. A secret door put the edifice of Eumachia in communication
with the adjacent temple. That temple, which was dedicated to
Mercury--why to Mercury?--or to Quirinus--why _not_ to Mercury?--at this
day forms a small museum of precious relics. The entrance to it is
closed with a grating through which a sufficient view may be had of the
bas-relief on the altar, representing a sacrifice. A personage whose
head is half-veiled presides at the ceremony; behind that person a child
carries the consecrated water in a vase, and the _victimarius_, bearing
an axe, leads the bull that is to be offered up. Behind the sacrificial
party are some flute-players. On the two sides of the altar other
bas-reliefs represent the instruments that were used at the sacrifices;
the _lituus_, or curved staff of the augur; the _acerra_, or perfuming
censer; the _mantile_, or consecrated cloth that--let us simply say, the
napkin,--and, finally, the vases peculiar to these ceremonies, the
_patere_, the _simpulum_, and the _prefericulum_.

That altar is the only curiosity in the temple. The remainder is not
worth the trouble of being studied or reconstructed. The mural paintings
form an adornment of questionable taste. A rear door puts the temple in
communication with the _Senaculum_, or Senate-house, as the neighboring
structure was called; but the Pompeian Senators being no more than
decurions, it is an ambitious title. A vestibule that comes forward as
far as the colonnade of the Forum; then a spacious saloon or hall; an
arch at the end, with a broad foundation where the seats of the
decemviri possibly stood; then, walls built of rough stones arranged in
net-work (_opus reticulatum_), some niches without statues--such is all
that remains. But with a ceiling of wood painted in bright colors (the
walls could not have held up a vaulted roof), and completely paved,
completely sheathed with marble, as some flags and other remnants
indicate, this hall could not have been without some richness of effect.
Those who sat there were but the magistrates of a small city; but behind
them loomed up Rome, whose vast shadow embraced and magnified
everything.

At length we have before us the Pantheon, the strangest and the least
easy to name of the edifices of Pompeii. It is not parallel to the
Forum, but its obliquity was adroitly masked by shops in which many
pieces of coin have been found. Hence the conclusion that these were
_tabernae argentariae_, the money-chang