pported others. Most of the partitions must have
been of wood. We know from books that the women, slaves, and lodgers
perched in these pigeon-houses, which, destitute, as they were, of the
space reserved for the wide courts and the large lower halls, must have
been sufficiently narrow and unpleasant. Other more opulent houses had
some rooms that were lacking in the house of Pansa: these were, first,
bathrooms, then a _spherister_ for tennis, a _pinacothek_ or gallery of
paintings, a _sacellum_ or family chapel, and what more I know not. The
diminutiveness of these small rooms admitted of their being infinitely
multiplied.

I have not said all. The house of Pansa formed an island (_insula_) all
surrounded with streets, upon three of which opened shops that I have
yet to visit. At first, on the left angle, a bakery, less complete than
the public ovens to which I conducted you in the second chapter
preceding this one. There were found ornaments singularly irreconcilable
with each other; inscriptions, thoroughly Pagan in their character,
which recalled Epicurus, and a Latin cross in relief, very sharply
marked upon a wall. This Christian symbol allows fancy to spread her
wings, and Bulwer, the romance-writer, has largely profited by it.

A shop in the front, the second to the left of the entrance door,
communicated with the house. The proprietor, then, was a merchant, or,
at least, he sold the products of his vineyards and orchards on his own
premises, as many gentlemen vine-growers of Florence still do. A slave
called the _dispensator_ was the manager of this business.

Some of these shops opening on a side-street, composed small rooms
altogether independent of the house, and probably occupied by
_inquilini_,[D] or lodgers, a class of people despised among the
ancients, who highly esteemed the homestead idea. A Roman who did not
live under his own roof would cut as poor a figure as a Parisian who did
not occupy his own furnished rooms, or a Neapolitan compelled to go
afoot. Hence, the petty townsmen clubbed together to build or buy a
house, which they owned in common, preferring the inconveniences of a
divided proprietorship to those of a mere temporary occupancy. But they
have greatly changed their notions in that country, for now they move
every year.

[Illustration: Candelabra, Jewelry, and Kitchen Utensils found at
Pompeii.]

I have done no more here than merely to sketch the plan of the house.
Would you refurnis