The house is one of the most significant examples of a dwelling in the Samnite era (dated around 180 BC), which retains much of the original layout, the severe façade made of limestone blocks, the atrium equipped with an impluvium made of tuff and the small rear portico with tuffaceous columns. Even the wall decoration of many rooms is original and is one of the most remarkably preserved in Pompeii.

Painted imitations of marble slab coatings allow us to perceive the severe monumentality that the painting conveyed to the visitor of the home. The house was probably turned into a hotel after the earthquake of 62 AD, adding a second floor above the street front and partially renovating the decoration, such as the addition of the bronze unit of Heracles and the deer on the edge of the impluvium, now at the National Archaeological Museum of Palermo, and the life- size representation of Actaeon attacked by the dogs of the goddess Diana on the back wall of the small garden, partially destroyed by the Anglo-American bombing of 1943.

The house is possibly attributable to Aulus Cossius Libanus as indicated by a seal ring.

Date of excavation: 1806-1808; 1969-1971; 2005- 2006.