All tastes
were suited, the popular and the refined, the fashion of the day and the
love of the antique, the classical and the barbarian devotion. There you
might see the rude symbols of invisible powers, which, originating in
deficiency of art, had been perpetuated by reverence for the past: the
mysterious cube of marble sacred among the Arabs, the pillar which was the
emblem of Mercury or Bacchus, the broad-based cone of Heliogabalus, the
pyramid of Paphos, and the tile or brick of Juno.

There, too, were the unmeaning blocks of stone with human heads, which
were to be dressed out in rich robes, and to simulate the human form.
There were other articles besides, as portable as these were unmanageable:
little Junos, Mercuries, Dianas, and Fortunas, for the bosom or the
girdle. Household gods were there, and the objects of personal devotion:
Minerva or Vesta, with handsome niches or shrines in which they might
reside. There, too, were the brass crowns, or _nimbi_ which were intended
to protect the heads of the gods from bats and birds. There you might buy,
were you a heathen, rings with heads on them of Jupiter, Mars, the Sun,
Serapis, and above all Astarte. You would find there the rings and signets
of the Basilidians; amulets too of wood or ivory: figures of demons,
preternaturally ugly; little skeletons, and other superstitious devices.
It would be hard, indeed, if you could not be pleased, whatever your
religious denomination--unless indeed you were determined to reject all the
appliances and objects of idolatry indiscriminately--and in that case you
would rejoice that it was night when you arrived there, and, in
particular, that darkness swallowed up other appliances and objects of
pagan worship, which to darkness were due by a particular title, and by
darkness were best shrouded, till the coming of that day when all things,
good and evil, shall be made light.

The shop, as we have said, was closed, concealed from view by large
lumbering shutters, and made secure by heavy bars of wood. So we must
enter by the passage or vestibule on the right side, and that will conduct
us into a modest _atrium_, with an _impluvium_ on one side, and on the
other the _triclinium_ or supper-room, backing the shop. Jucundus had been
pleasantly engaged in a small supper-party; and, mindful that a
_symposium_ should lie within the number of the Graces and of the Muses,
he had confined his guests to two, the young Greek Aristo, who was o