rdinary fresco painters of our own time, yet there was
sufficient artistic feeling in their authors to prevent their repeating
any one design.

One circumstance proves that this class of picture was not thought very
important when it was made, which is that the name of the artist is rarely
found upon his work: in but one instance either in Rome or Pompeii has
this occurred, namely, in a chamber which was excavated in the gardens of
the Farnesina Palace at Rome, and the name is Seleucus.

We have not space to speak of all the Italian cities in which these
remains are discovered, and, as Pompeii is the one most frequently visited
and that in which a very large proportion of the ancient pictures have
been found, I will give a few illustrations from them, and leave the
subject of ancient, mural paintings there. Many of the Pompeian pictures
have been removed to the Museum of Naples, though many still remain where
they were first painted.

The variety of subjects at Pompeii is large: there are landscapes, hunting
scenes, mythological subjects, numerous kinds of single figures, such as
dancing girls, the hours, or seasons, graces, satyrs, and many others;
devotional pictures, such as representations of the ancient divinities,
lares, penates, and genii; pictures of tavern scenes, of mechanics at
their work; rope-dancers and representations of various games,
gladiatorial contests, _genre_ scenes from the lives of children, youths,
and women, festival ceremonies, actors, poets, and stage scenes, and last,
but not least, many caricatures, of which I here give you an example (Fig.
9).

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS. _From a wall-painting._]

The largest dog is AEneas, who leads the little Ascanius by the hand and
carries his father, Anchises, on his shoulder. Frequently in the ancient
caricatures monkeys are made to take the part of historical and imaginary
heroes.

[Illustration: FIG. 10.--DEMETER ENTHRONED. _From a Pompeian
wall-painting._]

[Illustration: FIG. 11.--POMPEIAN WALL-PAINTING.]

Fig. 11 shows you how these painted walls were sometimes divided; the
principal subjects were surrounded by ornamental borders, and the spaces
between filled in with all sorts of little compartments. The small spaces
in this picture are quite regular in form; but frequently they are of
varied shapes, and give a very decorative effect to the whole work. The
colors used upon these different panels, as they may be called