know what the public exchange was in a Roman city; a spacious
court surrounded by the most important monuments (three temples, the
bourse, the tribunals, the prisons, etc.), inclosed on all sides (traces
of the barred gates are still discernible at the entrances), adorned
with statues, triumphal arches, and colonnades; a centre of business and
pleasure; a place for sauntering and keeping appointments; the Corso,
the Boulevard of ancient times, or in other words, the heart of the
city. Without any great effort of the imagination, all this scene
revives again and becomes filled with a living, variegated throng,--the
portico and its two stories of columns along the edge of the
reconstructed monuments; women crowd the upper galleries; loiterers drag
their feet along the pavement; the long robes gather in harmonious
folds; busy merchants hurry to the Chalcidicum; the statues look proudly
down from their re-peopled pedestals; the noble language of the Romans
resounds on all sides in scanned, sonorous measure; and the temple of
Jupiter, seated at the end of the vista, as on a throne, and richly
adorned with Corinthian elegance, glitters in all its splendor in the
broad sunshine.

An air of pomp and grandeur--a breath of Rome--has swept over this
collection of public edifices. Let us descend from these heights and
walk about through the little city.

[Footnote B: For _sitiat_.]

III.

THE STREET.

THE PLAN OF POMPEII.--THE PRINCELY NAMES OF THE HOUSES.--APPEARANCE
OF THE STREETS, PAVEMENTS, SIDEWALKS, ETC.--THE SHOPS AND THE
SIGNS.--THE PERFUMER, THE SURGEON, ETC.--AN ANCIENT
MANUFACTORY.--BATHING ESTABLISHMENTS.--WINE-SHOPS, DISREPUTABLE
RESORTS.--HANGING BALCONIES, FOUNTAINS.--PUBLIC PLACARDS: LET US
NOMINATE BATTUR! COMMIT NO NUISANCE!--RELIGION ON THE STREET.

You have no need of me for this excursion. Cast a glance at the plan,
and you will be able to find your own way. You will there see an oval
inclosure, a wall pierced with several entrances designated by the names
of the roads which ran from them, or rather of the cities at which these
roads terminated--Herculaneum, Nola, Stabiae, etc. Two-thirds of the egg
are still immaculate; you discover a black spot only on the extreme
right, marking out the Amphitheatre. All this white space shows you the
part of Pompeii that has not yet been designated. It is a hillside
covered with vineyards, gardens, and orchards. It is only on the