scarcely in use
at Rome except by the professional carver at his stand. There were
also heaters, in which water could be kept hot at table and drawn off
by a small tap.

[Illustration: FIG. 56.--CUP FROM HERCULANEUM.]

[Illustration: FIG. 57.--KITCHEN UTENSILS.]

If now we stepped into the kitchen we should find there practically
every kind of utensil likely to be of use even for the modern cuisine.
There is no need here to catalogue the kettles and pots and pans, the
strainers and shapes and moulds, employed by Roman cooks. Perhaps it
will suffice to present a number of them to the eye. In general,
however, it deserves to be remarked that such a thing as a pail, a
pitcher, a pair of scales, or a steelyard was not regarded in the
Roman household as necessarily to be left a bare and unsightly thing
because it was useful. The triumph of tin and ugliness was not yet.
Such vessels as waterpots are still to be seen made of copper in
graceful shapes, if one will notice the women fetching water on the
Alban Hills. How far the domestic utensils resembled or differed from
those still in use may be judged from the specimens illustrated.

[Illustration: FIG. 58.--PAIL FROM HERCULANEUM.]

There existed no clocks of the modern kind, but the Romans do not
appear to have suffered much practical inconvenience in respect of
telling the time and meeting engagements. Sundials, both public and
private, were numerous, but these were obviously of no use on gloomy
days or at night. The instrument on which the Romans mainly relied was
therefore the "water-clock," which, though by no means capable of our
modern precision of minutes and even seconds could record time down to
small fractions of the hour. The principle was that of the hour-glass,
water taking the place of sand. From an upper vessel water slowly
trickled through an orifice into a lower receptacle, which at this
date was transparent and was marked with sections for the hour and its
convenient fractions. In this way the time would be told by the mark
to which the water had risen in the lower portion. The Romans were not
unaware of the difference between the conditions of summer and winter
flow of water, but it would appear that they had attained to proper
methods of "regulating" their rather awkward time-pieces. It is as
well to add that in the wealthier houses a slave was told off to watch
the clock and to report the passing of the hours, as well as to summon
any member of th