Museum of Antiquity Part 2

Hospitium hic locatur Triclinium c.u.m tribus lectis Et comm.

Both the painting and the inscription have now disappeared. The discovery is curious, as proving that the ancients used signs for their taverns. Orelli has given in his _Inscriptions_ in Gaul, one of a c.o.c.k (a Gallo Gallinacio). In that at Pompeii the last word stands for "commodis." "Here is a triclinium with three beds and other conveniences."

Just opposite the gate of Siricus was another house also supposed to be a _caupona_, or tavern, from some chequers painted on the door posts. On the wall are depicted two large serpents, the emblem so frequently met with. They were the symbols of the Lares viales, or compitales, and, as we have said, rendered the place sacred against the commission of any nuisance. The cross, which is sometimes seen on the walls of houses in a modern Italian city, serves the same purpose.

Above the serpents is the following inscription, in tolerably large white characters: Otiosis locus hic non est, discede morator.

"Lingerer, depart; this is no place for idlers." An injunction by the way which seems rather to militate against the idea of the house having been a tavern.

The inscription just mentioned suggests an opportunity for giving a short account of similar ones; we speak not of inscriptions cut in stone, and affixed to temples and other public buildings, but such as were either painted, scrawled in charcoal and other substances, or scratched with a sharp point, such as a nail or knife, on the stucco of walls and pillars. Such inscriptions afford us a peep both into the public and the domestic life of the Pompeians. Advertis.e.m.e.nts of a political character were commonly painted on the exterior walls in large letters in black and red paint; poetical effusions or pasquinades, etc., with coal or chalk (Martial, _Epig._ xii. 61, 9); while notices of a domestic kind are more usually found in the interior of the houses, scratched, as we have said, on the stucco, whence they have been called _graffiti_.

The numerous political inscriptions bear testimony to the activity of public life in Pompeii. These advertis.e.m.e.nts, which for the most part turn on the election of aediles, duumvirs, and other magistrates, show that the Pompeians, at the time when their city was destroyed, were in all the excitement of the approaching comitia for the election of such magistrates. We shall here select a few of the more interesting inscriptions, both relating to public and domestic matters.

It seems to have been customary to paint over old advertis.e.m.e.nts with a coat of white, and so to obtain a fresh surface for new ones, just as the bill-sticker remorselessly pastes his bill over that of some brother of the brush. In some cases this new coating has been detached, or has fallen off, thus revealing an older notice, belonging sometimes to a period antecedent to the Social War. Inscriptions of this kind are found only on the solid stone pillars of the more ancient buildings, and not on the stucco, with which at a later period almost everything was plastered. Their antiquity is further certified by some of them being in the Oscan dialect; while those in Latin are distinguished from more recent ones in the same language by the forms of the letters, by the names which appear in them, and by archaisms in grammar and orthography. Inscriptions in the Greek tongue are rare, though the letters of the Greek alphabet, scratched on walls at a little height from the ground, and thus evidently the work of school-boys, show that Greek must have been extensively taught at Pompeii.

The normal form of electioneering advertis.e.m.e.nts contains the name of the person recommended, the office for which he is a candidate, and the name of the person, or persons, who recommended him, accompanied in general with the formula O. V. F. From examples written in full, recently discovered, it appears that these letters mean _orat_ (or _orant_) _vos faciatis_: "beseech you to create" (aedile and so forth).

The letters in question were, before this discovery, very often thought to stand for _orat ut faveat_, "begs him to favor;" and thus the meaning of the inscription was entirely reversed, and the person recommending converted into the person recommended. In the following example for instance--_M. Holconium Prisc.u.m duumvirum juri dicundo O.

V. F. Philippus_; the meaning, according to the older interpretation, will be: "Philippus beseeches M. Holconius Priscus, duumvir of justice, to favor or patronize him;" whereas the true sense is: "Philippus beseeches you to create M. Holconius Priscus a duumvir of justice." From this misinterpretation wrong names have frequently been given to houses; as is probably the case, for instance, with the house of Pansa, which, from the tenor of the inscription, more probably belonged to Paratus, who posted on his own walls a request to pa.s.sers-by to make his friend Pansa aedile. Had it been the house of Pansa, when a candidate for the aediles.h.i.+p, and if it was the custom for such candidates to post recommendatory notices on their doors, it may be supposed that Pansa would have exhibited more than this single one from a solitary friend. This is a more probable meaning than that Paratus solicited in this way the patronage of Pansa; for it would have been a bad method to gain it by disfiguring his walls in so impertinent a manner. We do not indeed mean to deny that adulatory inscriptions were sometimes written on the houses or doors of powerful or popular men or pretty women. A verse of Plautus bears testimony to such a custom (Impleantur meae foreis elogiorum carbonibus. _Mercator_, act ii. sc. 3). But first, the inscription on the so-called house of Pansa was evidently not of an adulatory, but of a recommendatory character; and secondly, those of the former kind, as we learn from this same verse, seem to have been written by pa.s.sing admirers, with some material ready to the hand, such as charcoal or the like, and not painted on the walls with care, and time, and expense; a proceeding which we can hardly think the owner of the house, if he was a modest and sensible man, would have tolerated.

Recommendations of candidates were often accompanied with a word or two in their praise; as _dignus_, or _dignissimus est_, _probissimus_, _juvenis integer_, _frugi_, _omni bono meritus_, and the like. Such recommendations are sometimes subscribed by guilds or corporations, as well as by private persons, and show that there were a great many such trade unions at Pompeii. Thus we find mentioned the _offectores_ (dyers), _pistores_ (bakers), _aurifices_ (goldsmiths), _pomarii_ (fruiterers), _caeparii_ (green-grocers), _lignarii_ (wood merchants), _plostrarii_ (cart-wrights), _piscicapi_ (fishermen), _agricolae_ (husbandmen), _muliones_ (muleteers), _culinarii_ (cooks), _fullones_ (fullers), and others. Advertis.e.m.e.nts of this sort appear to have been laid hold of as a vehicle for street wit, just as electioneering squibs are perpetrated among ourselves. Thus we find mentioned, as if among the companies, the _pilicrepi_ (ball-players), the _seribibi_ (late topers), the _dormientes universi_ (all the wors.h.i.+pful company of sleepers), and as a climax, _Pompeiani universi_ (all the Pompeians, to a man, vote for so and so). One of these recommendations, purporting to emanate from a "teacher" or "professor," runs, _Valentius c.u.m discentes suos_ (Valentius with his disciples); the bad grammar being probably intended as a gibe upon one of the poor man's weak points.

The inscriptions in chalk and coal, the _graffiti_, and occasionally painted inscriptions, contain sometimes well-known verses from poets still extant. Some of these exhibit variations from the modern text, but being written by not very highly educated persons, they seldom or never present any various readings that it would be desirable to adopt, and indeed contain now and then prosodical errors. Other verses, some of them by no means contemptible, are either taken from pieces now lost, or are the invention of the writer himself. Many of these inscriptions are of course of an amatory character; some convey intelligence of not much importance to anybody but the writer--as, that he is troubled with a cold--or was seventeen centuries ago--or that he considers somebody who does not invite him to supper as no better than a brute and barbarian, or invokes blessings on the man that does. Some are capped by another hand with a biting sarcasm on the first writer, and many, as might be expected, are scurrilous and indecent. Some of the _graffiti_ on the interior walls and pillars of houses are memoranda of domestic transactions; as, how much lard was bought, how many tunics sent to the wash, when a child or a donkey was born, and the like. One of this kind, scratched on the wall of the peristyle of the corner house in the _Strada della Fortuna_ and _Vicolo degli Scienziati_, appears to be an account of the _dispensator_ or overseer of the tasks in spinning allotted to the female slaves of the establishment, and is interesting as furnis.h.i.+ng us with their names, which are Vitalis, Florentina, Amarullis, Januaria, Heracla, Maria (M_a_ria, feminine of Marius, not Mar_i_a), Lalagia (reminding us of Horace's Lalage), Damalis, and Doris. The _pensum_, or weight of wool delivered to each to be spun, is spelled _pesu_, the _n_ and final _m_ being omitted, just as we find _salve lucru_, for _lucrum_, written on the threshold of the house of Siricus. In this form, _pesu_ is very close to the Italian word _peso_.

We have already alluded now and then to the rude etchings and caricatures of these wall-artists, but to enter fully into the subject of the Pompeian inscriptions and _graffiti_ would almost demand a separate volume, and we must therefore resume the thread of our description.

A little beyond the house of Siricus, a small street, running down at right angles from the direction of the Forum, enters the Via del Lupanare. Just at their junction, and having an entrance into both, stands the Lupanar, from which the latter street derives its name. We can not venture upon a description of this resort of Pagan immorality.

It is kept locked up, but the guide will procure the key for those who may wish to see it. Next to it is the House of the Fuller, in which was found the elegant little bronze statuette of Narcissus, now in the Museum. The house contained nothing else of interest.

The Via del Lupanare terminates in the Street of the Augustals, or of the Dried Fruits. In this latter street, nearly opposite the end of the Via del Lupanare, but a little to the left, is the House of Narcissus, or of the Mosaic Fountain. This house is one of recent excavation. At the threshold is a Mosaic of a bear, with the word _Have_. The prothyrum is painted with figures on a yellow ground. On the left is a medallion of a satyr and nymph; the opposite medallion is destroyed.

The atrium is paved with mosaic. The first room on the right-hand side of it has a picture of Narcissus admiring himself in the water. The opposite picture has a female figure seated, with a child in her arms, and a large chest open before her. The tablinum is handsomely paved with mosaic and marble. Behind this, in place of a peristyle, is a court or garden, the wall of which is painted with a figure bearing a basin. At the bottom is a handsome mosaic fountain, from which the house derives one of its names, with a figure of Neptune surrounded by fishes and sea-fowl; above are depicted large wild boars.

On the opposite side of the way, at the eastern angle of the Street of the Lupanar, is the House of the Rudder and Trident, also called the House of Mars and Venus. The first of these names is derived from the mosaic pavement in the prothyrum, in which the objects mentioned are represented; while a medallion picture in the atrium, with heads of Mars and Venus, gave rise to the second appellation. The colors of this picture are still quite fresh, a result which Signor Fiorelli attributes to his having caused a varnish of wax to be laid over the painting at the time of its discovery. Without some such protection the colors of these pictures soon decay; the cinnabar, or vermilion, especially, turns black after a few days' exposure to the light.

The atrium, as usual, is surrounded with bed-chambers. A peculiarity not yet found in any other house is a niche or closet on the left of the atrium, having on one side an opening only large enough to introduce the hand, whence it has been conjectured that it served as a receptacle for some valuable objects. It is painted inside with a wall of quadrangular pieces of marble of various colors, terminated at top with a cornice. In each of the squares is a fish, bird, or quadruped.

This closet or niche stands at a door of the room in which is an entrance to a subterranean pa.s.sage, having its exit in the Via del Lupanare. There is nothing very remarkable in the other apartments of this house. Behind is a peristyle with twelve columns, in the garden of which shrubs are said to have been discovered in a carbonized state.

Further down the same Street of the Augustals, at the angle which it forms with the Street of Stabiae, is the house of a baker, having on the external wall the name Modestum in red letters. For a tradesman it seems to have been a comfortable house, having an atrium and fountain, and some painted chambers. Beyond the atrium is a s.p.a.cious court with mills and an oven. The oven was charged with more than eighty loaves, the forms of which are still perfect, though they are reduced to a carbonaceous state. They are preserved in the Museum.

The narrow street to which we have alluded, as entering the Via del Lupanare nearly opposite to the house of Siricus, has been called the Via del Balcone, from a small house with a projecting balcony or maenianum. Indications of balconies have been found elsewhere, and indeed there were evidently some in the Via del Lupanare; but this is the only instance of one restored to its pristine state, through the care of Signor Fiorelli in subst.i.tuting fresh timbers for those which had become carbonized. The visitor may ascend to the first floor of this house, from which the balcony projects several feet into the narrow lane. In the atrium of this house is a very pretty fountain.

The house next to that of the Balcony, facing the entrance of a small street leading from the Via dell Abbondanza, and numbered 7 on the door post, has a few pictures in a tolerable state of preservation. In a painting in the furthest room on the left of the atrium Theseus is seen departing in his s.h.i.+p; Ariadne, roused from sleep, gazes on him with despair, while a little weeping Cupid stands by her side. In the same apartment are two other well-preserved pictures, the subjects of which it is not easy to explain. In one is a female displaying to a man two little figures in a nest, representing apparently the birth of the Dioscuri. The other is sometimes called the Rape of Helen. There are also several medallion heads around.

In the small street which runs parallel with the eastern side of the Forum, called the Vico di Eumachia, is a house named the _Casa nuova della Caccia_, to distinguish it from one of the same name previously discovered. As in the former instance, its appellation is derived from a large painting on the wall of the peristyle, of bears, lions, and other animals. On the right-hand wall of the tablinum is a picture of Bacchus discovering Ariadne. A satyr lifts her vest, while Silenus and other figures look on in admiration. The painting on the left-hand wall is destroyed. On entering the peristyle a door on the right leads down some steps into a garden, on one side of which is a small altar before a wall, on which is a painting of shrubs.

Proceeding from this street into the Vico Storto, which forms a continuation of it on the north, we find on the right a recently excavated house, which, from several slabs of variously colored marbles found in it, has been called the House of the Dealer in Marbles. Under a large court in the interior, surrounded with Doric columns, are some subterranean apartments, in one of which was discovered a well more than eighty feet deep and still supplied with fresh water; almost the only instance of the kind at Pompeii. The beautiful statuette of Silenus, already described, was found in this house. Here also was made the rare discovery of the skeletons of two horses, with the remains of a _biga_.

This description might be extended, but it would be tedious to repeat details of smaller and less interesting houses, the features of which present in general much uniformity; and we shall therefore conclude this account of the more recent discoveries with a notice of a group of bodies found in this neighborhood, the forms of which have been preserved to us through the ingenuity of Signor Fiorelli.

It has already been remarked that the showers of _lapillo_, or pumice stone, by which Pompeii was overwhelmed and buried, were followed by streams of a thick, tenacious mud, which flowing over the deposit of _lapillo_, and filling up all the crannies and interstices into which that substance had not been able to penetrate, completed the destruction of the city. The objects over which this mud flowed were enveloped in it as in a plaster mould, and where these objects happened to be human bodies, their decay left a cavity in which their forms were as accurately preserved and rendered as in the mould prepared for the casting of a bronze statue. Such cavities had often been observed. In some of them remnants of charred wood, accompanied with bronze or other ornaments, showed that the object inclosed had been a piece of furniture; while in others, the remains of bones and of articles of apparel evinced but too plainly that the hollow had been the living grave which had swallowed up some unfortunate human being. In a happy moment the idea occurred to Signor Fiorelli of filling up these cavities with liquid plaster, and thus obtaining a cast of the objects which had been inclosed in them. The experiment was first made in a small street leading from the Via del Balcone Pensile towards the Forum. The bodies here found were on the _lapillo_ at a height of about fifteen feet from the level of the ground.

"Among the first casts thus obtained were those of four human beings.

They are now preserved in a room at Pompeii, and more ghastly and painful, yet deeply interesting and touching objects, it is difficult to conceive. We have death itself moulded and cast--the very last struggle and final agony brought before us. They tell their story with a horrible dramatic truth that no sculptor could ever reach. They would have furnished a thrilling episode to the accomplished author of the 'Last Days of Pompeii.'

"These four persons had perished in a street. They had remained within the shelter of their homes until the thick black mud began to creep through every cranny and c.h.i.n.k. Driven from their retreat they began to flee when it was too late. The streets were already buried deep in the loose pumice stones which had been falling for many hours in unremitting showers, and which reached almost to the windows of the first floor. These victims of the eruption were not found together, and they do not appear to have belonged to the same family or household. The most interesting of the casts is that of two women, probably mother and daughter, lying feet to feet. They appear from their garb to have been people of poor condition. The elder seems to lie tranquilly on her side. Overcome by the noxious gases, she probably fell and died without a struggle. Her limbs are extended, and her left arm drops loosely. On one finger is still seen her coa.r.s.e iron ring. Her child was a girl of fifteen; she seems, poor thing, to have struggled hard for life. Her legs are drawn up convulsively; her little hands are clenched in agony. In one she holds her veil, or a part of her dress, with which she had covered her head, burying her face in her arm, to s.h.i.+eld herself from the falling ashes and from the foul sulphurous smoke. The form of her head is perfectly preserved.

The texture of her coa.r.s.e linen garments may be traced, and even the fas.h.i.+on of her dress, with its long sleeves reaching to her wrists; here and there it is torn, and the smooth young skin appears in the plaster like polished marble. On her tiny feet may still be seen her embroidered sandals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DISCOVERED BODY AT POMPEII.]

"At some distance from this group lay a third woman. She appears to have been about twenty-five years of age, and to have belonged to a better cla.s.s than the other two. On one of her fingers were two silver rings, and her garments were of a finer texture. Her linen head-dress, falling over her shoulders like that of a matron in a Roman statue, can still be distinguished. She had fallen on her side, overcome by the heat and gases, but a terrible struggle seems to have preceded her last agony. One arm is raised in despair; the hands are clenched convulsively; her garments are gathered up on one side, leaving exposed a limb of beautiful shape. So perfect a mould of it has been formed by the soft and yielding mud, that the cast would seem to be taken from an exquisite work of Greek art. She had fled with her little treasure, which lay scattered around her--two silver cups, a few jewels, and some dozen silver coins; nor had she, like a good housewife, forgotten her keys, after having probably locked up her stores before seeking to escape. They were found by her side.

"The fourth cast is that of a man of the people, perhaps a common soldier. As may be seen in the cut, he is of almost colossal size; he lies on his left arm extended by his side, and his head rests on his right hand, and his legs drawn up as if, finding escape impossible, he had laid himself down to meet death like a brave man. His dress consists of a short coat or jerkin and tight-fitting breeches of some coa.r.s.e stuff, perhaps leather. On one finger is seen his iron ring.

His features are strongly marked the mouth open, as in death. Some of the teeth still remain, and even part of the moustache adheres to the plaster.

"The importance of Signor Fiorelli's discovery may be understood from the results we have described. It may furnish us with many curious particulars as to the dress and domestic habits of the Romans, and with many an interesting episode of the last day of Pompeii. Had it been made at an earlier period we might perhaps have possessed the perfect cast of the Diomedes, as they clung together in their last struggle, and of other victims whose remains are now mingled together in the bone-house."

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HOUSE OF DIOMEDES.

This house, the most interesting, and by far the most extensive of the private buildings yet discovered, is the Suburban Villa, as it is called, from its position a little way without the gates, in the Street of the Tombs, which led to, or formed part of, the suburb called Augustus Felix. It is worthy of remark that the plan of this edifice is in close accord with the descriptions of country houses given us by Vitruvius and others--a circ.u.mstance which tends strongly to confirm the belief already expressed, that the houses of the city are built upon the Roman system of arrangement, although the Greek taste may predominate in their decoration. We will commence by extracting the most important pa.s.sages in Pliny the Younger's description of his Laurentine villa, that the reader may have some general notion of the subject, some standard with which to compare that which we are about to describe.

"My villa is large enough for convenience, though not splendid. The first apartment which presents itself is a plain, yet not mean, atrium; then comes a portico, in shape like the letter O, which surrounds a small, but pleasant area. This is an excellent retreat in bad weather, being sheltered by glazed windows, and still more effectually by an overhanging roof. Opposite the centre of this portico is a pleasant cavaedium, after which comes a handsome triclinium, which projects upon the beach, so that when the southwest wind urges the sea, the last broken waves just dash against its walls. On every side of this room are folding doors, or windows equally large, so that from the three sides there is a view, as it were, of three seas at once, while backwards the eye wanders through the apartments already described, the cavaedium, portico, and atrium, to woods and distant mountains. To the left are several apartments, including a bed-chamber, and room fitted up as a library, which jets out in an elliptic form, and, by its several windows, admits the sun during its whole course. These apartments I make my winter abode. The rest of this side of the house is allotted to my slaves and freedmen, yet it is for the most part neat enough to receive my friends. To the right of the triclinium is a very elegant chamber, and another, which you may call either a very large chamber (_cubiculum_), or moderate-sized eating-room (_cnatio_), which commands a full prospect both of the sun and sea. Pa.s.sing hence, through three or four other chambers, you enter the _cella frigidaria_ of the baths, in which there are two basins projecting from opposite walls, abundantly large enough to swim in, if you feel inclined to do so in the first instance. Then come the anointing-room, the hypocaust, or furnace, and two small rooms; next the warm bath, which commands an admirable view of the sea. Not far off is the _sphaeristerium_, a room devoted to in-door exercises and games, exposed to the hottest sun of the declining day. Beside it is a triclinium, where the noise of the sea is never heard but in a storm, and then faintly, looking out upon the garden and the _gestatio_, or place for taking the air in a carriage or litter, which encompa.s.ses it. The gestatio is hedged with box, and with rosemary where the box is wanting; for box grows well where it is sheltered by buildings, but withers when exposed in an open situation to the wind, and especially within reach of spray from the sea. To the inner circle of the gestatio is joined a shady walk of vines, soft and tender even to the naked feet. The garden is full of mulberries and figs, the soil being especially suited to the former. Within the circuit of the gestatio there is also a cryptoportico, for extent comparable to public buildings, having windows on one side looking to the sea, on the other to the garden. In front of it is a xystus, fragrant with violets, where the sun's heat is increased by reflection from the cryptoportico, which, at the same time, breaks the northeast wind. At either end of it is a suite of apartments, in which, in truth, I place my chief delight."[14] Such was one of several villas described by Pliny. The directions given by Vitruvius for building country houses are very short. "The same principles," he says, "are to be observed in country houses as in town houses, except that in the latter the atrium lies next to the door, but in pseudo-urban houses the peristyles come first, then atria surrounded by paved porticoes, looking upon courts for gymnastic exercises and walking" (_palaestras et ambulationes_).[15] It will appear that the distribution of the Suburban Villa was entirely in accordance with these rules.

The house is built upon the side of the hill, in such a manner that the ground falls away, not only in the line of the street, across the breadth of the house, but also from the front to the back, so that the doorway itself being elevated from five to six feet above the roadway, there is room at the back of the house for an extensive and magnificent suite of rooms between the level of the peristyle and the surface of the earth. These two levels are represented on the same plan, being distinguished by a difference in the shading. The darker parts show the walls of the upper floor, the lighter ones indicate the distribution of the lower. A further distinction is made in the references, which are by figures to the upper floor, and by letters to the lower. There are besides subterraneous vaults and galleries not expressed in the plan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROUND PLAN OF THE SUBURBAN VILLA OF DIOMEDES.]

1. Broad foot pavement raised nine inches or a foot above the carriage way, running along the whole length of the Street of Tombs. 2.

Inclined planes, leading up to the porch on each side. 3. Entrance. 4.

Peristyle. This arrangement corresponds exactly with the directions of Vitruvius for the building of country houses just quoted. The order of the peristyle is extremely elegant. The columns, their capitals, and entablatures, and the paintings on the walls are still in good preservation. The architectural decorations are worked in stucco; and it is observed by Mazois that both here and in other instances the artist has taken liberties, which he would not have indulged in had he been working in more valuable materials. On this ground that eminent architect hazards a conjecture that the plasterer had a distinct style of ornamenting, different from that of architects, or of the masons in their employ. The lower third of the columns, which is not fluted, is painted red. The pavement was formed of _opus Signinum_. 5. Uncovered court with an impluvium, which collected the rain water and fed a cistern, whence the common household wants were supplied. 6.

Descending staircase, which led to a court and building on a lower level, appropriated to the offices, as the kitchen, bakehouse, etc., and to the use of slaves. It will be recollected that the ground slopes with a rapid descent away from the city gate. This lower story, therefore, was not under ground, though near eight feet below the level of the peristyle. It communicates with the road by a back door.

From the bottom of the stair there runs a long corridor, A, somewhat indistinct in our small plan, owing to its being crossed several times by the lines of the upper floor, which leads down by a gentle slope to the portico surrounding the garden. This was the back stair, as we should call it, by which the servants communicated with that part of the house. There was another staircase, B, on the opposite side of the house, for the use of the family. 7. Door and pa.s.sage to the upper garden, marked 17, on the same level as the court. 8. Open hall, corresponding in position with a tablinum. Being thus placed between the court and the gallery, 28, it must have been closed with folding doors of wood, which perhaps were glazed. 9, 10, 11, 12. Various rooms containing nothing remarkable. 13. Two rooms situated in the most agreeable manner at the two ends of a long gallery, 28, and looking out upon the upper terraces of the garden, from which the eye took in the whole gulf of Naples to the point of Sorrento, and the island of Capreae. 14. Procaeton, or antechamber. 15. Lodge of the cubicular slave, or attendant upon the bed-room. 16. Bed-room, probably that of the master, or else the state-chamber. _b._ Alcove. Several rings were found here which had evidently belonged to a curtain to draw across the front of it. _c._ Hollow stand or counter of masonry, probably coated with stucco or marble, which served for a toilet-table. Several vases were found there, which must have contained perfumes or cosmetic oils. The form of this bed-room is very remarkable, and will not fail to strike the reader from its exact correspondence with the elliptic chamber or library described by Pliny in his Laurentine villa. The windows in the semi-circular end are so placed that they receive the rising, noontide, and setting sun. Bull's eyes, placed above the windows, permitted them to be altogether closed without darkening the room entirely. These windows opened on a garden, where, in Mazois'

time, the care of the guardian had planted roses, which almost beguiled him into the belief that he had found the genuine produce of a Pompeian garden. This must have been a delightful room, from its ample size, elegance of ornament, and the quiet cheerful retirement of its situation.

17. Upper garden upon the level of the court.

18. Entrance to the baths, which, though originally rare in private houses, had become so common, long before the destruction of Pompeii, that few wealthy persons were without them. The word _balneum_ was peculiarly applied to domestic, _thermae_ to public baths. This specimen, which fortunately was almost perfect, small as it is, suffices to give an idea of the arrangement of private baths among the Romans. 19. Portico upon two sides of a small triangular court. There is as much skill in the disposition, as taste in the decoration, of this court, which presents a symmetrical plan, notwithstanding the irregular form of the s.p.a.ce allotted to it. Its situation is conformable to the advice of Vitruvius; and as it could not front the west, it has been placed to the south. The columns of the portico are octagonal. At the extremity of the gallery, on the left of the entrance, there is a small furnace where was prepared some warm beverage or restorative for the use of the bathers, who were accustomed to take wine or cordials before they went away. Here a gridiron and two frying pans were found, still blackened with smoke.

In the centre of the base, or third side of the court, is placed a bath, 20, about six feet square, lined with stucco, the edge of which is faced with marble. It was covered with a roof, the mark of which is still visible on the walls, supported by two pillars placed on the projecting angles. The holes in the walls to admit the three princ.i.p.al beams are so contrived that each side is lined with a single brick.

Under this covering the whole wall was painted to represent water, with fish and other aquatic animals swimming about. The water was blue, and rather deep in color: the fish were represented in the most vivid and varied tints. Some years ago this painting recovered, on being wetted, the original freshness and brilliancy of its coloring; but exposure to the weather has done its work, and now scarce a trace of it remains. In the middle of it there is a circular broken s.p.a.ce to which a mask was formerly attached, through which a stream gushed into the basin below. Two or three steps led down to this _baptisterium_, where the cold bath was taken in the open air. This court and portico were paved in mosaic. 21. Apodyterium. 22. Frigidarium. 23.

Tepidarium. These two rooms, in neither of which was there a bathing vessel, show that frequently rooms thus named were not intended for bathing, but simply to preserve two intermediate gradations of temperature, between the burning heat of the caldarium or laconic.u.m and the open air. In fact, no trace of any contrivance for the introduction or reception of water has been found in No. 22. It was simply a cold chamber, cella frigidaria. Nor was the little chamber, 23, large enough to receive conveniently a bathing vessel; but seats of wood were found there for the convenience of those who had quitted the bath, and who came there to undergo the discipline of the strigil, and a minute process of purification and anointing. This room is not above twelve feet by six: the bath, therefore, could not have been calculated for the reception of more than one, or, at most, of two persons at once. Here the great question relative to the use of gla.s.s windows by the ancients was finally settled. This apartment was lighted by a window closed by a movable frame of wood, which, though converted into charcoal, still held, when it was found, four panes of gla.s.s about six inches square. A more elaborate and curious gla.s.s window was found at a later period in the public baths. 24. Caldarium.

It might, however, be employed at pleasure as a tepid or cold bath, when the weather was too cold for bathing in the open air. The suspensura caldariorum, as Vitruvius calls the hollow walls and floors raised upon pillars, are in remarkably good preservation. By means of these the whole apartment was entirely enveloped in flame, and might be easily raised to a most stifling temperature.

We will, however, add that Vitruvius directs a bed of clay mixed with hair to be laid between the pillars and the pavement; and some tradition of this custom may be imagined to subsist, for the potters of the country, in some cases, work up wool with their clay, a practice unknown elsewhere, as we believe, in the art of pottery. The burning vapor pa.s.sed out above the ceiling, gaining no entrance into the apartment. Air and light were admitted by two windows, one higher than the other. In one of these Mazois found a fragment of gla.s.s. The bathing-vessel, _e_, lined with stucco, and coated on the outside with marble, was fed by two c.o.c.ks, which must have been very small, to judge from the s.p.a.ce which they occupied. Hence, hot and cold water were supplied at pleasure; and it was only to fill the vessel with boiling water, and the whole apartment would be converted into one great vapor bath.

As it would have been difficult or impossible to have kept alive a lamp or torch in so dense a steam, there is near the door a circular hole, closed formerly by a gla.s.s, which served to admit the light of a lamp placed in the adjoining chamber. The hypocaust, or furnace and apparatus, 25, for heating the water, are so placed that they can not be seen from the triangular court. They are small, but correspond with the small quant.i.ty of boiling water which they were required to furnish. _f._ Stone table. _g._ Cistern. _h._ Mouth of hypocaust. _i._ A furnace, probably for boiling water when merely a tepid bath was required, without heating the suspensura caldariorum. By the side of the hypocaust were placed the vases for hot and cold water, as described in the chapter on Baths; their pedestals were observable between the mouth of the furnace and the letter _k._ _l._ Wooden staircase, no longer in existence, which led to the apartments above.