t
least certain that the emperors jealously watched the formation of any
new union, and that they would promptly abolish any which appeared to
have secret understandings and aims, or to act in contravention of the
law. In the towns which possessed local government the municipal
authorities were still elected by the people; and the guilds,
especially of shopkeepers, could and did play their parts in
determining the election of a candidate. The elections might make a
difference to them in those ways in which modern town-councillors and
mayors, may influence the rates, the conditions of the streets, the
rules of traffic, and so forth. There are sixteen hundred election
notices painted, in red and black about the walls of Pompeii, and we
find So-and-So recommended by such-and-such a trade as being a "good
man," or "an honest young man," or a person who will "keep an eye on
the public purse." It is amusing to note that, in satirical parody of
such appeals as "the fruitsellers recommend So-and-So," we find that
"the petty thieves recommend So-and-So," or we get the opinion of "the
sleepers one and all." Special objects connected with these and other
associations were the provision of "widows' funds," and of proper
burial for the members. Of the importance of the latter to the ancient
world we shall speak when we come to a funeral and the religious ideas
connected with it.

The most difficult task in dealing with antiquity is to visualise the
actual life as it was lived. In the life of the humbler citizens the
remains of Pompeii lend more help than anything else to the desired
sense of reality, but they are the remains of Pompeii, not of Rome.
Nevertheless there are many points in which we may fairly argue from
the little town to the larger, and it is customary to adopt this
course.

[Illustration: FIG. 76.--POMPEIAN COOK-SHOP.]

We may, therefore, think of the common people among these ancients as
very much alive in their frank curiosity, their broad humour, their
love of shows, and their keen enthusiasm for the competitions, their
interest in petty local elections, their advertising instincts, their
insatiable fondness for scribbling on walls and pillars, whether in
paint or with a "style," a sort of small stiletto with which they
commonly wrote on tablets. The ancient world becomes very near when we
read, side by side with the election notices, a line from Virgil or
Ovid scrawled in a moment of idleness, or a piece of a