as climbed up the
tree, endeavor to bear on their shoulders the hero's quiver; while on
the ground, to the left of the altar, four other Cupids are sporting
with his club. A votive tablet with an image of Bacchus rests at the
foot of the altar, and indicates the god to whom Hercules has been
sacrificing.

On the left of the picture, on a little eminence, is a group of three
females round a column having on its top a vase. The chief and central
figure, which is naked to the waist, has in her hand a fan; she seems
to look with interest on the drunken hero, but whom she represents it
is difficult to say. On the right, half way up a mountain, sits
Bacchus, looking on the scene with a complacency not unmixed with
surprise. He is surrounded by his usual rout of attendants, one of
whom bears a thyrsus. The annexed engraving will convey a clearer idea
of the picture, which for grace, grandeur of composition, and delicacy
and freshness of coloring, is among the best discovered at Pompeii.
The exedra is also adorned with many other paintings and ornaments
which it would be too long to describe.

On the same side of the atrium, beyond a passage leading to a kitchen
with an oven, is an elegant _triclinium fenestratum_ looking upon an
adjacent garden. The walls are black, divided by red and yellow zones,
with candelabra and architectural members intermixed with quadrupeds,
birds, dolphins, Tritons, masks, etc., and in the middle of each
compartment is a Bacchante. In each wall are three small paintings
executed with greater care. The first, which has been removed,
represented AEneas in his tent, who, accompanied by Mnestheus, Achates,
and young Ascanius, presents his thigh to the surgeon, Iapis, in order
to extract from it the barb of an arrow. AEneas supports himself with
the lance in his right hand, and leans with the other on the shoulder
of his son, who, overcome by his father's misfortune, wipes the tears
from his eyes with the hem of his robe; while Iapis, kneeling on one
leg before the hero, is intent on extracting the barb with his
forceps. But the wound is not to be healed without divine
interposition. In the background of the picture Venus is hastening to
her son's relief, bearing in her hand the branch of dictamnus, which
is to restore him to his pristine vigor.

The subject of the second picture, which is much damaged, is not easy
to be explained. It represents a naked hero, armed with sword and
spear, to whom a woma