loaded tray, while looking out to catch the viewer's eye; a group of women cluster around some kind of container.
Yet, as the figures get nearer to Dionysus, things become decidedly stranger. Next to the figure of young Pan playing his pipes, his female partner (a "Panisca") appears to suckle a goat;
What on earth is going on? And what kind of room was it that these images decorated? Perhaps, as the Villa's title has it, the frieze is meant to depict an initiation into the cult of Dionysus: hence the revelation of the phallus, and the flagellation. But the room is one of the showrooms of this large house, opening on to a portico with a panoramic sea view. So this would be a scene intended as an elegant backdrop to dining and entertainment. Others have preferred to see the painting as an allegory of marriage and the preparation for a wedding. The bride has been identified as a young woman shown seated to the right of the main door and the central couple. On this interpretation, Dionysus and his wife, Ariadne, would symbolise the divine nature of marriage.
The truth is that we do not know exactly what is depicted here. Indeed, part of the pleasure of the frieze is the way that it repeatedly plays with our ability to decode it. But there is a surprising sting in the tail. One reason for the impact of this frieze is the way that it envelops anyone who steps into the room. Another is the sheer lustre of the deep red background, against which the figures are set: "Pompeian red" at its loveliest. This colour, however, cannot entirely be attributed to the original artist. When the paintings were first uncovered, they were so badly affected by damp that unsightly salts leeched through the paintwork. In order to remove the salts, petroleum wax was carefully and repeatedly rubbed into the painted surface. That memorable sheen is, in other words, a 20th-century creation.
