t
on the floor outside. The master, his family and his guest used these
small, dark rooms, which were apparently without such common luxuries
as we expect in the humblest home. All their furniture could hardly have
been more than a bed and a footstool; but it should be remembered
that the public bath was a daily amusement. The kitchen of each villa
certainly was not furnished with such ingenuity, expense or thought as
the stories of Roman gormandising would have led us to expect. In the
house of the Aedile--so called from the fact that 'Pansam Aed.' is
inscribed in red characters by the doorway--the cook seems to have been
employed in frying eggs at the moment when increasing danger put him to
flight. His range, four partitions of brick, was very small; a knife,
a strainer, a pan lay by the fire just as they fell from the slave's
hand."

VALUE OF THE DISCOVERY OF POMPEII

This description strongly presents to us the principal value of the
discovery of Pompeii. Interesting as are the numerous works of art found
in its habitations, and important as is their bearing upon some branches
of the art of the ancient world, this cannot compare in interest with
the flood of light which is here thrown on ancient life in all its
details, enabling us to picture to ourselves the manners and habits of
life of a cultivated and flourishing population at the beginning of the
Christian era, to an extent which no amount of study of ancient history
could yield.

Looking upon the work of the volcano as essentially destructive, as
we naturally do, we have here a valuable example of its power as a
preservative agent; and it is certainly singular that it is to a
volcano we owe much of what we know concerning the cities, dwellings and
domestic life of the people of the Roman Empire.

It would be very fortunate for students of antiquity if similar
disasters had happened to cities in other ancient civilized lands,
however unfortunate it might have been to their inhabitants. But
doubtless we are better off without knowledge gained from ruins thus
produced.

CHAPTER XXII.

Eruptions of Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli.

Mount Vesuvius is of especial interest as being the only active volcano
on the continent of Europe--all others of that region being on the
islands of the Mediterranean--and for the famous ancient eruption
described in the last chapter. Before this it had borne the reputation
of being extinct, but since then it has freq