t, and in it the women of the establishment perform their work,
spinning and weaving and mending. Off from the court will be situated
the wine-press, or the olive-press, the-granaries, the fruit mellowing
on mats, and the various rooms or bins where wine is fermented and
stored, or where the olive-oil is treated and stocked. Commonly a more
retired court will contain the private rooms of the owner, and
somewhere in the homestead will be found the fowl-yard, with its hens,
ducks, geese, and guinea-fowl, the sties, and the preserves for
various toothsome animals, including perhaps dormice and snails.

[Illustration: FIG. 45.--PLAN OF HOMESTEAD AT BOSCOREALE.]

Frequently a Roman of the city affected a country house of this
character, to which he would flee during the tyrannous reign of the
Dogstar or the Lion---in other words, during that hot season of the
year which requires no description for those who have been so
ill-advised as to sojourn in Rome in July, August, and early
September. Many of his town slaves he would take with him, and what
was a holiday for him was also a holiday for them. His rural homestead
would possess great charm for the quieter type of man who had no real
love for the pomps and shows the rattle and tumult, of the city. The
vision of wholesome country-produce--of fresh milk and eggs and
vegetables, and of tender poultry--is one which still attracts our
city-folk. But the vision, then as now, was often subject to
disillusion. Complaints are many that you had to feed the homestead in
place of it feeding you, and when Martial has given a pleasant picture
of a family reaching the gate of Rome with a coachful of the typical
produce of the country, he ends by suddenly letting you know that they
are not coming in from their country house but are going out to it.
The complaint of the English seaside town that there will be no fish
"till the train comes in from London," is thus a sufficiently old one.
Yet the same Martial supplies another picture, painted with such zest
of frank enjoyment that we are at once convinced of its truth. Some
portions of it perhaps admit of translation in the following terms:--

Our friend Fundanus' Baian seat,
My Bassus, is no pleasance neat,
Where myrtles trim in idle lines,
Clipped box, and planes unwed to vines
Rob of right use the acres wide:
'Tis farm-life true and countrified.
In every corner grain is stacked,
Old wine