ing all that passes.

[Illustration: HEAD OF CIRCE.]

[Page Decoration]

HOUSES OF PANSA AND SALLUST.

The two compartments marked 30 are houses of a very mean class, having
formerly an upper story. Behind the last of them is a court, which
gives light to one of the chambers of Pansa's house. On the other side
of the island or block are three houses (32), small, but of much more
respectable extent and accommodation, which probably were also meant
to be let. In that nearest the garden were found the skeletons of four
women, with gold ear and finger rings having engraved stones, besides
other valuables; showing that such _inquilini_ or lodgers, were not
always of the lowest class.

The best view of this house is from the front of the doorway. It
offers to the eye, successively, the doorway, the prothyrum, the
atrium, with its impluvium, the Ionic peristyle, and the garden wall,
with Vesuvius in the distance. The entrance is decorated with two
pilasters of the Corinthian order. Besides the outer door, there was
another at the end of the prothyrum, to secure the atrium against too
early intrusion. The latter apartment was paved with marble, with a
gentle inclination towards the impluvium. Through the tablinum the
peristyle is seen, with two of its Ionic capitals still remaining. The
columns are sixteen in number, fluted, except for about one-third of
their height from the bottom. They are made of a volcanic stone, and,
with their capitals, are of good execution. But at some period
subsequent to the erection of the house, probably after the
earthquake, A.D. 63, they have been covered with hard stucco, and
large leaves of the same material set under the volutes, so as to
transform them into a sort of pseudo-Corinthian, or Composite order.
It is not impossible that the exclusively Italian order, which we call
Composite, may have originated in a similar caprice. Of the
disposition of the garden, which occupied the open part of the
peristyle, we have little to say. Probably it was planted with choice
flowers. Slabs of marble were placed at the angles to receive the
drippings of the roof, which were conducted by metal conduits into the
central basin, which is about six feet in depth, and was painted
green. In the centre of it there stood a jet d'eau, as there are
indications enough to prove. This apartment, if such it may be called,
was unusually spacious, measuring about sixty-five feet by fifty. The
height of t