he careers of these provincial worthies, who filled
municipal offices in the reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward, in
order to throw more light upon the period wherein they flourished. Let us
apply then the same principles to the study of Pompeii _mutatis mutandis_,
for in our quest of better knowledge of the old Roman life we fix
anxiously upon every detail concerning the leading personages of the dead
city. Nevertheless, it is its existence in the aggregate that proves of
surpassing interest to us; we desire to learn of the daily tasks and
occupations of the mass of its population, rather than to become
acquainted with the private histories of its leading individuals; we study
the former, in fact, only as a means to a definite end. We cry for
information, which to a certain extent we can secure, as to how an average
Roman city was administered, provisioned, drained; how its inhabitants
passed their time both in leisure and in business; how they amused
themselves in their homes and in the theatre; what they ate and what they
drank--the endless trifles of human life, in short, which like the
_tesserae_, the tiny cubes of their own mosaic pavements, go to make up a
complete picture out of a thousand fragments. Not a few of the cubes in
this case are missing, it is true, nor are they ever likely to be found;
nevertheless, we own an abundant supply wherewith we can piece together a
tolerably accurate picture of the life of a Roman provincial city during
the first century of the Christian era.

It is of course quite outside our province to attempt any detailed account
of the wonders of Pompeii. The reader who desires full information must
turn to the elaborate works of Mau and Helbig, of Gell and Overbeck, to
say nothing of the descriptive pages, full of condensed knowledge,
contained in Murray's and Baedeker's guide-books in order to obtain a
clear impression of all he wishes to inspect. We can but dwell on a point
here and there, and even then but lightly and superficially, for any
endeavour on our part to add to the statements and theories of the great
archaeologists already cited would be indeed a matter of supererogation
and presumption.

Entering then by the Marine Gate, and pursuing our course eastwards along
the lines of naked broken house-fronts, we reach the great rectangular
space of the Forum. Here at its southern extremity let us select a shady
corner, for the sun beats down fiercely upon the bare ruins at