those old Romans
wrote to a friend. He says:

"I am living near a bath. Sounds are heard on all sides. The men of
strong muscle exercise and swing the heavy lead weights. I hear their
groans as they strain, and the whistling of their breath. I hear the
massagist slapping a lazy fellow who is being rubbed with ointment. A
ball player begins to play and counts his throws. Perhaps there is a
sudden quarrel, or a thief is caught, or some one is singing in the
bath. And the bathers plunge into the swimming tank with loud splashes.
Above all the din you hear the calls of the hair puller and the sellers
of cakes and sweetmeats and sausages."

After you leave the baths perhaps you will turn down Stabian Street. It
has narrow sidewalks. The broken walls of houses fence it in closely
on both sides and cast black shadows across it. It is paved with clean
blocks of lava. You will see wheel ruts worn deep in the hard stone.
Almost two thousand years old they are, made by the carts of the
farmers, perhaps, who brought in vegetables for the market. At the
street crossings you will see three or four big stone blocks standing
up above the pavement. They are stepping-stones for rainy weather.
Evidently floods used to pour down these sloping streets. You can
imagine little Roman boys skipping across from block to block and trying
to keep their sandals dry.

The street will lead you to the district of good houses where the
wealthy men lived. Through open doorways you will get glimpses into the
old ruined courtyards. It is hard guessing how the rooms used to look.
But when you come to the door of the house of Vettius you will cry out
with wonder. There is a lovely garden in the corner of the house. A long
passage leads to it straight from the street. Around it runs a paved
porch with pretty columns. Here you will walk in the shade and look out
at the gay little garden, blooming in the sunshine. In every corner tiny
streams of water spurt from little statues of bronze and marble and
trickle into cool basins. Marble tables stand among the flowers. You
will half expect a slave to bring out old drinking cups and wine bowls
and set them here for his master's pleasure, or tablets and stylus for
him to write his letters. Everything is in order and beautiful. It was
not quite so when the excavators uncovered this house. The statues were
thrown down. The flowers were scorched and dead under the piled-up
ashes. But it was easy for the modern exca