lived, and at the furniture to be expected inside them.

Mention has already been made of the large and lofty tenement houses
or blocks, often mere human rookeries, which were let out in lodgings
to those who did not possess sufficient means to occupy a separate
domicile of their own. These buildings, which were naturally to be
found in the busier streets and more thickly inhabited quarters, were
not, however, the habitations most typical of the romanized world.
They were created by the special circumstances of the city, and might
recur in other towns wherever the conditions were similar. The cramped
island part of Tyre, for example, possessed houses even loftier than
those of Rome. Where there was sufficient room--that is to say, where
there was no large population crowded into a space limited by nature
or by walls of defence--the ordinary house was of a very different
character. It was built on a different plan and seldom ran to more
than two stories, if so high. We shall shortly proceed to describe
such a house; but it is first desirable to say something more of the
tenement "block" in the metropolis. It is to be regretted that no such
building has actually come down to us; we are therefore compelled to
form our notions of one from the scattered references and hints of
literature. Nevertheless if these are read in the light of customs
still observable in Rome itself and in other parts of Italy, the
picture becomes fairly definite.

A block--or "island," as it was called--might be a building of four or
five stories, surrounded by four of the narrow streets, lanes, or
alleys which formed a network in the city. Whether managed by the
landlord, by his agent, or by a tenant who sub-let at a profit, it was
divided into lodgings, which might consist either of a single room or
of a suite. Some such rooms and flats were "ordinary," others were
described (as they are still in the advertisements of modern Rome) as
"suitable for a gentleman," or, to use the exact language of the day,
"suitable for a knight." Access to the respective quarters of the
house was to be gained, not solely through a main door, but by
separate stairs leading up directly from the streets and lanes. It
would appear that each tenant had his own key, corresponding, though
hardly in convenience of size, to our latch-key. Whereas it will be
found that the ordinary private house of one storey was for the most
part lighted by openings in the roof and by wide c