his unfinished
work--a statue within a statue."

Behind the roofless porches of the forum are other ruined
buildings--where the officers of the city did business, where the
citizens met to vote, where tailors spread out their cloth and sold
robes and cloaks. One large market building is particularly interesting.
You will enter a courtyard with walls all around it and signs of lost
porches. Broken partitions show where little stalls used to open upon
the court. Other stalls opened upon the street. In some of these the
excavators found, buried in the ashes and charred by the fire, figs,
chestnuts, plums, grapes, glass dishes of fruit, loaves of bread, and
little cakes. Were customers buying the night's dessert when Vesuvius
frightened them away? In a cool corner of the building is a fish market
with sloping marble counter. Near it in the middle of the courtyard are
the bases of columns arranged in a circle around a deep basin in the
floor. In the bottom of this basin the excavators found a thick layer
of fish scales. Evidently the masters used to buy their fish from the
market in the corner. Then the slaves carried them here to the shaded
pool of water and cleaned them and scaled them and washed them. In
another corner the excavators found skeletons of sheep. Here was a
pen for live animals which a man might buy for his banquet or for a
sacrifice to his gods. His slave would lead the sheep away through the
crowds. But on that terrible day when the volcano belched, the poor
bleating animals were deserted. Their pen held them and the ashes
covered them and to-day we can see their skeletons.

The walls around the market are still standing, though the top is broken
and the roof is fallen. They are still covered with paintings. If you
will look at them you can guess what used to be for sale here. There are
game birds and fish and wine jars all pictured here in beautiful colors.
There are cupids playing about a flour mill and cupids weaving garlands.
There are also pictures of the gods and heroes and the deeds they did.
Imagine this painted market full of chattering people, the little shops
gay with piles of beautiful fruit and vegetables, the graceful columns
and dark porches adding beauty. Imagine these people crying out and
running and these columns swaying and falling when Vesuvius bellowed and
shook the earth. And yet we can see the very fruits that men were buying
and the pictures they were enjoying.

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