ral
impression conveyed after studying the contemporary pictures of antique
life does not differ very widely from that which we obtain by observing
present Italian conditions. For the frescoes in the Naples Museum and in
certain of the Pompeian houses seem to recall strongly the scenes of the
piazza, where all the elements of society, irrespective of rank or
station, are still wont to congregate. Differences of dress, of manner, of
custom are doubtless evident enough, yet somehow we perceive an essential
sameness in these two representations of classical and modern Italy.
Nevertheless, these simple and often rude wall-paintings furnish us with
many pieces of information that we search for in vain amidst the ancient
authors, who naturally considered the commonplace everyday scenes of life
beneath the notice of contemporary record. We are enabled to learn, for
instance, how the citizens were usually dressed in the Forum, and how, in
an age when hats and umbrellas were practically non-existent, the pointed
hood, like that of the Arab burnous, was often used to cover the head in
cold or wet weather. Again, it is easy to perceive from the same source
that the diet of the Pompeians must have resembled closely that of their
present descendants; even the shape of the loaves has in most cases
continued unchanged to the present day. And one curious coincidence is
certainly worth mentioning, in that a peculiar method of preparing figs
with caraway seeds, which was long supposed to be a local speciality of a
remote town in Central Italy, has now been recognized as a common method
of dressing this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities of
figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and kitchens. Such grains of
information as the wearing of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear
trifling enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty details
such as these that we are assisted to an intimate understanding of a state
of society extinct nearly two thousand years ago.

Close beside us on the eastern side of the Forum is set the Chalcidicum,
the large building of the priestess Eumachia, one of the most gracious
personalities of Pompeii with which the modern world has become
acquainted. It was this lady who generously presented this structure, one
of the handsomest and most solid of the public buildings of the city, to
the fullers to serve as their exchange, wherein goods might be exposed
upon benches and tables