the level of the ground, were discovered four
skeletons together in an almost vertical position. Twelve palms lower
was another skeleton, with a hatchet near it. This man appears to have
pierced the wall of one of the small chambers of the prothyrum, and
was about to enter it, when he was smothered, either by the falling in
of the earth or by the mephitic exhalations. It has been thought that
these persons perished while engaged in searching for valuables after
the catastrophe.

In the back room of a thermopolium not far from this spot was
discovered a _graffito_ of part of the first line of the AEneid, in
which the _r_s were turned into _l_s:

Alma vilumque cano Tlo.

We will now return to the house of Siricus. Contiguous to it in the
Via del Lupanare is a building having two doors separated with
pilasters. By way of sign, an elephant was painted on the wall,
enveloped by a large serpent and tended by a pigmy. Above was the
inscription: Sittius restituit elephantum; and beneath the following:

Hospitium hic locatur
Triclinium cum 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 Cock (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